Battlefield: Bad Company

""I belong to Bad Company. I don't wanna end up in some good company!""

The Battlefield: Bad Company Spin-Off subseries... thing represents something of a departure from the norm for the Battlefield series. Both games bring a whole new feature to improve the Battlefield experience: plot! And destruction physics, but we’ll get to that later.

Set Twenty Minutes Into the Future, Battlefield: Bad Company, the first game in the series, follows the exploits of B(ad) Company, a group made up of the military’s rejects and trouble cases that are sent on Suicide Missions in lieu of better trained (read: more expensive) soldiers. Things get a bit more interesting when B Company stumbles across a dead mercenary bearing the logo of The Legionnaire, a famed commander known for paying his mercenaries in gold bars. Being upstanding soldiers, they of course report this immediately to their superiors. Bad Company’s campaign is a somewhat light hearted story for what has traditionally been a gritty genre. Highlights include accidentally invading a neutral country and driving around on its golf courses while dodging tank fire.

Bad Company 1 is also notable for introducing destruction physics to the series. Its engine, Frostbite, allows for everything from fences to the outer walls of buildings to be destroyed, meaning that cover no longer means safety.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 continues following B Company through a Darker and Edgier storyline that might feel a bit familiar to Call of Duty fans. B Company has been promoted from glorified Cannon Fodder to cannon fodder that gets things done. The squad is tasked with stopping a Russian plot to obtain a secret WWII-era Japanese superweapon. Of course, not everything goes according to plan, and things start to get a little out of hand.

Bad Company 2 upgrades its engine to Frostbite 1.5, allowing for much more intricate destruction physics. Now, instead of just blowing out a building’s walls, it’s possible to destroy smaller buildings entirely, leaving them to collapse on anyone unlucky enough to be inside. Some bits of cover can even be shot to pieces, with chucks of concrete breaking away to reveal enemies behind.

Of course, this still being Battlefield, both games feature a hefty multiplayer component. Multiplayer in both games is on a somewhat smaller (though still large) scale than the main Battlefield games, with a somewhat reduced vehicle focus (no jets being one large change). This, combined with some other changes such as Regenerating Health and no prone have lead to accusations by some of the series’s more hardcore fans that DICE was pandering to console gamers. Still, critical response has generally been good and Bad Company 2 still has a thriving community over a year after release. Oh, and destruction physics extend to the multiplayer of both games, leading to a very dynamic battlefield.

Bad Company 2 got a full-fledged multiplayer Expansion Pack, Battlefield Bad Company Vietnam, which is set in Vietnam. Included with the pack are five new maps and a slew of new period weapons and vehicles.

Battlefield: Bad Company examples:

