Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Great multiplayer"

Let's get the campaign over with straight away, shall we? Silly, goofy humour, very derivative but a good old blast.

But no-one plays this game for the SP, do they? Let's talk about MP.

Wow. Just WOW.

For many, many years I hated shooters. The reason? Spawn, run-around-like-headless-chicken, die. Repeat. Yawn.

So what is so different about BC2? Well, the sheer scale, for a start. There's none of this "so small I can shoot you from my spawn" rubbish. There are so many lines of fire and directions to attack from, you really need those squad-mates to back you up and offer a respawn point.

Good class divisions bolster different choices of playstyle. Recons can use those long scopes across the map, but they have to deal with bullet-drop and pseudo-realistic time to cross the distance, making sniping a tense affair. Engineers have the big rockets but have to make do with SMGs instead of rifles. Assaults have the accuracy and power. And medics have big support LMGs but are really there to keep everyone alive.

And then there's the total destructibility. Being able to blow a hole straight into the enemy base rather than go through that booby-trapped door...? Well, it's just obvious isn't it? Once you have experienced that, every other shooter feels like a nonsense.

And last, and definitely NOT least? The squad-based, objective mode called Rush. In this format, the defenders have to prevent the attackers from bombing a pair of crates - if the crates are taken, a new pair is activated further "behind enemy lines" and the action moves there, until eventually the attackers reach the crates at the defenders' base. The defenders can only win by forcing the attackers to respawn a fixed number of times by shooting them.

Simple, but oh-so-addictive :) I have put well over 100 hours into this game mode because it is practically perfect. As the attackers, there is the constant adrenaline-rush of sprinting into the enemy base with huge explosions all around you and gunfire whistling overhead, desperately trying to reach the base and set the charge. And as defenders, there is that desperation to reach and defuse the charge before the timer runs down. Both modes are significantly better when played as coordinated teams, and the maps are so dynamic thanks to destructibility that no game is EVER the same twice.

There are numerous vehicles - helicopters, quad bikes, jetskis and tanks, and you need to use every one at some point in order to achieve the win so they aren't just decoration.

And the effects - ringing in the ears from nearby explosions, perfectly pitched gunfire, rumbling tanks and helis, smoke and debris everywhere. The attention to detail is amazing.

But most importantly, as you progress up the ranks and unlock more weapons, you come to realise that ALL the classes are needed to keep your team winning - there is no unbalanced class, they really do all contribute to the goal. Seldom has teamwork been so much fun.

All in all, this is a fantastic and epic multiplayer experience, and moves the bar for all future shooters a long way upwards.

Awesome.