I purchased BFBC in July, 2008 after playing the excellent demo on the Playstation Network. I’ve had over 6 months to play the game and in that time serious issues have not been addressed by the developer – DICE Studios or Electronic Arts, the publisher of the game.

The Battlefield series has always been first and foremost an online shooter. BFBC is different in 2 ways. First, it adds a single player campaign and second it features destructible environments. The single player campaign is adequate though somewhat of a distraction from the “meat” of the game which is clearly the online portion.

The single player campaign puts you in the boots of a U.S. Army soldier assigned to the proverbial “B-squad”. Your squad consists of delinquents, has-beens and all-around rejects from the rest of the Army. You’ll have various objectives to accomplish in the war-zone you’re in before being allowed to go home. The story although not compelling is entertaining and the AI characters are actually funny in parts. All in all I used the single player campaign as practice before jumping online.

And online is where the game has major problems. First and foremost a game like BFBC is all about squad communication and tactics. Inexplicably the game features very, very poor voice chat support. You are limited to only speaking with members of your immediate squad (4 players total). You have no way of communicating with other members of different squads, even on the same team. Coordinating attacks or defense is severely limited because of it. Also, even through various game updates the voice chat is hopelessly broken. Some rounds you might actually get lucky and have the voice chat work only to discover it won’t in the next.

As if that weren’t bad enough BFBC does not run stably or reliably online. Lag is so severe that the game sporadically freezes for 2-5 seconds at a time. Try playing a shooter with lag this severe and you’ll quickly realize that it’s a futile effort.

Other problems including a complete lack of online game modes also hamper the game. Initially BFBC only included one game mode – Gold Rush. It’s essentially a spin on traditional sabotage games. You are either a ‘defender’ or ‘attacker’ and must either destroy or defend crates of gold. A few months after release, BFBC was updated with a new game mode called ‘Conquest’. In Conquest mode, the aim is to reduce the opposing team’s tickets to zero. Killing an enemy soldier depletes one ticket per kill, while capturing control points on the map causes enemy tickets to count down.

Beyond those problems I am also disappointed in the level variety in BFBC. Some levels truly shine and feature enough variety in vehicles and terrain to cater to all types of combat. Other levels are claustrophobic, poorly planned, feature no vehicles and are layered in annoying fog. The feeling I get playing the latter is that the developer quickly padded the game with extra maps sacrificing quality for quantity.

I should point out that I tried resolving the various lag and voice-chat issues through EA’s technical support. Unfortunately for me it seems that it’s the game itself that is at fault as no one from EA was able to offer any viable solution. I’ll also add that I use a broadband 6mb/sec. connection from Comcast. I play several other games online with no problems on the same PS3. It seems like the issues are entirely contained within the game itself.

Overall I am of course disappointed with the game. What should have been the blockbuster title of the summer fizzled out as many players experiencing the same problems I described above have left for better games. The support from EA and DICE to BFBC has been almost non-existent leaving many gamers with an almost unplayable game. I strongly encourage anyone to rent this game before purchasing it!
Rating: 2 / 5