 * Affectionate Parody: Bad Company had trailers who's point were to make video game references. They were titled Bad World, Rainbow Sprinkles, and Snake Eyes.
 * Battle Trophy: The game rewards a player successful in assassinating an enemy in online multiplayer with the knife with their dog tags. This has been included in every Battlefield game released since then.
 * Dude, Where's My Respect?: Justified in Bad Company - you routinely perform badass acts of heroics that would earn you a bunch of medals under normal circumstances, but the missions you're being sent out on are literally suicidal tasks your superiors are assigning you to in a deliberate attempt to get you and your squad killed, so they're understandably less than happy when you succeed. Later in the game, when, there isn't anyone to receive respect from.
 * Grey and Gray Morality: In the first Bad Company, the Russians didn't seem any more "evil" than the Americans -- the real villains were the Legionnaire and his mercenaries. This got thrown out the window in the sequel, however, as the Russians seem bent on taking over the world. Most Battlefield games don't make any faction seem more evil than another anyways (except, of course, Those Wacky Nazis).
 * I Always Wanted to Say That: Haggard responds to a demand to drop their weapons from the American army which he and his squad just deserted from with, "Oh yeah? You and what army?!" This appalls every last one of his fellow mutineers - especially when the main American force arrives, and he adds, "Oh. That army."
 * Irony: Marlowe's videotaped message to his younger brother in America as a promotional means to advertise the game. Watch it.
 * Lighter and Softer: Compared to previous titles, Battlefield: Bad Company included gameplay which was less-realistic (notably One Bullet Clips) and somewhat less team-based, as well as a storyline on a character-based level and humourous character dialogue and interactions.
 * Redundant Rescue: Preston Marlowe's in Bad Company.
 * Reverse Grip: How the knife is held.
 * Seinfeldian Conversation: Often occurs during the single player campaigns.
 * Voice With an Internet Connection: Mike-One-Juliet in Bad Company.
 * What Happened to The Mouse?: The Legionnaire is alive and extremely angry when Bad Company ends. No one even mentions him (or the truckload of gold stolen from him) in Bad Company 2.
 * Bad Company 2 was released on PC, whereas the first one wasn't. If they had just gone and continued the story from the first one, many of the PC gamers would have felt confused and left out.
 * Also, B Company is operating on the other side of the planet in the second game.
 * You and What Army: Haggard says this to the American Army they just deserted from catching up to them and ordering them to surrender their arms. This appalls his fellow deserter squadmates. "I Always Wanted to Say That." is his explanation.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam provide examples of:
"Details: ...For optimum performance, the leading edge "pointy end" should be applied to the enemy and thrust into vital areas. This should be repeated as necessary."
 * Action Film Quiet Drama Scene: During "Zero Dark Thirty" the squad will stop and have a surprisingly deep conversation about religion and morality if you don't interrupt them by starting another firefight. (You can't save games, so here's the conversation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L 7 Kl 46 CX Vl U&feature=related )
 * There are similar conversations that the squad has in all the levels from "Upriver" to "Zero Dark Thirty".
 * Attack Drone: The UAV in Bad Company 2 can count, but its Hellfire missile strike takes an extremely long time to refresh.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The UAV can be equipped with a heavy machine gun that does good damage to infantry and light vehicles and never runs out of ammo. The problem is that a low-flying UAV with a huge muzzle flash and very visible tracers quickly gets the attention of the entire enemy team and gets shot down in no time. Therefore it's far more practical to stay at a high altitude, just spotting targets and calling in the occasional hellfire missile - and it's still vulnerable way up there, but hey, it'll get destroyed in less time.
 * The machine gun damage really wasn't that good. Unlike other machine guns in the game, you really had to focus on a target at full health, making it only really useful against weakened targets, and like stated above, at closer ranges.''.
 * Badass Bandolier: The character classes and protagonists of Bad Company 2 generally wear grenades on their vests. The Assault class at least has a more realistic example of also carrying grenade launcher ammo on their chest, and the Recon wears shotgun shells, even while their class-specific weapons are sniper rifles. A Recon player may easily elect to use a shotgun, to be fair.
 * Bald of Evil: Kirilenko.
 * Big No: Haggard,
 * Blatant Lies: In the Vietnam expansion, when the US suffers a defeat at Cao Son Temple (75-200 US troops dead), the announcer will report that despite Hanoi's claims of a victory "CENTCOM remained coy, claiming no knowledge of any mission gone awry or troops killed in action." Alternatively, if the US team really gets creamed, he will announce "CENTCOM did confirm that there were minor casualties during a patrol operation in South Vietnam."
 * Boring Yet Practical: You can get some pretty awesome sniper rifles, including the bolt-action .50 caliber M95, but one of the most accurate and easy to use sniper rifles is the M24, the rifle you start with, and it's also the easiest to predict the bullet drop with for when you need to make the really long shots.
 * Chekhov's Gun: In this case, Chekhov's satellite and Chekhov's scalar weapon.
 * Cold Sniper: Subverted. The American Recon has a voice of a young man and his dialog is exactly NOT what you'd hear out of a cold sniper.
 * The Russian Recon speaks in a more gruff-sounding voice, though whether it makes him seem cold is up to debate.
 * the American Recon sounds almost nerdy whereas the Russian Recon sounds like he smokes a pack a day.
 * Cool Guns: Bad Company 2 eschews a realistic armament for the American and Russian troops in favour of allowing players to shoot as many cool guns as possible, amongst others including the F2000 assault rifle, the MG3 and the WWII era Thompson SMG.
 * Continuity Nod: For Bad Company 2, see this video. At 27 seconds, the skull on the sign is from the flag of the Nationals from Battlefield Heroes.
 * Bad Company 2 includes a bunch of these for Battlefield 1943. For instance, you can hear the post-battle radio news from 1943 at the end of the first mission, all the USMC weapons minus the Springfield 1903 are available for use in multiplayer, and the whole plot from the campaign revolves around a Forgotten Superweapon from the Pacific theater WWII.
 * Darker and Edgier: The first Bad Company game was a fairly light romp through Central Asia with a bunch of comedic misfits fighting for gold and going through everybody - the Russians, the Serdaristanis, and the Legionnaire's private army - who happened to be in the way. The second one was an outright fight for survival against a nigh-endless storm of the Russians and their allies that threatened to wipe all opposition off the face of the Earth with a group of comedic misfits whose antics helped keep the game from becoming grimdark and you from realizing just how bad the situation really is.
 * Deadpan Snarker: The details for the knife weapon entry in Bad Company 2.


