You're Preston Marlowe in Battlefield: Bad Company, the newest member of B-Company where the "B" stands for "badass" and ain't that just a peach? It in military terms, it means the four of you are disposable, too skilled for court-martial, too rogue for regular duty.

So there's you and your three fellow incorrigibles, Sweetwater, Haggard and Sarge, set with the formulaic task of recon, first to discover threat levels and enemy numbers, second to report back and then act all nonchalant when you're left there to die.

You discover, however, that the enemy is being paid in gold bars, and seeing as you and the boys have already proven that your morals aren't up to code, you naturally want in on some that gold goodness so off you go on the prowl. More than a few shades of Kelly's Heroes or Three Kings in that, but a palatable plot nonetheless.

Now, while your three cohorts are invincible for game conventions' sake, and certainly have the gift of gab -- enjoyable quips and ripostes through and through --, their complete lack of skill at doing anything else other than occasionally drawing fire from your clearly vulnerable self is a tad disheartening.

Thankfully the artificial intelligence (AI) displayed by your enemies isn't much better, so, again for game conventions' sake, they come at you in incessant droves. While this makes moving from point A to point B somewhat difficult to accomplish, the aforementioned un-AI will make for the many occasions where you can just hunker down with and enemy left or right but not noticing you, giving you not only ample time to reload your weapon but also a leisurely breather to line up that perfect headshot.

Also in moving from point A to point B, there's a surprising lack of cover found in Battlefield: Bad Company. Whereas most first person shooters supply ample crates, walls and innocuous props to hide behind in order to heal, assess and/or reload, virtually everything in the Bad Company universe can be destroyed. That nice little patch of wall still standing can be blown away, trees can be gunned down, and a properly placed mortar or missile or air strike can take out (almost) an entire house (though not its timber frame, oddly). Such epic, arbitrary destruction looks absolutely amazing, but it also makes fubar out of duck and cover strategies.

As for controls, there are much smoother and easier ways of swapping between weapons and items, and none of them are present in Bad Company. If you've played Call of Duty or SOCOM or Rainbow Six, you'll find Bad Company's control scheme completely unnatural, though with time, patience and practice you do get used to it.

Thankfully, the Battlefield franchise was built as a multiplayer experience and the fact that Bad Company even includes a single-player component, blemished that it is, is just a bonus, an appetizer. The meat of the game, as always, is in the multiplayer war fest: 24 player capable, huge maps (though only 8 at the moment; more to come, they say), unlockable weapons, and various recurring vehicles all make for mass amounts of explosive mayhem.

Overall, Battlefield: Bad Company is a very good first person shooter and a great revision of the Battlefield franchise. Its freshly minted single player mode is a first for the series and its anti-hero storyline is a nice departure from typical "you are soldier, go save the world" conventions, though wonk controls, artificial stupidity and chaotic milieu does take some getting used to. Of course, online, everyone's working with the same set of tools, which makes it a whole different ball of chaotic wax, one seriously dependant on the actual intelligence or stupidity of your comrades and enemies.

Battlefield: Bad Company TIP: You'll want to take advantage of the fact that using vehicles in Bad Company gives you a huge advantage over those on foot, but they don't materialize all that often. If you're near a vehicle spawn point, wait for ride to appear instead of just running into the fray.