Battlefield: Bad Company, a game I totally played [REVIEW]

Posted by Gary Hodges at 11:30 AM Jul 17, 2008

Bad Company has destructible cover… kinda like Space Invaders!

This is my review of Battlefield: Bad Company. Battlefield: Bad Company is a game published by Electronic Arts for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Battlefield: Bad Company is also a first-person shooter. That means: in Battlefield: Bad Company you shoot, and the shooting is performed from a first-person perspective.

(Okay, let’s see here: tools, word count… 52. Dammit.)

Umm… let’s see, what else to say about Battlefield: Bad Company. Well, the back of the package brags the game “brings the battlefield to life with spectacular visual effects.” That sounds awesome. The screenshots on this box do indeed look pretty good.

(Tools… Word Count… 94? Balls.)

Aw screw it. I admit it: I didn’t play through Bad Company. Look, I really meant to. I even sat down in front of it once or twice, trying my best to muster the will to write yet another review of yet another first-person shooter. The game’s big idea, destructible cover, is amusing (for a while anyway) and it plays decently. It’s not a bad game… it just couldn’t woo me away from the game I was seeing behind its back: Space Invaders Extreme.

Not just a re-release of the 30 year old classic, Space Invaders Extreme is a full-blown sequel that nicely marries the original’s fundamentals to just the right amount of modern innovation and flair. And while it never eclipses the new standard in brilliant remakes of classic games, Pac-Man Championship Edition, Space Invaders Extreme (or SIX) sits comfortably in the number two slot.

The biggest difference between SIX and its bellbottomed, mutton-chopped ancestor is the removal of the original’s bunkers; now, the only defensive options available to players are evasion or – if you’re a cool customer – deflecting incoming fire with your own shots. Otherwise, it’s Space Invaders: as rows of invaders march towards Earth, you hold them off with your lone little cannon. Taito wisely doesn’t monkey with that formula; all the flourishes and finessing are added around and in between the concept’s empty spaces, like little illustrative doodles in the margins of a sacred text.

While you can approach the game as you would the original, firing on the biggest threats first and systematically working your way through the fleet, SIX rewards players who are a little more strategic. For example: shoot down four blue enemies in a row, and the last drops a laser cannon that – for a few gleeful seconds – will evaporate any alien in its path… except the “reflect” types, who bounce it right back at you. With those bastards you’re better off shooting down four red in a row for bombs, though those have disadvantages too, so maybe you should grab a shield, but then… you get the idea.

SIX fleshes out the rest of the game with all the features modern gamers look for, and a few new ones. Bonus rounds, score modifiers, chain combos, and even boss battles make appearances, though the 2-player versus mode is the real treat. Playing more like a puzzle game than a pure shooter, destroyed enemies make up a fleet you launch against Player 2 by hitting “send” – i.e., shooting down one of the passing, high-altitude UFOs from the original.

Even the look and sound of the game fits Taito’s design philosophy: enemies appear in their original pixelated glory against kaleidoscopic backgrounds, marching to the tune of something between disco and trance music.

In closing: sorry, Bad Company. You’re great, I know you’ll make some other gamer very happy. But I’ve decided to go back to my first love.

Space Invaders Extreme
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: Nintendo DS, Sony PSP
Price: $19.99
ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)
Score: 8 (out of 10)