 * Dueling Games: Bad Company 2 appears to be headed down this road with Modern Warfare 2.
 * The expansion, Vietnam, seems to be an attempt to counter Call of Duty Black Ops.
 * Eyepatch of Power: The NVA Recon skin in Bad Company: Vietnam gets ones of these in the form of a bloodied headband over his left eye.
 * Goggles Do Nothing: In the cutscenes of Bad Company 2 Marlowe has goggles around his helmet, he never puts them on. In a bit of Fridge Brilliance, though, you'll notice that during gameplay the edges of screen are significantly darker, as if Marlowe's peripheral vision was blocked. Marlowe only wears the goggles during gameplay - and rightfully he should, with all the debris from gratuitous explosions.
 * Gunship Rescue: Flynn.
 * Guide Dang It: Bad Company 2 doesn't explain the tracers darts at all, which allows a rocket launcher to home in on the tagged target after aiming at the target's indicator for a few seconds, even if not being pointed directly at it when fired. This lead to players firing their rockets right after aiming at the planted vehicle, as they did in the first Bad Company, resulting in confusion when the rocket would not home in to the vehicle.
 * What the hell is that 1 next to people on my team's name in multiplayer?
 * People who own previous Battlefield games can register on the EA website to get a Veteran status, which is the only way of acquiring the M1 Garand in Multiplayer. The number refers to how many other games in the Battlefield series they own.
 * Haggard Wants The Dallas Cowboys' Cheerleaders: How Sweetwater convinces him to keep fighting
 * Hidden Depths: Hidden in Bad Company 2 to the point it's very unlikely you'll ever hear it unless you manage to be sufficiently patient. (Here.). It is surprising nonetheless.
 * Invaded States of America: Bad Company 2 has some multiplayer maps in Alaska,
 * Just Plane Wrong: In Bad Company 2, Haggard misidentifies Kirelenko's Antonov An-124 as the larger An-225.
 * Quite specifically one might add, to the point that one would have had to do quite a bit of research on the An-225 to find out the information Haggard lists off the top of his head. Which makes the whole "missing the tell-tale twin-tail" thing all the more jarring.
 * Fridge Brilliance: Haggard is normally not the brightest bulb in the squad, and it's surprising to the player and the squad when he starts spouting technical facts. The fact that he's wrong makes it even funnier.
 * Karmic Death:
 * Less disputably and more conventionally,
 * Keystone Army:
 * Laser-Guided Karma:
 * More conventionally,
 * No One Gets Left Behind: Aguire wanted it to be a Defied Trope, but The Squad goes anyway at Haggard's example.
 * Old Save Bonus: In Bad Company 2, the game unlocks a Thompson SMG and a Colt 1911 for you early if you also have Battlefield 1943. If you sign up through their online "Veterans" program and link a 2nd Battlefield game to your EA account, it will also unlock an M1 Garand (as well as an F2000 for the first Bad Company).
 * Precision F-Strike: In BC 2, your character Preston Marlowe, who barely ever swears in any of his dialogue, will scream out "FUCK!" during a particularly intense scene. Haggard responds "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?", while Sweetwater says, "I'm proud of ya, Pres!"
 * "I'll go my fucking self."
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: If anything, there's a total lack of good people getting shot, bad things happening to idealists, and a distinct lack of grayness [except for one event in BC 2, in which a soldier defects because he has family in America].
 * Shout Out:
 * The M79 grenade launcher has the same tiger stripe pattern as Roach's one in Apocalypse Now.
 * You might hear an American soldier shout "Let the bodies hit the floor!" while playing in multiplayer.
 * In Bad Company 2, upon observing a South American jungle camp, your sarge will remark that they are "dug in like an Alabama tick."
 * Another from Bad Company 2: as you and your squad trudge through the snowy wastes of the Andes in "Crack the Sky", Sweetwater remarks, "Where are we, Hoth?".
 * In the same level as above, a subtle shoutout to Black Hawk Down can be heard during the jeep sequence. "We can't slow down, WE CAN'T SLOW DOWN!"
