Battlefield: Bad Company

Battlefield: Bad Company is a video game from the genre of first person shooter released on June 26, 2008 . It was distributed by Electronic Arts and developed by EA DICE from Sweden .

Like Battlefield 2: Modern Combat , this part has been designed exclusively for game consoles , namely for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 . It is not based on any of the previous games in terms of content or technology, but has been equipped with a new engine and storyline. With the Frostbite engine developed by DICE , it is possible for the first time in the history of Battlefield to destroy parts of the environment with weapons and vehicles. For example, coverings can be destroyed or newly created. In contrast to its predecessors, the focus in Bad Company is no longer entirely on the multiplayer mode, the game also contains an extensive single player mode.

action

The plot of Bad Company is set in a fictional, takes place in the present conflict between the United States and the Russian Federation located.

The player takes on the role of US infantryman Preston Marlowe, who is transferred to the B-Company (Bad Company), an absolute chaos force within the US Army , after an incident . The company consists of Marlowe, George Gordon Haggard, Jr., a daredevil explosives expert, Terrence Sweetwater, a timid medic, and Sergeant Samuel D. Redford, the group leader, who is a few days before the end of his service.

Together with the three other members of the B-Company, Preston Marlowe fights against Russian troops in an initially unspecified Eastern European, Caucasian or Central Asian region. The four soldiers are always deployed as the vanguard in the most dangerous places and develop friendships with each other in the course of the game. Eventually the troops discover that they are no longer fighting only against Russian troops, but also against much better-equipped mercenaries who serve the legendary mercenary captain "Legionnaire".

After the B-Company took part in the conquest of the city of Zabograd, they noticed like a legionnaire's truck, loaded with gold, leaving the city at the last moment. The B-Company finally decides to follow the legionnaires, but has to discover that they are crossing the border into the nearby, fictional state "Serdaristan". Serdaristan is officially neutral in this conflict, so the troops cannot continue their search for the gold.

The hot-headed Haggard wants to continue the search for gold in any case and therefore crosses the border. Since the remaining three soldiers do not want to leave their comrade in the lurch, they follow him and lay a Serdar border station in rubble and ashes. The four men are finally informed over the radio that they will now be brought before a military tribunal and that they should turn back immediately. The B-Company continues to follow the truck with gold to a port, where it is loaded onto a ship. So for now you cannot continue your search.

They finally negotiate over the radio with the American military leadership that they will not be brought to a military tribunal after all, but will now investigate Serdaristan again on behalf of the US Army and check whether the country is actually neutral. The four are officially still considered deserters, which is why the US does not have to fear a foreign policy catastrophe if discovered.

It quickly turns out that Serdaristan is actually not neutral and soon the B-Company is attacked again by soldiers of the legionnaire. The US Army is now starting an invasion.

When the illustrious troops advance to the palace of the Serbian President Zavomir Serdar, they discover that he no longer has control over his country and is being held captive in his palace by the legionnaire's troops. Serdar is an eccentric dictator, cultivates a personality cult around himself and describes himself as the “father of the Serdar people”, an obvious reference to Saparmurat Niyazov , the real dictator of Turkmenistan . The B-Company finally frees Zavomir Serdar and now wants to flee together with the dictator in his gold-plated helicopter. However, they are shot down near the Caspian Sea , but the crew survived the crash.

When Marlowe, the protagonist, regains consciousness, there is no trace of his comrades or Zavomir Serdar. Thanks to the radio messages from Mike-One-Juliet, the radio announcer who has been communicating with the team since the start of the game, Marlowe finally arrives at a monastery where the rest of the squad members are. The B Company then freed the captured Zavomir Serdar.

After the group escaped by boat into the Caspian Sea, Zavomir asks Serdar for exile and separates from the four soldiers on a small island.

The B-Company has now almost arrived in Sadiz, a coastal town surrounded by desert. In Sadiz there is a tourist and hotel zone under construction and large oil production facilities - another clear allusion to the actually existing Awaza zone near Türkmenbaşy in Turkmenistan. The US Army has meanwhile also reached Sadiz.

In the port of Sadiz, the B Company sees the legionnaire mercenary ship loaded with gold. This is being discharged and the group is back in pursuit. After she has fought her way through the city, she discovers the hiding place where the mercenary gold is now. Before she can escape with it, it comes to the finale, in which the legendary legionnaire personally attacks the B Company in his Kamow Ka 52 helicopter. However, the four soldiers manage to shoot down the helicopter. This ends the last playable mission.

Then you can see how the four soldiers return to the hiding place and have to find out that the US Army, which has also arrived, has already discovered the gold and is loading it onto trucks. There they are approached by a US officer who takes the four men for normal soldiers and gives them the order to remove a truck with “metal waste”. Redford, Marlowe, Haggard and Sweetwater, however, know that this is gold, but act clueless and carry out the order. At an intersection, they part unnoticed from the rest of the convoy, drive away with the gold and discuss their future plans.

In the final sequence you can also see that the leader of the mercenaries, the legionnaire, survived the crash and is now looking for revenge.

Multiplayer mode

The multiplayer mode supports up to 24 players over the Internet, the battlefields are mostly similar to the missions from the single player mode. The environment can also be destroyed online. For example, cover can be created or even destroyed. At launch, 8 maps and only one game mode, Gold Rush, were available. In this one party takes on the role of the defender, the other that of the attacker. The attacker must destroy the defender's two gold boxes. As soon as both gold boxes are destroyed, the base is lost to the defenders. The defenders only have 3 to 5 bases. If the last base is lost, the defending party has lost. The attackers, on the other hand, only have a limited number of lives.

After the community requested this, the conquest mode known from its predecessors was reintroduced with a free add-on. On August 7th, 2008 the Conquest-Pack was released as a download. Another free map pack was released on October 30, 2008. It contained more cards for the new game mode.

A ranking system is also included. For each eliminated opponent or each completed mission objective during an online game, the player receives points. This is around 50 to 600 points per online game. To reach the highest rank, 37,000 points are required. New weapons can also be unlocked for online mode.

criticism

The ratings are consistently positive for both the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

TV series

On October 8, 2012, Electronic Arts announced plans to film the video game series. Accordingly, it is a television series that is to be produced in collaboration with Electronic Arts, Sony TV and Happy Madison Productions . John Eisendrath , who is to become both executive producer and screenwriter of the series, was hired as showrunner .

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

On March 4, 2010, a successor was released with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 . In this part both the multiplayer mode was improved and the story of the Bad Company continued.

In contrast to Bad Company , Bad Company 2 was also released for PCs .

Web links

Official website
Battlefield: Bad Company at MobyGames (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Average rating of German language magazines on critify.de PS3

↑ Average rating of German language magazines on critify.de Xbox360

^ Nellie Andreeva: Fox To Develop Action TV Series Based On Video Game 'Battlefield: Bad Company'. In: Deadline Hollywood. October 8, 2012, accessed October 9, 2012 .

[1] Average rating of German language magazines on critify.de PS3

[2] Average rating of German language magazines on critify.de Xbox360

[3] Nellie Andreeva: Fox To Develop Action TV Series Based On Video Game 'Battlefield: Bad Company'. In: Deadline Hollywood. October 8, 2012, accessed October 9, 2012 .