I’ve been rather skeptical about modern shooters, ever since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 disappointed. Over dinner yesterday, I questioned a friend whom I have noticed been playing Battlefield: Bad Company lately on Steam on how the game was.

The predecessor, Battlefield 2, was a fantastic game, up until version 1.5 or so, where they added in air-dropped vehicles. That was a step in the wrong direction, and it made a mess out of my beloved game. Waning interest in the game saw the number of servers in my region vanish, and I was forced to quit.

Initially, I wasn’t too impressed. My friend then directed me to a number of gameplay videos on Youtube, one of which featured the destructive environment. A recon trooper went into the objective building, placed a number a C4 charges, and lured a number of enemy in. The recon trooper promptly ran out, and set off the C4, physically demolishing the entire building. This wasn’t just an explosion in the building, but rather, the entire building was brought down and collapsed on the enemy within.

I was sold. I had never envisioned the day where a game would feature such extensive, physics-driven destructible environment. There have been promises over the years, and destructible environment was first introduced and featured in the 2001 game, Red Faction. The implementation however, was very limited. You could fire enough rockets to blast a hole through a wall, but you couldn’t bring the wall down, much less an entire building.

In the next few years, destructible and interactive environments would slowly be featured in tech demo after tech demo, but no one was able to develop a fully marketable product out of it. Then came Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter in 2006 which allowed for physics driven explosions if you had a PhysX card. This was followed by Crysis and Far Cry 2 which included more destructible objections. Flora  shifted as you move through them, and you could mow down some.

Now, in Battlefield Bad Company, you can reduce an entire building to rubble. Realistic physics and destructible environment sure has come a long a way since 2001. It was a slow development process, but we’re there at last. You’re getting my $49.90 on this one, EA.