 * A particularly memorable comment about ice cream from this gunship recording can be heard while piloting UA Vs.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: Some the songs that play in Bad Company: Vietnam's vehicle radios seem a bit too...happy. Especially when someone is getting burned alive from a tank's flamethrower just a couple of feet away.
 * Technical Pacifist: Flynn, the helicopter pilot in Bad Company 2. He has absolutely no problem with killing as long as he isn't the one who actually pulls the trigger (he says it's bad for his karma).
 * Tech Points: Classes in Bad Company 2 have separate requirements to unlock vehicle specializations, as well as specializations and weapons for each class. You advance through these by gaining score using the respective tree's tools. This is in addition to general level unlocks in which score from using anything is added to it to give you weapons and specializations available to any class.
 * The Guards Must Be Crazy: The Japanese guards during the opening sequence of Bad Comapny 2 are somehow entirely unable to hear two boats powered by outboard motors on a quiet night. The fact that the characters cut off the motors and request "no sound" of each other just underlines the ridiculousness.
 * The Mole:
 * This Is for Emphasis, Bitch: The American team in Bad Company 2. They will curse at every chance.
 * Now your ass is mine, bitch!
 * Take that, mother fucker!
 * Topped that mother fucker!
 * Title Drop: Haggard has one on the last mission, "Airbourne", where he says, "Yeah, you're in Bad Company now, bitches!"
 * Took a Level In Jerkass: Haggard makes some meaner comments than he does in the first game.
 * To the Pain: Subverted in Bad Company 2, where Redford asks a prisoner where their target is. Preston bets he'll tell them in 10 seconds after Redford goes over to him. Haggard bets 5. Haggard wins. It's quickly revealed that Redford just told the prisoner about their mission to stop the release of Aurora over the US, and the prisoner tells him what Redford needs to know because he has family living in Houston.
 * Unexpected Genre Change: What would probably confuse many people, clearly seeing Bad Company 2 is supposed to be a modern setting-type from the game's cover, is that the first mission the campaign takes place in World War 2.
 * Unfriendly Fire:
 * Whole-Plot Reference: Angry Russians waging war on the United States, You can tell Bad Company 2 apart from Modern Warfare 2 because there's at least two Take Thats at Modern Warfare 2.
 * Not to mention a final level consisting of close-range firefights on board a plane.
 * Whoring: Bad Company 2 took steps against it by making explosives reload more slowly then other ammunition from ammo boxes and only giving one grenade unless you use a specialization to be able to hold two. You can sit in a spot and throw grenades forever, but you'll be throwing them slow enough to make it not a profitable venture. Even then, most players only use their noob tubes to knock down cover or attack vehicles.
 * World War Three: Russia vs The Whole World.
 * You All Look Familiar: The Bad Company games only have a character model for each weapon type and side they're on, causing you to see many lookalike platinum-blond Russians in red (well, sometimes green) berets attempting to kill you with light machine guns in the second game. The ones that wear balaclavas are more justifiable. When you fight enemies that shouldn't be using uniforms, it gets strange.
 * Some of these are Justified, for example Snipers always wear ghillie suits, Demolition soldiers from the first game and American Engineers from the second get a blast shield on their helmet, while Russian Engineers wear balaclavas, reminiscent of the first game's Special Ops class.
 * You All Look Familiar: The Bad Company games only have a character model for each weapon type and side they're on, causing you to see many lookalike platinum-blond Russians in red (well, sometimes green) berets attempting to kill you with light machine guns in the second game. The ones that wear balaclavas are more justifiable. When you fight enemies that shouldn't be using uniforms, it gets strange.
 * Some of these are Justified, for example Snipers always wear ghillie suits, Demolition soldiers from the first game and American Engineers from the second get a blast shield on their helmet, while Russian Engineers wear balaclavas, reminiscent of the first game's Special Ops class.

