Bearing in mind that /Battlefield: Bad Company/ is just a beta, and we're probably another three months away from release, the game is surprisingly polished. There were a few framerate drops, but only when the action gets really frantic ? which it often does thanks to the destructible environments. Likewise, there were a few network dropouts, but EA are still tweaking the servers, so this is to be expected.

There are still a few balancing issues to sort out for example, it takes what seems like an inordinate amount of bullets to kill another player but I'm sure they'll be sorted out as development progresses.

Gold Rush is an interesting twist to the usual multiplayer games too, but I think the big story with /Battlefield: Bad Company/ is going to be the single player storyline. Can a game that has been resolutely multiplayer only since day one really come up with a compelling single player game? You'll have to wait another couple of months to find out.