Going Solo in Bad Company

While EA and DICE's Battlefield franchise has long been associated with its award-winning online multiplayer, the single-player mode of Battlefield: Bad Company™ is not about to play second fiddle to its Xbox LIVE® counterpart.

Complete with tongue-in-cheek story, well-rounded and often hilarious characters, a touch of greed, hyper-realistic combat scenarios and all the multi-faceted gameplay and destruction you've come to expect from the franchise, Bad Company is a solo experience set to shock and awe veterans of the series.

Misfits Unite

We begin of course with the titular Bad Company, a dumping ground for the Army's disenfranchised, misfit, and even criminal soldiers. Not ready to send these fighting men home or off to rot in the stockade, the Army tosses these mischievous malcontents together in the hopes that they may stumble headfirst into victory or at the very least perform admirably as the always useful but ignominious "cannon fodder."

You play as Preston Marlowe, Bad Company's latest recruit and resident punching bag for your new squadmates, Sweetwater, Haggard, and Sergeant Redford. Sgt. Redford and his two slightly addled comrades aren't faceless soldiers, though. They'll fight alongside you for the duration of the game, but more importantly, their constant chatter, personality quirks, and sometimes indefensibly rash decisions turn what you might otherwise consider meat shields into living, breathing soldiers you care about, laugh at, laugh with, and want to protect.

The war effort takes a turn for the profitable when your squad stumbles into a platoon of hired-gun mercenaries paid entirely in gold and their gold-laden payroll truck. Alas, the truck crosses over into neutral territory, but when Haggard charges off in pursuit of everlasting riches, our less than scrupulous squad is only too happy to follow suit. Shenanigans ensue.

Every Class in One

Where the game's multiplayer mode requires you to pick among five different classes, the single-player campaign is eager for you to experience every facet of the game with a single character.

Whether it's unloading the full complement of a mortar strike on an enemy stronghold, repairing your smoldering tank, decimating enemy weapons and vehicles with C4, or plying a grenade launcher to bust open walls, you'll get to play with toys from each of the Assault, Recon, Demolition, Specialist, and Support classes. Likewise, you'll settle behind the wheel of tanks, jeeps, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, suicide trucks filled with exploding barrels, and in one memorable case, a golf cart.

Vast and Varied

Your time in Bad Company will be spent in a wide variety of ways. This is no simple run-and-gun game whose only objective is to eliminate every enemy on the map. Rather, you'll need to destroy key enemy installations and weapons, escort friendlies, defend broken down vehicles and a great deal more besides. Each level is broken up into several distinct objectives, creating unique bite-sized challenges that help keep the action fresh.

Knock it Down

Of course, Bad Company's much vaunted environmental destruction can be found and used just as much in the single-player campaign as on Xbox LIVE. Marlowe doesn't need an open door when he can simply create his own entrance with a grenade launcher, cannon shot, mortar strike, C4, or an RPG. Walls crumble, trees fall, sheds shatter, and roofs collapse. There are few things more satisfying in Bad Company than taking in the utter annihilation of a once pristine village square at the battle's end.

Up to You

While each level provides a clear beginning and end, how you approach each objective within the mission is largely up to you. Want to rain down mortar strikes from afar? No problem. Want to run down enemies in an APC, slowly clear the streets with careful sniper fire from a hilltop, or shatter every building from a distance with a tank in order to reveal enemy locations? Sounds like a plan. It's your battlefield.

Auto Injector

While the duck-and-cover approach to healing has worked so well in games like Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Vegas 2, Bad Company takes a slightly different approach with its use of the Auto Injector.

Rather than automate healing whenever you're not being hit, Bad Company requires you to switch out your weapon for the Auto Injector, and then trigger its use manually. This slightly more tactical approach requires forethought and a shade of twitch-reflexes to pull off in the heat of battle. Because it instantly replenishes your health, you can even use it mid-run while charging an enemy encampment.

Good Things Come to Those Who Search

Once the smoke clears and the dust settles, it's time to take stock of your surroundings and search for hidden items. Scattered throughout each level are a number of briefcases containing your squad's gold bar retirement fund. Perhaps more important for those hoping to play multiplayer are the hidden guns. Find all five of a certain gun type, and you unlock its use for online play on Xbox LIVE. Look for these secret weapons lying on top of shiny new gun cases.

In the end, Battlefield: Bad Company proves that this shining example of FPS multiplayer gaming can hold its own offline. Now go get that gold!

Article by Ryan Treit