Both games provide examples of:
"Sweetwater: No! No no no, he'll just send some special-ops douche-bags with pussy-ass heartbeat monitors on their guns instead of us!"
 * Cluster F-Bomb: Almost the entire battle chatter of American soldiers in the multiplayer mode of Bad Company 1&2. For some odd reason, in the Bad Company 2 multiplayer swearing over the in-game chat function is censored, but after a patch it can be disabled if the owner of the server allows it.
 * Boxed Crook: Bad Company - Actually, the game is titled over a company who's troops are supposed to be all of this. The PC took a joyride in a helicopter, wrecking it and a general's limo . One of your sqaudmates uploaded a virus into the US defense grid. The other one blew up the largest ammo dump east of Paris. The Sarge is the only one who's not a discipline problem, but he joined B Company for reasons of his own.
 * B Company (the titular Bad Company) is so named because they get the shit jobs and absolutely none of the credit. It's a place for rejects and attitude problems. The catch, however, is that service in B Company counts towards your discharge much faster: if you survive, the Army gets rid of you faster (and good riddance) . If you die, well, the Army is still rid of you, isn't it?
 * Everything Breaks: Bad Company finally introduced destructible environment to the series. And it is glorious.
 * In the sequel, buildings can break down entirely. And it is glorious. (...unless you were in it.)
 * Hit Scan: Averted. Bad Company 2 even gives you bonus score for killing from a far range for managing to deal with it.
 * Improvised Weapon: The drill and the defibrillator. The drill not only repairs tanks but when shoved against an enemy kills them. You can get an achievement in Bad Company 2 for getting a headshot kill with the repair tool called "The Dentist".
 * Battlefield: Bad Company 2 brings us "Destruction 2.0", which is a fancy way of saying that you can now collapse buildings by blowing up the first floor walls, even when there's still people or objectives in them. Naturally, this is just as effective as it sounds when playing Rush.
 * Indy Ploy: Bad Company's bread and butter.
 * Invisible Wall: Artillery is actually launched at you in Bad Company if you go out-of-bounds. Strangely, however, completing objectives reduces the range of the artillery-objectives such as "Storm the village" or "Get to the supply depot" or "Regroup with your squad".
 * It sort of makes sense with some of the objectives, such as 'destroy the artillery emplacements'. As for the rest, well...
 * Magic Tool: The power tool damages enemy vehicles just as quickly as it repairs friendly ones. Can also be used to kill people.
 * Right Handed Left Handed Guns: Inconsistent in the Bad Company spin-offs, resulting in stuff like the HK416 and M16A4 with right handed controls and left-side ejection ports to properly-modeled belt-fed light machine guns.
 * Stuff Blowing Up: Why you should get Bad Company 1 or 2.
 * Also probably a strong reason why Haggard joined the Army. After watching an airstrike, he expresses that he should have joined the Air Force.
 * Take That: The plot of Bad Company 2 is essentially Modern Warfare 2, and it misses no opportunity to suggest that the latter is silly. Given that gamers abandoned MW2 for BC2 over the server debacle above, this may also qualify as Fan Service.

