Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC) Review - PAGE 2

The Bad Company crew drops into many dangerous realms in this installment, and DICE has thrown in the new Frostbite engine to ensure that all of them shine with incredible detail and immersion. From the arctic stretches of Alaska to the wet rain forests in South America, the action has players drawn into the large maps and detailed terrain. For PC gamers, this sticks to the natural order of Battlefield: hard combat with large maps to explore and run routes through. As we explored the SP campaign of Bad Company 2, we found that often we were able to bypass standard expected lines of attack by cruising over walls and fences until we reached a higher ground behind the enemy. With a heavy gunning tank after us in the jungle we were able to break behind the tree line and drop charges on it instead of using the RPG.

Graphics are an important department; it gives ideas of what players can enjoy now and ideas of what to expect in the future from DICE for the series. While the console ports have limits on video memory and power, the PC side has lush forests and our play experience saw no draw issues. The span of each environment is vast; the wide span of land encourages exploration to find perches and key points that showcase the details. With models reaching high polygon levels, the presentation feels like Crysis as the crew walks through war torn city streets and navigates through impossible odds. DICE made it a point to spend extra attention on making facial expressions and gestures feel natural.

A huge stress point for Bad Company 2 comes in the form of graphic scaling as well, with the Frostbite engine tailored to support everything from hardcore DX9 cards from yesteryear to the latest DX11 cards. We gave Bad Company 2 a ride on the X1800XT and while it needed to scale down in resolution, the result was worth the trade-off for the presentation given. Without breaking the bank for the newest hardware on the market, a smooth and enjoyable frame-rate of 35fps came in around 1280x800 for the card while pushing 650MHz core speed to boost up the power. We were able to run at 1920x1200 but the visual trade was not worth it given how wet vegetation makes the world so much better. Our adventure pushed the 3850 hard and throughout the game our overclock helped us keep an average of 32 FPS.

Bad Company 2 wraps up in the visual department as a strong push from DICE to reassure gamers that PC gaming is still alive with some developers. They've brought the magic of next-generation engines to the masses, including the ability to wreck the landscape with explosive ammunition; load bearing walls in city buildings buckle with intensive fire and grenades take down sections of wall with snipers perched on top. DICE also gives players the ability to choose what they want out of their shooter, whether it's destroying trees and a gunner nest before rushing in, or charging in and watching their hiding spot take heavy fire.

The good always meets a bad in these instances; the physics in Bad Company 2 are some of the most questionable in a finished game. Having a tree fall down and walking through it only to send it flying a few feet, for one, is an experienc. If DICE could have settled on what they wanted the collision models to behave like, the game would have kept a consistent feel of depth; having our dramatized war experience shattered with sparklers and funny hats when the world flips out for a moment doesn’t carry out that sense of intensity.

The only other major issue we noticed was the particle system forgets what environment is active at the given moment -- riding ATVs and watching dust kick up from the river left us wondering.