Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Swedish developer DICE's Battlefield games may lack the glamorous image of rivals such as Call Of Duty, but they are hugely popular among the military first-person game cognoscenti.

The Bad Company sub-franchise represents DICE's attempt to add a credible single-player experience to a primarily online series of games, and the second instalment arrives, with impeccable timing, just as we've extracted every last ounce of enjoyment from Modern Warfare 2. Creditably, the only area in which Bad Company 2 demonstrably loses out to its much-hyped rival is visual polish – although it is still a mighty fine looking game, with particularly impressive particle effects allowing realistic desert dust-storms and the like. And it has two elements which Modern Warfare 2 lacks: destructible scenery, and a great stock of military vehicles into which you can jump and cause instant mayhem.

The four-man Bad Company team is back and ready with more wisecracking dialogue than ever (including some sly digs at Modern Warfare 2), and there's a decent storyline involving an apocalyptic weapon which sees you traversing jungles, deserts and even icy Andes peaks (on which you will freeze unless you either duck indoors or judiciously light fires by chucking grenades at piles of wood). There's an admirable amount of variety – you must pilot tanks, boats, armed jeeps and quad-bikes, and man fixed guns in helicopters. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the game is the much-improved destruction engine, which is startlingly realistic. If you're stuck, you just blast stuff to smithereens with a rocket launcher, but if you fail to take out RPG-wielding enemies, they will blow away your cover.

Online, Bad Company 2 emphatically has the tools to challenge Modern Warfare 2's hegemony – the much-loved objective-based Rush and domination-based Conquest modes are back, allowing two teams of 12 players (who can be medics, soldiers, engineers or recon specialists) to slug it out, levelling up both skills and weaponry. The huge maps are exemplary, and the new Squad Deathmatch mode pits four teams of four players against each other, while Squad Rush puts two four-player teams into tighter maps. The main joy of playing Battlefield online – the freedom to jump into your favourite vehicle and fight in your preferred manner rather than one dictated by the game – has been lovingly preserved.

Compared to Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has skulked into the fray well below the radar, but committed fans of military first-person shooters will find it in no way inferior gameplay-wise. If you see yourself as a true, hardcore gamer, you'll be needing a copy.