"Sweetwater: If we were racing on snowmobiles I'd take you down!
 * This is especially funny if you know the history of the real-life heartbeat detector, as made famous to gamers in the original Rainbow Six. It doesn't work, because it's a scam. Dissecting one reveals that it can't possibly work the way the manufacturer claims it does, and independent testing has never borne out the claims even under ideal conditions. Someone who uses it, realistically, is at best guilty of not doing the research or is an idiot.

Haggard: Snowmobiles are for pussies!"


 * DiCE isn't even dancing around it any more. They released a video called "Friends Really Against Grenade Spam" ("Friends Really Against Grenade Spam")which directly mocks a similar video that Infinity Ward created ( "Fight Against Grenade Spam" )to promote Modern Warfare 2. The original video starred Cole Hamels, a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. To double the burn, the mocking video starred C.C. Sabathia, a pitcher for the New York Yankees team that just beat the Phillies in the 2009 World Series.
 * Funny enough, it appears to be a rant against using random celebrity pitchers... until C.C. blows up Sweetwater for trash-talking him and being a noob.
 * The parody ads for the first game were much less caustic, probably even affectionate, but they still mocked their inspirations.

B Company provides examples of:

 * Action Survivor: Preston Marlow; also a Badass Normal along with the rest of the squad, but he's clearly softer than they are, and his blog video for the first game had him telling his little brother back home about his intention to be this. Most evident when Bad Company starts, but still visible even as he starts growing out of it, notably in Bad Company 2.
 * All of Bravo-2 fits, actually. While Haggard loves to blow shit up, when things escalate wildly out of control in the second game, he declares that he's not really all that keen on pushing forward against impossible odds. Redford is pissed that his squad keeps getting the short end of the stick with missions because he doesn't want to die. Sweetwater notably points out several times that they're pretty far off-mission in their escapades, and while they're surviving, the odds are definitely against them. But when the shit hits the fan and they're the only ones that can make a difference, they all still pull out all the stops to save the day (Haggard needs to be convinced to save the cheerleaders, though).
 * A Father to His Men: Sort of. Redford refers to Haggard, Sweetwater and Marlowe as his "bastard children".
 * Bald Black Leader Guy: Early teasers for Bad Company showed Sarge as one, but he ended up wearing a cap on his head and appearing to have hair under it.
 * Expy: Sarge looks and sounds alot like Sargent Avery Junior Johnson while wearing his hat.
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Hero: Sergeant Samuel Redford
 * The Lancer: Private Preston Marlowe
 * The Smart Guy: Private Terrence Sweetwater
 * The Big Guy: Private George Haggard
 * The Chick: Miss July/Flynn
 * Sweetwater also qualifies as a Big Guy, specifically Class 5 which doubles as Smart Guy, since being physically imposing isn't a requirement, just common. He's the squad's SAW gunner and thus carries a larger, faster-firing weapon, he's competent with it, and in one instance, smashes a Russian soldier off a rooftop with it, without breaking stride.
 * Hidden Badass: B-Company is where all the screw-ups in the Army go to be used as cannon fodder since they're good for little else. The main characters of Bad Company are easily just as competent as a spec-ops team, but they're winging it without any advanced training.
 * By the second game, Bravo-2 have earned something of a Memetic Badass reputation among the US Army, and are treated with the same respect (and sent on the same kinds of missions) as an actual special ops team even though they actually aren't. Note that this is partly because there are hardly any real Special Forces operators left - it's strongly implied that the war is going very, very badly for the United States and her allies.
 * To be fair, Russia doesn't seem to be doing too much better, if at all (U.S. forces are seen to be pushing deep into Russian-controlled Europe in a map at the beginning of the campaign).
 * Also, they are very, very expendable... and somehow keep managing to escape being expended.
 * They have the rare blend of expendable and invulnerable that makes them the perfect henchmen!
 * Karma Houdini: The Squad in Bad Company 1&2. Over the course of the game, they mutiny once, go AWOL once, and, at the end of the game, steal a truckload of gold bullion and desert from the army, driving off into the sunset. Not only are they not put on trial, by the second game they're back on duty, and being trusted with important assignments - both because they have a reputation for surviving just about anything, and because the war is just going that badly.
 * Alternatively: Getting sent back to B-Company was their punishment.
 * Southern-Fried Private: Subverted in Bad Company. Haggard is a pretty good guy that likes explosives and happens to have a Southern accent.
 * Haggard seems to follow the stereotype a bit more in the sequel, where he's a bit meaner and calls their rather hippie-appearing helicopter pilot a "hippy", "liberal", "pinko", and some more, but he is later the one to initiate the rest of The Squad to save him later.
 * The Squad: Your buddies in Bad Company.
 * Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: Command keeps sending them on suicide missions that they refuse to actually die on.
 * The Quiet One: Marlowe doesn't talk as much as his squadmates. In fact, he doesn't speak at all outside of cutscenes, and even then he still doesn't talk much.
 * With Friends Like These: The rest of The Squad before the game starts in the blog posts for the original Bad Company had Sweetwater being more worried of his squadmates killing him then the enemy, but they were otherwise reasonable friends.