The Battlefield franchise has always been famous for its colossal multiplayer battles, where huge battalions of players take on each other on epic scaled maps. While the previous games all had a single player mode, it’s pretty much been restricted to serve as a tutorial to ease you into the multiplayer action, and can be ignored altogether.
This time around, EA DICE has decided to try something different by adding a full-fledged single player campaign to their console-exclusive shooter – Battlefield: Bad Company. So when EA invited me to try out a review build (for the PS3) of the game, I was eager to find out if it would match up to other shooters out there.
Now, expecting it to match up to Call of Duty 4 would be asking for too much; I mean it is, after all, a sort of a bonus you get for buying EA DICE’s new online shooter, right? To be quite honest, I expected a rather bland war-based shooter like the gazillion others out there, but was pleasantly surprised. Like a breath of fresh air, the game doesn’t take itself as seriously as other war-based shooters, thanks to its rather offbeat storyline.
You play the role of Preston Marlon, a rookie soldier who’s just been introduced to the butt of the army and sent straight into the notorious 222nd Army battalion, which is also known as ‘Bad Company’ for its misdoings. Rather than being the epic hero who eradicates entire platoons of ill-doers while riding his high and mighty steed, Marlon and the rest of the squad are no more than crooks in army uniforms as they set out on a quest for mercenary gold and personal vendetta.
Missions in the beginning play out like your run-of-the-mill war shooter, where you’re ordered to take out enemy positions, flank artillery placements, take out anti-air turrets, and do anything that involves killing tons of enemy soldiers. But as you progress through the missions, your company discovers that the enemy’s hired mercenaries to fight for them, and those guys only accept bricks of gold as payment. That’s when the real fun starts, as your squad decides to go rogue and fight for their pockets, rather than their country.




