If you're a long-time reader of the reviews we do here at XBW you'll be no doubt aware of my feelings towards the Battlefield series. It's no great secret that since Battlefield 1942 I've been an absolute fan and always impressed by just how much the developers, DICE, manage to enhance the graphics, improve the game engine and increase the amount of cool stuff you get to do in each new game. Saying that, please don't think that I've got the fan boy blinkers on because while I'm enjoying Bad Company 2, and DICE HAVE improved the game in almost every way over BC1, which I will cover, there are also some shortcomings (as there usually are in all games) which also must, sadly as it may be, pointed out.

It's been a pretty busy couple of months for the FPS genre. Late last year we had Modern Warfare 2 hit the streets in a flurry of premium console bundles, success filled – boastful press releases about how it made more money than anything else in the history of the known universe and no doubt it's filled up Bobby Koticks money pit with fresh new cash to backstroke through. It certainly pays to hang onto those Activision stocks in a year that a new Infinity Ward game is due out. In reality though from the gamers' perspective, the game missed the mark in a few areas. The story telling was hit and miss and the multiplayer was rife with glitches, a poor match-making system and many, many exploits that people used to feed their own egos and ruin other peoples fun by being complete dicks. Sure, Infinity Ward have worked hard on correcting these issues, but the sour taste in many people's mouths still remains and with Bad Company 2 on the horizon, there seemed to be a limited time-frame for IW to get those issues sorted out.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 (from here on BC2) hit Xbox Live back in February in the form of a multiplayer BETA *cough* demo and gave us all a pretty cool taste of what to expect. Vast snowy scenery, Tanks, Apache helicopters, UAV's, a nice selection of weapons and the new sniping mechanics were all fully thrashed out by fans. I'll touch more on the multiplayer aspects later, but suffice to say that I absolutely loved the demo and a return to the Battlefield series was a welcome relief from many of the highs, lows and outright frustrations felt by myself and fellow FPS fans since last November.

Look, I'm not going to fill this review with continued anti-Modern Warfare 2 bashing. I think that it did a pretty solid job of that by itself and with help from its own online community. I'll let BC2 speak up for itself because it offers more than a worthy alternative to MW2 as it absolutely excels it in many key areas and throughout the single player campaign your fellow squad mates seem to enjoy taking a bit of a dig at ‘pussies with heartbeat monitors on their guns, or share their views on how ‘snowmobiles suck'. So now that both games are out, let's just stand back and let DICE and Infinity Ward fight it out and do their best to support each game the best through fixes and DLC. Perhaps in six months time, we'll come back and see who's really winning.

BC2 sees you back in the well worn army-issue boots of Preston Marlowe who is not only the character you take control of, but also the games narrator. There doesn't seem to be any mention of just what B Company has been up to since the events of the first game and instead of a ‘catch up' with the characters, instead we're given a very cool prologue mission that is a great way to kick the game off. The events of this mission feature some incredible looking scenery and the story ties in well with the rest of the game.

Throughout the rest of the campaign the action swaps between vehicle combat – both air and ground – with fire fights in some incredible looking levels such as South American jungles, desert and alpine areas through to a completely improbable, but fun scenario aboard a Russian cargo plane. The action is almost nonstop from start to finish but nicely complimented by a few quiet moments that give you a good chance to catch your breath and take a look around to soak the scenery in. The story is entertaining, but to be honest, could have been lifted out of any number of rejected-by-Hollywood 80's action flicks. This time around instead of following the noble goal of personal wealth creation, B Company is tasked with saving nothing less than the whole world. Of course, and as we all know, it's all been done before.

What saves the story from being completely forgettable though is the constant action and humorous banter between Sweetwater, Haggard and Redford, your squad mates. As in the first game Haggard gets quite a few funny one liners and while there's no more info about the time he dated a cousin, there's still a surprising amount of laughs in there. The amount of chat between them seems to have been increased substantially and it gives the game more personality than you usually get in a FPS.

