Battlefield: Bad company 2 - 9 Top Tips

PLAYING RAMBO WILL ONLY GET YOU SO FAR IN BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2.

Just ask Team Sidewinder, New Zealand's premier first-person shooter gaming crew. Here are the team's top nine Battlefield tactics.

1 - SPOT! Spot every hostile you encounter, even if you cannot personally deal with the target. This means everything, including the seemingly obvious tanks and helicopters! It will raise awareness for your entire team and may also dictate the class they choose upon respawning. Press Q key on keyboard, the 'Back' button on Xbox 360 and 'Select' on PS3. This is the single most important tip!

2 - LEARN ALL KITS, GUNS AND EQUIPMENT You may prefer to play a particular class, but the best players master all classes and learn to adapt to their enemy's strategy. You never know when you may need to use something out of the ordinary in the heat of battle

3 - SQUAD UP! Work with your squad on objectives! You'll provide your squadmates with spawn locations near the heat of battle and keep the pressure on your opponents. Not only this, but you'll quickly rack up the points, and it's a lot more fun!

4 - SUPPLY YOUR TEAM! As Medic you have med kits, the Assault class has ammo boxes and Recon has motion sensors. Don't be afraid to use these whenever and wherever possible as it helps your team. Besides, it's not like it costs you anything to hand them out – they're free! And they give you points! What more can you ask for?!

5 - CAUGHT RELOADING? Switch to your handgun. Never reload when you run dry in the middle of a firefight; go to your sidearm instead to finish enemies off. It's much faster than finishing a reload and could mean the difference between life and death.

6 - MAKE USE OF OTHER KITS Swap to a dead enemy's kit if it's to your advantage. Resupply your health and ammo from fallen enemy medics and assaults if you're another class. Use a dead medic's defibrillator to revive a recently downed ally! Pinned down by an enemy tank? Perhaps that dead engineer was carrying an RPG launcher...

7 - PLAY FLEXIBLY If you see an unused asset in your base, bring it up and give your team some armour support! Enemy armour giving you trouble? Go Engineer and help take it out with RPGs

8 - MIX UP YOUR POSITION Stay mobile after a kill and keep your enemy guessing, especially as a Recon player. There's nothing like a couple of sniper kills to give away your position and make you a priority target.

9 - SHORT, CONTROLLED BURSTS Almost always use short bursts over sustained firepower to control your weapon's recoil and improve accuracy. And it may sound obvious, but go for the head – you'll take your enemies down twice as quickly