This last weekend I once again took a trip out to EA’s studio in San Francisco for one of their infamous community days. The trip went pretty much the same as the one for Burnout Paradise (link), which was amusing for me since I felt like an old pro walking around EA’s campus (till I almost got kicked out at the end by an overzealous security guard, but that’s a story for another day…)

Battlefield: Bad Company is an interesting game for me. I’ve tried it out before at a press event in NY last February, and extensively played the multiplayer Beta over the last month. No other time have I been able to get a glimpse into the tweaks that go on as a game that gets closer to release. And tweaked it they have… it’s apparent at first glance that they’ve been working the last few months on improving everything that people requested. Anyone who’s played the Beta- you haven’t seen nothing yet. Contrary to popular belief, developer DICE does indeed take advice from people on their forums, and has been changing minor things to make the game even better than expected.

After getting the tour of EA’s campus we were brought into a room set up for us, chock full of HDTVs and Xbox 360s. We met DICE producer Jamie Keen and got a little introduction to the game, and then were instructed to pop on the systems.

Our first experience with it was a try at the second level of the single player game. This was the same level I had tried in NY, but greatly expanded and improved.

The game shows a lot of variety in this one (lengthy!) level. You’ll take a trip with the B-Company (Bad Company, natch) and take out bad guys who are camped down in a whole bunch of bases. In some of them you’ve got to take out gun encampments, in some destroy their fuel tanks. At the end, you’ll be manning a tank turret and trying to save your convoy. It’s pretty hard, and even though I bailed out of one tank right before it got destroyed for another (I don’t go down with the ship, I watch out for my own ass!) I still ended up getting killed. This was the last mission in the level, and unfortunately since it’s a work in progress the game restarted automatically. To show you how fun it was, though, I jumped right back into it and started it again, checking out different ways of tackling each section and finding a few more hidden gold caches in the process.

Besides the obvious graphics upgrade from the last versions (the thing just plays so smooth), they’ve definitely been adding a lot more to keep your interest in the game high. There’s new optional sidequests, such as finding hidden
caches of gold, and by picking up new weapons (which adds them to your
collection, a great incentive to try new things). It’s a nice way to encourage exploration from the player, a good thing since there’s so much land to cover.

The one thing I’m still not sold about in the game is how your companions just do their own thing with no input from you. This works well in a game like Call of Duty 4 which basically leads you by the hand, but in a game like Battlefield with a massive map to explore, you’ll find yourself exploring all of the place, sometimes without the help of your teammates (or at least until they catch up) Co-op would’ve been great here….

But the scale of the game is truly great. It feels exciting to be able to take your own path to the next target. In one case, you can hijack a boat and run straight up to the enemy’s next base, drive around in a vehicle (to crash the main gate and run into lots more enemies), or simply swim up stealthily. It allows for any number of ways to win each mission, which is perfect for a run and gun psycho like me. Also great is how much variety in vehicles is shown simply in this one level… we’ve got tanks, gunboats, jeeps, and many more. Never mind the fact that the destruction is glorious.

For those who don’t know, one of the biggest selling points of this game is the fact that almost anything is destructible. See someone hiding behind a wall? Blow it up. Those pesky trees in your way? Run them over in your tank or shoot them in half. Enemies coming over a bridge? Lay down an artillery strike on it and take it out. It adds a completely new feel to the game, and to the Battlefield series. Hell, even the ground will end up pock-marked with craters, which you can use for cover.

As producer Jamie Keen stated, they really wanted to focus on the humor of this game now that they’re going after a console experience. Your teammates are very funny, and the humor is laid out both in the cutscenes and the in-game dialogue. It’s hard not to chuckle when you pick up a SCAR and your buddy says “You really want that? That’s a girl’s gun!”

But as good as the single player experience was (and trust me, it shows a lot of promise) the multiplayer absolutely kills it. Dead and to the ground.

(Continued on the second page!)