The game is packaged nicely and looks very smexy if i may say. Upon opening the package you will find an awesomely printed disc and that Sir is what you are going to be doing for the next 6 hours. Installation is simple nothing to worry about. The game itself is very much like the beta so really easy to get the grasp of the game, graphics has been tweaked however some small bugs still exist. Overall you won't be disappointed however you won't find the same amount of humor and excessive voice spamming by your AI friends. You will not be disappointed. 10/10

Been playing this since release – very high quality shooter. Almost everything is destructible, which adds a great sense of ‘oh #$%&, where's my next piece of cover?’ Gravity also affects bullets, which adds a new dimension of skill to long-range shots.

Multiplayer is a blast, I've found it easy to find decent servers with good ping (for NZers). Search ‘GameArena’ in Server Browser if you're struggling to find any.

First play: I decided to start with the single player campaign so to be able to master some of the finer aspects of BFBC2 before going multiplayer. After playing the game for 5minutes I was a little disappointed. As a Battlefield 2 demo and Crysis player, I was use to being able to go prone and change the firing mode of my weapons (full/auto, burst and/or semi). The beginning guns were horribly inaccurate and had a tendency to ‘spam’. I soon realised that picking up the same assault rifle but with a different scope changed the firing mode of the gun, minimised the spam effect and decreased the rate of fire. Coming from Crysis, I was thinking “WTH, this is so unrealistic!” This had a big effect on my rating towards the game as I tend to try to be a tactical player and make every bullet count.

Single player: After playing for a hour, I soon got over my ‘first play’ moments. I was greatly impressed by the relatively short loading times, crisp graphics, immersive audio (this is adds massively to the game play), clean control system and, of course, the destructible landscape and buildings. The battles feel what one might imagine them to be like with tracers flying everywhere, soldiers yelling at each other, bullets falling at correct trajectories and bits of buildings being torn to shreds in front of your face. The story line is rather generic of following a squad of men (including you) around the world on a mission to save the US of A in spite of impossible odds and having to shoot your way through hundreds of ‘bad guys’. It is a storyline that never gets too old :D. Your actual squad talks to each other when your trying to find the M-COM stations (bonus things to blow up on each level) about allsorts of random things. Single player overall is good but struggles to come on par with other games its class such as Modern Warfare 2. It feels more like a tweaked hybrid of Crysis and Battlefield 2 than an original game.

Multiplayer (Internet only): Starting the game with a new character has been possibly the most frustrating part of the game. The classes all have crap starting guns, there's no med pack or defribulator for the medic and you are forced to use recon, engineer or a vehicle to score any kills. I was constantly mown down when I went into close combat which annoyed me greatly. If you have enough patience to stick to a class, level up and burn away time to become more competitive and get the better guns then you will be fine. The game gets much better once you have levelled up and have a gun that actually does as you want it to. If you don't have patience, then don't buy BFBC2! The servers are all low ping and playing NZ players is like playing at a LAN. There is very little lag (if any). Players of BFBC2 seem to be ok as a community. There are not many players who I'd kick if was an admin. The greatest problem is unfair teams but this can't be helped much.

Overall rating: 4/5 stars. Recommend to buy: heck yeah!