Yesterday while I was at the Sydney Gaming League, EA was there and setup several Xbox 360s with the new Battlefield: Bad Company game on display. I think it was the demo that was recently released or the full version of the game - I really wasn't sure.

Anyway, here's my impressions of the game as I saw it. Keep in mind I don't actually own a Xbox 360 (my experience with it is really only the controller as I have the windows varient for my PC), but I am a Battlefield veteran (since the original 1942 game all the way to Battlefield 2 - never touched 2142 as I saw it as a ripoff as a BF2 mod).

First off, the new Frostbite engine looked quite impressive. Higher resolution textures, better shadows and better shader and particle effects were some of the graphical eye-candy I did notice. I would be lying if I was not excited to see this engine in action on the PC.

The gameplay didn't really woo me that much to be honest. It really felt like a consolised Battlefield experience with nice graphics at heart. There was a few vehicles here and there, as well as destructible static objects but thats where the experience differed from BF2. I guess some of these features would impress gamers who have grown up with console gaming but to a veteran PC gamer such as myself I really didn't see anything that new. The missions were objective-based (clear this area, blow up this thing) featuring the typcial open battlefield of a ... well Battlefield game. Its a slightly different experience of say Call of Duty 4 with its more restrictive, scripted levels.

One thing that did stand out however were the sound effects. There was a reason the game had a Dolby Digital startup movie. The quality of sound effects were on-par of that of CoD4's and Crysis. The Battlefield series has always had fairly good sound effects so its no surprise really there.

All in all if you're a console gamer who loved Call of Duty 4 to death, but wished it was a bit more open in terms of mission approachability (as well as the inclusion of playable vehicles) Battlefield: Bad Company will appeal to you alot.

I must say however the game really enforced my hatred for console-based FPS games (unless its on the Wii). I struggled in regards to aim at anything and really just found myself strafing rooms while spamming full-auto with the rifle. A far cry from my normal accurately placed fire on PC FPS.