Recently, you got to see a sneak peak of the Beta. Today, you get a glimpse of the game itself. Battlefield: Bad Company by the folks at DICE and Electronic Arts follows in the footsteps of the previous Battlefield games. It follows, but not too closely.

Now that the final version is out, I had a chance to play the single player game. You may have seen some of the humorous videos they put out that lampooned other titles such as Metal Gear Solid 4. If you have, you get the idea that the crew with which you work in single player mode is a batch of misfits. They could have come from central casting from a Dan Akroyd or Bill Murray 80’s movie. What single player really provides is some familiarity to the game controls. It helps a lot. I wish I had it in the beta as I originally found myself being a target. Single player will help you, try it before going online. Really! The team mates are not the best and the AI is not the sharpest, but it does serve the aforementioned familiarizing role well.

The story line is pretty good as mentioned in the beta review. What is nice about this game is that it provides more of an open world environment in which to go after the target. One does not have to drive along the main path or walk the main road, options exist and there are consequences (good and bad) for choices one makes. Differing amounts of weapons, gold and enemies are the result of such choices. The enemies are identified as Russians in the game originally. Later we find out that they are mercenaries paid in gold. (Easy there Mr. Barbaro from New York, just reporting the facts J ).  This is where the Bad Company checks into more action and the game gets more interesting.

Multiplayer, however, is where the game shines. In-game achievements appear on the PS3 version (I do not know about the 360 version) and make it convenient to track progress toward goals. These are not the much ballyhooed trophies coming with system update 2.4 for the PS3, but a separate in game progression of trophies. As the previous blog indicated, players can spawn with different kits and in different locations. It does vary from the previous Battlefield games in that the system is a bit different. There is only one game type, goldrush, from which to choose. The old ticket system is not here.

Overall, a fun 3^rd person shooter that really shines on-line. Battlefield fans should enjoy this console installment of a long time favorite. Anyone else playing with the crew of B-company?

For some reason, I really like to talk about food in this blog.  Maybe its b/c I usually write this late at night when I’m getting the munchies.  Anyway, this time, I want to talk about produce.  Walmart’s produce area still has a lot of improving to do, but there is one recent change that is making me pretty excited…the focus on local.  Over the last two years, under the leadership of a great merchant named Ron, our produce area has made a concerted effort to increase its purchasing of, and ability to purchase locally grown fresh produce.  In fact, Ron’s team has committed to sourcing locally whenever possible.

To give you an idea how much they’ve focused on this, over the past two years, Walmart’s partnerships with local farmers have grown by 50 percent, and fruits and vegetables grown in any given store’s state now make up over a fifth of what’s available during summer months.  Now, statistics like this are nice, but its particularly cool when you see the results…a few examples:

Until recently, all of the fresh cilantro sold in Walmart stores was sourced from California. Then, Ron’s merchants found a grower named Duda Farms, and soon we started sourcing cilantro from Belle Glade, Florida for distribution in the eastern US.  Introducing Florida-grown cilantro resulted in an estimated savings of 250,000 food miles in a single season.

Additionally, Walmart has worked to optimize its sourcing of peaches.   We source 12 million pounds of peaches from 18 different states; not just well-known growing areas like Georgia and South Carolina. By sourcing from so many different states and selling the product locally, Wal-Mart saved 672,000 food miles and 112,000 gallons of diesel fuel.  Indeed, buying local can be a great thing for the planet.

There is one more reason this is a really cool thing.  It’s great for the customer and the business.  First, customers love the connection you feel and freshness you get from knowing that the tomato you are buying comes from a farmer in your state.  Second, all those food mile savings add up to lower transportation costs that we can pass on to the customer and lower the price.  For example, the total freight and gasoline savings from the peach example equal more than $1.4 million. 

More to come…