For those who haven’t been put-off by the negative publicity that DICE’s latest console-only offering managed to garner, June 5th is the day to look forward to as Battlefield: Bad Company (BFBC) will be having a demo on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. The demo has already been out in the wild a full week in advance for all those who have pre-ordered the game. But thanks to EA, we managed to get our hands on it to see if the game will be able to earn back the goodwill that the Battlefield games have traditionally enjoyed.

The demo offers you a chance to test out both the multiplayer, as well as the single player aspects of the game. Being a Battlefield game and all, we promptly dove right in to multiplayer to see if the game stood a chance of standing up against Call of Duty 4 (COD4), the reigning king when it comes to online warfare. Jumping into a multiplayer match was easy and intuitive enough. Even though from India, the connection was established within minutes and we were prompted to choose our class. You have a selection of all the usual modern warfare classes such as Assault, Reconnaissance, Support and Demolition. Each class comes with its own unique weapon loadout that dictates what role will each play on the battlefield.

The demo features “Gold Rush” mode, in which the attackers (aka The B-Company) are tasked with getting to and destroying gold caches placed at strategic points in the map. The defenders (played by the unnamed Middle Eastern militia) predictably have to defend the attackers from completing their objective. Each group has sufficient firepower at their disposal in form of an assortment of guns and rocket launchers, Humvees, tanks, boats, combat helicopters and heavy mortars. Attackers can get to the objective via land, air or water using any of the above mentioned vehicles while ensuring that any resistance met on the way is dealt with properly. However, negotiating around the battlefield in these vehicles will take some practice. In fact, a lot of practice, what with the helicopter being almost impossible to control and shoot at the same time.

Gameplay wise, the multiplayer part of the game takes time to grow on you, especially if you are a COD4 veteran. Long time Battle Field players will feel at home right from the word go. While we experienced lag in our initial outings online, later on it worked like a charm with head-shots galore. While draw distances are huge, realistic looking smoke will cloud the battlefield as the action on-screen heats up. It feels like being in an actual battlefield. Fog of War gets a whole new meaning in Bad Company! Taking damage results in a cool-looking hazy effect around your screen. The screen turns into shades of gray and makes you feel like the damage is really affecting your performance on the field. A point system keeps track of your performance in-game with 20 points awarded for an offensive kill, 10 for a defensive kill and 5 for assists. Head shots and revenge kills earn you extra points. Team kills will shave points from your score which we unfortunately found out while being busy pounding a building to take out a nuisance or two. You can change your class on the fly by picking up the kit dropped by the enemy you just dispatched. Not a bad touch. Ranking up helps you unlock better weapons with superior firepower and range. You earn credits as you rank-up which you can spend later on in the Unlock Weapons menu to beef up your arsenal.

Single player puts you in the beginning of the campaign where you find yourself relegated to B-Company, a band of misfits and rejects that the US Army deems unfit to be at any place else. You find yourself to be in the company of these men with an agenda of their own who would not mind going off the track, if the price is right. After a quick introduction with the other characters, the demo throws you right in into combat where you drive a Humvee, plow through resistance, defend an objective until backup arrives, destroy radars that would let your fighters give you a nice fireworks display, and more. Helpful on-screen hints will tell you what to do before fading away into the background. Enemies will show up clearly on the map. Although dying in the game throws you back to the last checkpoint, it will not respawn the enemies you had previously killed. So you don’t have to go through the same fight all over again. Ideally, we would have preferred to be respawned some where close by instead of having to jog all the way back to be in the thick of fighting again. Although the commonly used hide-while-you-heal facet isn’t present in BFBC, there is a variation in which you have an auto-injector to heal yourself. It can be done as many times you want, but you have to be in hiding while you do it lest someone decides to finish you off.

Graphically, the FrostBite engine seems to be up to the mark when it comes to rendering huge draw distances and the massive amount of destruction that is taking place on-screen. The much touted destructibility is there in full force in the game, both in single player as well as the multiplayer. Nothing can stand between a tank and the objective if you feel like it (though we found some strangely unbreakable crates!). Every wall can be blown apart to create a new opening where previously there was none. Trees and vegetation can be shredded or blown away, as you see fit. Mortar shells will leave deep craters in the ground. You will find yourself looking for new cover from time to time. You simply cannot bank upon staying put at one vantage point for too long, which should prove to be a huge deterrent for campers. At the same time, it will open up new tactical opportunities on the map for you to explore. Once, we were busy sniping away from a window when suddenly a tank shell slammed right into us. The next thing we knew was that the whole window opening (as well as the wall) was totaled, and that we were pretty much exposed to enemy fire. Certainly made for some great cinematic but tense moments.

Minor screen tearing is an issue that seems to have carried over from the MP Beta, though it’s noticeable only if you look really hard for it. It’s much less noticible in multiplayer but thats probably because you can hardly afford to stay long enough in one place to look around and not risk getting your head blown. The HDR sound feature seems to be working well; sounds of tank shells zooming few feet away from you sound authentic. Random battle cries seem to be repeating quite a bit though. For Grand Theft Auto fans, you can play radio stations while being in one of the Humvees, but don’t expect Lazlow to be on-air. It’s funny how the roads in single player seem to have been left untouched despite the general destruction all around. The demo also features a teaser trailer and “Gold Rush” mode tutorial video in the extras. As an added incentive, getting to Rank 4 in multiplayer demo would unlock a special weapon in the full game which otherwise is only available in the limited edition.

In the end, the demo gives you the impression that the game is almost there with it’s superb implementation of destructible environments, but then something is lacking that could have put the game in a class of it’s own. Should you spare 1.5 Gb of bandwidth on this demo? For sure! If nothing else, just to see how beautiful environmental destruction has been implemented in the game. Who knows, you might end up loving the game. Comparisons to COD4 are inevitable, what with it setting the bar that much higher. Here is hoping that the final release will ship minus the niggles and be worthy competition.

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• thenk83 Says:
  Thursday, June 5th, 2008 09:52 am GMT +5.5 at 9:52 am

  most definitelty a right at home game for BF fans. i’m a battlefield pc and console horn toad. i felt lost playing COD4. though i must say since i’ve been playing the BC DEMO, ive been playin COD4 waaaaay better to the point its actually fun to play now.