Next up is the respawn system which will remind many of the cryo chambers found in BioShock. When you die in most single-player games the world resets to the point of your last saved checkpoint. Not so in Bad Company. Instead you'll essentially respawn back onto the field of battle with any damage that you may have caused in your previous life still intact and any downed enemies still deader than a doornail. I can't help but feel like that system detracts from the strategy and overall intensity of the battles. Each life carried very little significance for me as I could charge in, take out a few blokes and trust that they'd still be gone when Preston returned to the living.
There's no doubt that the destruction wouldn't have such a profound impact if it didn't look and sound so damn good. Bad Company isn't a graphical masterpiece by any means, but launching a grenade into the side of a wall and watching the debris and smoke spew out of the formerly whole structure is a sight to see. DICE also did a good job of placing plenty of explosive barrels, crates and gasoline tanks around the environment so there's never of shortage of things that go boom.
However, the visuals are not without issues. The lack of vertical sync shows its ugly face fairly often, particularly in the first level. There's also an odd film grain that, while I found it endearing to the overall style, might be lamented by some. There are also moments of wonky physics and other oddities, but nothing that overly hurts the experience.
Throw in some of the best audio effects I've ever heard in a videogame and Bad Company becomes more a treat for the ears than the eyes. The High Dynamic Range Audio (HDR Audio) creates different audio effects for gunfire, explosions and pretty much every other sound effect you can imagine. Want a real audio treat? Stand inside a house and blow out one of the walls with Preston's grenade launcher then stop and listen to the sound reverberate as the debris comes raining down. Other impressive auditory delights include the sound of a tank shell whizzing by your head and launching a fleet of missiles from an airborne helicopter. While the dialogue from the characters might be a bit too cheeseball for some, the sound effects, classic Battlefield theme music and overall audio design more than pick up the slack.
The story that's told through in-game and in-engine cutscenes is serviceable but nothing award-winning. The dialogue is slightly cheesy and over-the-top and none of the characters are all that inspiring. Marlow is sort of a shell of a hero and is more "along for the ride" than anything else. The main villain, the one who's keeping the quartet of militants from their riches, looks mean but never really comes across as the frightening hard ass as intended.