EA has been talking up Battlefield: 2 as a viable competitor to Activision's all-conquering Call of Duty: 2, but regardless of quality and all the promotional willy-waving in the world, the real acid test is whether it can match up in terms of success and that's something that only the buying public can decide.

Modern Warfare 2 divided audiences with both its and single-player campaign, some criticising the story for being too anaemic, shallow and short. The multiplayer, meanwhile was (and still is) derided by many for a lack of dedicated servers and a sharp increase in cheats and hackers ruining the game irrevocably - with and Acti offering little in the way of support to resolve the issues.

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Disillusioned players sick of CoD and its irritating perks may well find that Bad Company 2 offers a genuine alternative, and certainly, DICE has ensured that both the single-player campaign and multiplayer facets of the game are equally substantial and worthwhile. But is it enough?

Bad Company's single-player story takes its cue directly from the previous game, returning to the titular team of four military miscreants, who after a quest for gold are back in the Army, engaging in more conventional objectives driven by duty rather than personal gain. The same snappy banter and one-liners between Marlowe, Sweetwater, Haggard and Sarge thankfully remain intact, meaning that there's more personality in BC2 than you'd normally find in your average first-person shooter, even if the characters do still border on the trite.

Initially sent in by your commanding officer, Braidwood, to extract Major Aguire who has been kidnapped by Russian militia operating in the South American jungles, Marlowe (you) and his team find themselves having to gather stolen intel, track down a Russian Colonel and more as you skirt the Russian border, traipsing through snowy mountainous regions in an effort to stave off the cold.

When it's not dealing in explosive and macho dialogue, Bad Company 2 manages to slot in some very impressive set-pieces, such as dashing between houses and flammable barrels to stay warm by the fire in the midst of a treacherous snowstorm. Or like sniping patrolling guards, concealing the sound of your shots behind flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. Or sending in laser guided airstrikes on a derelict village. Or hitting missile targets using a remote drone in a nod to MW 1 & 2. Or...the list goes on.

And while these moments stand out as involving and memorable, it's the robust stuff between the set-pieces that BC2 still does best, meaning that there's never a dull moment as you're either around a cliff edge in a jeep, rolling through enemy units in a tank or silently crawling through leafy undergrowth, snipping hidden tripwires... the game's interest curve never dips.

The core gameplay mechanics remain mostly unchanged since the last Bad Company, except DICE has sensibly removed the clumsy weapon and item select system, replacing it with a more logical control set-up that is nicely intuitive. Health too is now regenerated rather than boosted by an adrenaline shot, which frees up the front trigger buttons for grenade throwing and melee knife thrusts.

Visuals and sound design are consistently exemplary throughout also, and although the graphical flair never quite measures up to that of MW2, the updated Frostbite Engine makes for expansive environments and a level of destruction far beyond that of any other FPS, now enabling you to dole out some 'Destruction 2.0' and reduce most buildings to rubble. Some walls will never crumble no matter how many grenades pelt them and exploration is actively discouraged as any attempt to venture off the beaten track is immediately prevented by a ten second countdown that demands you turn back to the mission area, but it's never of detriment to the overall product.

Focusing the objectives by making the campaign more linear is actually beneficial, keeping the experience tight, cutting out the aimless wandering to make the action feel more direct. There are plenty of hidden satellite uplinks to locate and destroy and a whole list of collectibles to track down in the shape of extra guns if you are one for exploration.

Two weapons can be carried at any one time and switched at intermittent weapon drop points. Being able to juggle weapons mid-mission unlocks immense opportunity for experimenting with differing approaches towards objectives, which usually involves launching rockets and grenades through walls or other obstacles to test the boundaries of the Frostbite Engine. Either way, blowing things up never gets old and the strategical, visual and indeed aural impact of explosions and gunfire is unmatched.

Vehicle sections are just as impactful and break up the usual running and gunning with your team, as well as occasional blasts on the minigun of the helicopter gunship that often helps extract you and your team at certain intervals. Carving through buildings, vehicles, explosive fuel dumps and enemy units below is always huge fun that leaves you wanting more and it's to DICE's credit that Bad Company 2 is almost comprised entirely of entertainingly overblown action movie-style sequences like these that happily sit alongside a well-written story.

Never quite as absorbing as you'd hope, the story - though humorously penned - does a good job of propelling the action along at a steady pace, injecting a bit of variety as and when it's required. As a result, Bad Company's single-player proves far more compelling than its predecessor's, standing up as much more than just preparation for the multiplayer portion of the game, which is undoubtedly what most players will be buying the BF:BC2 for.

Multiplayer is comprised of several modes, including the return of Gold Rush, now simply titled 'Rush', and Conquest. Squad Rush offers a smaller, more tightly focused version of Rush with less players, while the standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes are exactly what you'd expect. Consistently enjoyable and suitably frantic in traditional fashion, BC2's multiplayer skirmishes are every bit as enjoyable as they were in the original Bad Company, if not more so. XP and other rewards are generously granted for flexing your skills in the arena of combat and there are no pesky unfair perks and exploits to mar the game and skew your experience. At least not yet anyway.

Bad Company 2's masterful execution in both its multiplayer and single-player aspects means that the brazen fun it pokes at its closest competitors (Haggard complains about the Army sending in "pussy-ass guys with heartbeat sensors on their guns" for instance) is more than justifiable. DICE's sequel is a superlative FPS, let down only by odd inconsistencies in the destruction (why can we destroy a water tower but not a windmill? How come I can destroy external walls but not internal walls?) and limited customisation options in multiplayer. These minor shortcomings aside however, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is pure gaming gold and as such has more than a fair shout in eclipsing Modern Warfare 2.

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By Richard Walker