Battlefield: Bad Company - Impressions
There is basically one thing that the Battlefield series is known for - a good non stop action multi player experience. For years fans of the series have battled it out (mainly on PC, but more recently on consoles as well) in multi player game types on-line with various iterations of Battlefield. Battlefield: Bad Company, while still keeping a solid multi player experience, is now looking to provide the same type of experience off-line, with what they hope will be a well accepted single player game as well.
The question is this. Will Battlefield fans be interested in playing a single player game? I don't think the answer is extremely clear, but if you plan on picking up the game for the multi player (which is still included, with support for up to 24 players on-line), then you might as well give the single player game a run for the money. I can give you a couple reasons that make this a worthy try.
Obviously I had little time to check out the storyline of the game, but from what they are telling me they hope it will be not only engaging, but humorous as well. The game engine is new, they are now using the Frostbite engine for the game, I have to say it did look pretty good for how early of a build it is. The most recent Battlefield game on Xbox 360 looked better, but they've got plenty of time to polish this one up to perfection.
The real reason to test out the single player side of Battlefield: Bad Company is the destruction. Over 90% of the environments in the game are destructible, which means not only will you and I have a lot of fun blowing stuff up, but we'll also be able to create more tactical type game play by creating our own path through buildings, fences, etc. It is a very cool addition, and it seems developers have caught on to the fact that there are times when gamers just like blowing stuff up.
The down side however, is that there is no on-line, or off-line co-op game play. I asked why they didn't put this feature in and was given the expected response, "we wanted to, but it is a very technical and involved process." Understandable, but come on, co-op has worked so well for so many other titles, can't developers just start planning this in to every new game right from the start? I think they can, and if single player goes over well this time around, I think they will for the next Battlefield that is to come after Battlefield: Bad Company.
Battlefield: Bad Company doesn't have a very solid launch date, 2008 is as specific as it gets, but at that time it will be available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Command & Conquer 3 - Impressions
The Command & Conquer franchise dates back as early as the original PlayStation, and this real time strategy (RTS) game has been creating a lineage of its own for just as long. The newest version, Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath looks to be no slouch either, with a new storyline that spans over 20 years. I don't really think I need to go into major details here, but I will say Command & Conquer 3 looks fantastic on the PC, and it is slated for the Xbox 360 as well.
I'm not a huge fan of RTS games personally, but there are a couple that I have enjoyed. I may give this a shot once it hits the Xbox 360, unfortunately, they only had the PC version on display so I cannot comment on how the control system is going to work. The limited coverage on this title is partly due to my arriving late, sorry folks. Expected release is Spring of 2008 on Xbox 360 and PC.
Rail Simulator - Impressions
Color me not impressed. Although, to put it in context, I was never a big Train Simulator (Microsoft's 2001 train simulation video game) fan either. On the other hand, if you were a big fan of the MS train sim, then you're in luck, because Kuju Entertainment made Train Simulator for MS, and they're the ones responsible for the upcoming Rail Simulator.
If you're lost as to what I'm talking about, Rail Simulator is a simulation type video game where the player controls sets of railways located in the US, the UK, and Germany. In the game you are responsible for pretty much everything, from gathering materials needed for fuel, observing track signals, keeping an eye on the pressure, etc. Its a really involved game. Now, the details I got on the game indicate that the graphics are stunning. I can't confirm this unfortunately, because the build I saw didn't look so good. I'm hoping they were having a problem with their graphics card.