Regardless of your opinion of the story, blowing up stuff never gets boring through the campaign because of the sheer variety of weapons and excellent level design. You're never left wondering where to go next and while it's definitely a linear experience, the wide-open nature of most of the levels offers loads of variety. It's great fun attacking from different angles and easy to try new strategies if you happen to get killed. The story is more serious, the stakes are higher and it's a much more compelling single player campaign as a result. If there's one more complaint that I feel needs mentioning, it's that there's perhaps too many ‘MW2' style moments in the single player campaign. There's a shoot out on a plane, snow based levels and while fun, it does feel a bit samey in spots.

Thankfully, the single greatest feature of the first game not only returns, but has been markedly enhanced is the games destruction system. In BC1 you could blow out the walls of buildings and knock down trees, but in BC2 it's taken to a whole new level. Now you can completely flatten many buildings to the ground, even with people that happen to be inside at the time, and the groaning sound it makes before it gives way is yet another example of the amazing job the sound team did with this game. Not only that, but now cover such as concrete walls can be blown away piece by piece to either limit hiding spaces for enemies or to create a hole for you to shoot through. The new ‘Damage 2.0' system is absolutely great and it must be said, the single greatest, most enjoyable feature in the game for me. It adds a dynamic to the game that forces a lot of strategy and without it you'd just have another arcade-style FPS shooter.

Thankfully, the damage system is also a part of the games action packed multiplayer mode as well and it creates an experience rarely found in multiplayer games. The big thing I'm talking about here are those ‘Battlefield moments' that fans of the series will be fully familiar with. Blowing a hole in a wall to reveal 3 members of the opposition team, only then for an engineer to follow that up with a RPG shot that takes them all out. Pulling a complete BS sniper shot out of your rear end to kill the driver of a Humvee as he speeds towards your base, to then see the car crawl to a stop. Sniping the gunner on a Blackhawk to then see him tumble out and smack into the ground. Laser tagging a tank while a squad mate takes it out with a missile. Reviving a squad mate with your defibrillator so he can continue the fight. These are all ‘Battlefield moments' that make the online part of BC2 unique and the reason why it's so popular already, and should remain so for a long time.

Yes you can tell I'm a fan, but it's hard not to be. Yes it has a few environment glitches such as when you get stuck on parts of the terrain. Server problems were being experienced from day one of the games release and people couldn't connect to games or it would crash back to the Xbox Dashboard. Stats were disappearing, then reappearing and sometimes the ‘spotting' system seems to ignore enemies that are clearly in your sights no matter how madly you press the back button. In my opinion though, none of these are real deal breakers and DICE and EA seem to be pretty transparent about these problems and what they're doing to rectify them (and at the time I write this, they've corrected quite a few). Following their Twitter feeds (if you're into that) is quite a good way to stay ‘in the loop' with them and shows that they're pro-active and serious about the long term life of this game.

The multiplayer maps are vast with a few that deserve to go down as ‘classic' multiplayer maps and as well as the Gold Rush mode, Conquest is now included out of the box. There are also 2 new modes, Squad Deathmatch which features 4 teams of 4 against each other (and which is a blast) and Squad Rush mode which pits one team of 4 against another team of 4 for a smaller scale version of the Rush mode. Everything you do from getting kills, healing (or reviving) team mates, resupplying ammo, capturing points on the map, blowing up targets etc or spotting enemies results in experience points being earned. These contribute to your rank as well as unlocking new weapons and gadgets that might be a new assault rifle, pistol, portable missile launcher, new sniper rifle or even a better med kit, different sniper scope, magnum ammo, 12 gauge shotgun slugs, better armour or even vehicle modifications such as extra guns. It's a system clearly meant to rival Modern Warfare 2 and while perhaps not as in-depth as there doesn't appear to be any custom weapon colours or skins as one example, there's no shortage of guns or gadgets to unlock. If DICE stay on top of things, tidy up a few of the remaining glitches and support the game through regular new content then there's no reason why the multiplayer can't become the most popular online shooter ever. It IS that great.