Battlefield: Bad Company 2

As the level progresses taking the fight through a graveyard gives the developers a nice opportunity to delight in the way gunfire busts ageing headstones apart, while a quick chat with that CIA operative sends you off up the mountain to reach a remote radar outpost.

The justification for this is that you're going to have to bring down a foreign satellite that has super-weapon intel on it, but in reality it's a chance to change the pace - first by slotting you into a support role for a few minutes, as you're asked to man the machine gun in a helicopter and clear a landing zone, and then as you fight through a wintry military installation to the radar base itself.

The helicopter action is pleasant enough but back on the ground, the skill with which DICE wrings minute-to-minute drama from the landscape is very much in evidence. Few developers can make a machine-gun bunker feel like a puzzle section as you work out how to get past a solid wall of bullets, and few would have the nouse to turn a standard corridor shoot-out on its head. By staging the whole thing on a staircase running up the side of a mountain you're instantly a little on edge, firing at enemies who are always either above or below you.

After that, all that's left is to capture the downed satellite before the Russians get to it. Time to go back to vehicles again - this time a jeep - and a crazy race along an icy mountain road. It's another change in pace that DICE handles with ease: tucked into the driving seat, your squad makes short work of enemy vehicles, providing some lovely fireballs to distract you as you try to cling to the frozen tarmac.

All the while crazy drops beckon on either side of the road, and the wind constantly blows snow across your path, all but obscuring your vision for frantic moments. Quips fly through the air along with the bullets. For a while, DICE genuinely has Van Dyke's bizarre proposition in balance: you're Charlie Brown and you're Snoopy - you're in over your head, but you might just be able to scrape through.

The comparisons DICE's sequel will be subjected to upon release are far more frightening than classic comic strips, however. A military shooter thick with radio chatter and techno babble, focusing on a war between the US and Russia fought in part on American soil (the action kicks off in Alaska before moving south, apparently), and with a major emphasis on multiplayer content, you can almost feel Infinity Ward's presence looming over the project.

While Bad Company 2 can never hope to match the Modern Warfare series for big budget spectacle, DICE's game arguably has something distinct in its favour all the same: beneath the fatigues and the assault rifles, this is a shooter with real personality.