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Released: March 2010

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3 & PC

Modes: Single-player, Multi-player

Developer: Electronic Arts

The question I get most asked about this game at work is, "Is this better than Call of Duty?". And I never know how to answer. Call me crazy, but I don't believe this game is like COD, in many ways. Sure, it is similiar, I'm not denying that, but alot of aspects are different. The controls are similar (apart from the knife and crouch buttons being swapped, which stumped me for a while) and like COD, Russia is demonised and seen as 'the bad guys', a role later given to the American army, seeming to be just as bad nearer the end. However, the characters are far more likeable, the storyline less about the army, and more about the people involved. However, the campaign is shorter, and the graphics slightly less amazing. The Multiplayer is the most different thing, far more complex, with alot more teamwork involved, and, dare I say it, more fun ?

Now that the Call of Duty comparison is out the way, I can actually start talking about the game itself. You play (for the vast majority of the game) Private Preston Marlowe, and with your squad mates, technology expert Private Terrance Sweetwater, demolitions specialist Private George Haggard Jr., and squad leader Sergeant Samuel Redford, you make up the misfit company in a fictional United States Army battalion known as "Bad Company", viewed as "dispensable" in the eyes of the army. Your mission is to secure a dangerous weapon of mass destruction codenamed as "Aurora" that originated in World War II. 

The majority of the time, this game doesn't take itself very seriously, which is very refreshing with the constant output of games with oh-so-serious plots and characters. The campaign is available on three different difficulties, and for some parts I found it much less frustrating converting to easy (dispite my hobby, I seem to be very bad at video games, NO JOKE) especially when you have to harpoon down those infernal helicoptors. Gravity takes a big role in this game, as bullets and missiles have a dendency to sink the further away they get from you, meaning you have to aim very carefully and take that into account while fighting a particularly difficult/annoying foe.

The multiplayer is the biggest draw to this game. The predesesor (Battlefield: Bad Company I) was easily the best multiplayer of it's time, going further than the usual "Team Deathmatch" basics than most other games stuck to in previous years. This one contains four multiplayer game modes, not completely different from each other, but very similiar to the one mode in the previous game. If you have not played the previous, it may take a while to get used to it and make proper use of the 'squads', but once you do, it'll easily be your favourite multiplayer game.

So yes, it's a stereotypical first-person shooter as the far-too-short campaign goes and the controls, but not so in a multiplayer with endess possibilities, and a noticeable lack of annoying kids (you know what I'm talking about).