During a special event at the recent GDC I was given a chance to play the multiplayer component of EA's upcoming Call of Duty competitor Battlefield: Bad Company.
Bad Company is a traditional first-person shooter, unlike its predecessors which almost defined the large scale, class-based warfare genre.
Unfortunately, Bad Company seems to have traded the series' traditional warfare for extremely generic run and gun gameplay that borrows just enough from other games to be recognizable, but not enough to actually make the gameplay worthwhile.
The title looks fantastic, there's no doubt about that.
Textures, models, explosions, all of these look fantastic in the engine they've used, and the addition of quirky gimmicks like the ability to cut down trees with a machine gun make the setting seem almost too perfect for war.
Where the most successful war games underscore the tension and horror of war by creating a realistic facsimile of reality, Bad Company seems to try to paint a fun house mirror version of warfare.
I'm sure someone thought the bright yellow smiley face grenade pin would be an adorable gimmick, but in practice it only serves to pull players out of the game every time it pops up (which, by the way, is every time you use a grenade).
The gameplay modes we were given to play with seemed clearly lifted from other games as well.
How many times have I had to plant explosives in enemy territory while they tried to stop me?
How often must I slaughter respawning enemies while their "tickets" dwindle down to nothing?
I'm hoping the developers have a really creative gametype hidden up their sleeves, but I get the feeling they're content to rehash old ideas.
Obviously without playing the single-player side of the title I can't comment on the full game, but at least based on the multiplayer, Battlefield: Bad Company is a lazy clone of earlier, more creative games.
