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The original Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare was something of a surprise hit, and last weekend's console beta for the sequel reveals that PopCap Games has upped the ante. Garden Warfare 2 leverages the evolved Frostbite 3 engine to produce an enhanced, even more action-packed spectacle - but the question is whether the more ambitious sequel can retain the smooth performance of its predecessor, or match the near-locked 60fps experience of stablemate Star Wars Battlefront.Going into the multiplayer beta, what's clear is that the scale and scope of Garden Warfare 2 is expanded significantly: environments are larger, featuring more in the way of explosive set-pieces that add to the chaos, while more characters are added to the mix. Effects work and lighting is also considerably upgraded too, with more in the way of dynamic light sources and particle effects appearing on-screen during even the more modest firefights.
In terms of the core rendering set-up, perhaps unsurprisingly it's business as usual for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Just like the original game, PlayStation 4 runs natively at 1080p, while the Xbox equivalent settles at 900p. As you might expect, the difference in resolution leads to slightly softer imagery on Xbox One, but the gap between the two platforms isn't especially noticeable during gameplay.*The post-process anti-aliasing works well in smoothing off the jaggies, with only minor aliasing and pixel-popping issues - even on the lower resolution Xbox One version. Certainly, the presentation overall is a significant upgrade over the 720p we saw in Star Wars Battlefront on the Microsoft console.
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