Man, the FPS arena is a crowded place these days. The market for these games is always growing, but the arena itself is packed full, that’s a fact. However, an unending lineup of perfectly average and uninspiring games made the beautiful shining pillar that is Battlefield: Bad Company be seen all the clearer. Learning that the premise was a rag-tag army team made up of “colourful” individuals single-handedly winning a war almost made me lose hope, but I was pulled back from the brink by something as simple as the game’s box art: a dirty little grenade with a shining yellow smiley-face attached to the pin. The potential for irony, sarcasm, and perhaps even some real insight in this game let me release my inhibitions and take a chance on this puppy really being something, and man oh man did it pay off.

It’s a strange thing, to experience a dynamic element of gameplay promised by a developer. Some crazy, pie in the sky dream of a mechanic, actually implemented in its full glory. “Destructible environments” have existed in games of all shapes and sizes through the last two generations, right? Breaking a crate here, kicking a board and watching it disappear in a puff of smoke… wasn’t that as interactive as things could get? Fully destroying walls, breaking glass, making craters in the ground and blowing out roofs of unsuspecting Russian homesteads are a few of the surprisingly present features of Battlefield: BC. Besides being beautiful to behold, this wonderful mechanic creates a new playstyle for an FPS, one where cover can never be trusted.

Keeping this new style in mind with regard to level design, the single player campaign delivers a fairly standard experience in a with a shiny new coat of paint. The characters are stereotyped, yes, but they go beyond the usual cast in an FPS by actually having a personality. Your three AI-controlled allies have a very believable chemistry about them, and though they’re completely useless in helping you reach your objectives, the fantastic voice acting and quirky storyline makes the whole experience feel special. The only snag in the entire campaign would be the enemy AI, which could definitely use a tune-up. Enemies have nothing in their battle-repertoire beyond “stand in doorway and shoot,” making potentially intense firefights feel a little like a shooting gallery, at points. They also always know where you are, and while its cool to have a tank blow away walls to get a shot at you, it can take you out of the experience when he kerplodes you from three miles out. Besides being expertly designed, the campaign is also loaded with an absolutely insane amount of collectable weapons to unlock. 50 of these suckers can be found at drop points labeled on the mini-map, and at the feet of fallen enemies. Gold bars are also hidden on every stage, and though finding them doesn’t actually do anything, it gives perfectionists something to do.

The campaign alone warrants a purchase, but the multiplayer is what’ll keep you coming back. Ahem, CALL OF DUTY 4. The system in place is very similar, with few new features added to pretty the community up a bit. The same character customization exists, with players meeting certain conditions to gain XP, and the XP is in turn used to purchase new weapons and perks. The same satisfaction of a delicious “+10″ appearing after the kill is present, and made extra delicious by bonus conditions adding experience to many of the kills. Headshots, revenge kills, avenging kills… they all net you a tasty bonus. Another cool little feature in place is the dog tag system. Whenever you get a kill with your trusty knife, you automatically take the dog tags off of your prey, and they’re stored on your statistics page. There’s a huge support system in place for stat tracking at the Battlefield website where you can view all of the players you’ve knifed, and see how they’re doing now compared to back in the day when you put your knife inside them.

In a multiplayer community with so much depth on the customization side, I was surprised to see what I thought was a cop-out on the play side with the inclusion of only one game mode, “Gold Rush.” Two teams, one attacking and one defending, battling it out over strategically placed crates, I assume filled with gold. After playing a few rounds you realize that within this one mode exists a plethora of content and strategy. The teams are large, (though not by traditional Battlefield standards) and the maps are enormous, but handled perfectly. Once the first base/crates are destroyed by the attacking team, the map expands to include the new base in the field of play. The frontline of the battle continues to push forward (if the defending team sucks) until the climactic showdown at the largest base of the map. It might sound like some pretty standard multiplayer, but when you factor in the dynamic levels, destructible terrain, and huge selection of vehicles you’re left with an amazingly deep and compelling experience. More game modes are arriving in the coming weeks, but I don’t think they’ll get much attention with Gold Rush on the table.

A new gameplay concept executed perfectly, a thrilling, clever and genuinely fun storyline, and a multiplayer system designed around player rewards and community. This is the way video games are supposed to be.