BAAAAAAD COMPANY - till the day I die

No, this isn't the same Bad Company that put out such hits as "Feel Like Makin' Love," "Shooting Star," and...well, that's pretty much all worth mentioning. Just to put it out there.

Anyway. To say Battlefield: Bad Company isn't the greatest shooter of all time is a bit unfair. After all, if you come into this expecting it to be, you're not being very fair to any game entitled Halo or Call of Duty. So don't plan on this going down as the best there ever was. Instead, Bad Company is a fun enough game to pick up and blast away with. It's funnier than CoD: Modern Warfare and uses destructible environments as well as any game I've ever played to push the action up.

You play as Preston Marlowe, transferred into the so-called "Bad Company" for...well, doing things you shouldn't have done. This is the unit where all the bad eggs in the army get put, and they're always the ones who take point on everything, casualties be damned. As you'll see as you apparently fight a war by your lonesome. Well, not entirely - you have three wisecracking soldier buddies backing you up. Plotwise, there's also gold. I think that about sums it up.

It's an interesting shooter. As others have in the past, it involves a life meter, so you cannot take infinite hits - but there are no life packs, per se. The only way to get yourself back to full health is to inject yourself with a nifty little gadget which looks like an epi-pen. And since you always have one on your person, and it never runs out, you can bring yourself back to full health anytime. If that makes it sound like you'll be able to breeze through the game in no time, without dying, guess again. You will be shot, several times, and sometimes you won't have time to reach for the injector. Trust me - you'll die. Especially if you make the mistake of using cover too much.

Other shooters allow you to hide behind brick walls, behind doors, etc., and withstand a hail of gunfire. Not here. Here, it can all get blown up. Which means the wall you were standing behind a second ago has been demolished by a tank shell, and you really need to move somewhere else. Of course, you can use this to your advantage - to take out enemy cover, to create alternate entrances to buildings, or to just eliminate a pesky sniper position. Be wary, though, because other players will use it against you. This is why the combat in Bad Company is such a refreshing change - it truly requires you to think on your feet.

The controls, however, can feel sluggish now and then, and it never feels like this game is a fantastic one - just a great one, if great is a step down. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't try it, because if you like a game which doesn't take itself too seriously, you'll like this.