Battlefield 2: Special Forces

"It's like the fun of Battlefield 2.....without the fun!!!!"

As I loved Battlefield 2 (even with it's flaws), when I picked up the complete edition I was excited to try this out. To start off the opening cutscene shows you an excited battle with US Navy seals breaking into a heavily guarded island using grappling hooks, gas bombs and masks, zip lines, a humvee with turrets coming out every which way, and night vision. Except this never happens in an actual game.


Graphics:8/10 Same graphics from BF2 but what was disappointing was they didn't even attempt to brush anything up or resolve any of the issues the game has with it models going through objects. For example you kill a player and his formal model is sticking out of a building like the wicked witch from the wizard of oz.

Sound: 9/10 All the same sounds from BF2 and guns sound like they should, although one problem is that they never decided to record any varying sounds so after the 10 trillionth time you heard the exact same bullet ping noise you get annoyed.

Gameplay: 4/10 This is where the games core is, the developers tried to move away from vehicle centric combat and more towards infantry VS. infantry. But, whenever there is a vehicle it is just that much more powerful especially when you find yourself with no anti-vehicle classes in your squad. The gas mask, and night vision were nice ideas but they are only really usable in a select few niche spots. Obviously night vision is only usable in night-time levels, and even then the AI never steps outside the lighted areas. The gas bombs were an interesting idea, however they are designed to be used in tight spaces, but upon being hit with gas most players just unload their clip down their corridor or drop all their grenades, pretty much nullifying any effect you were trying to achieve. However the things I bring up above are mostly up to opinion, but one thing no person can argue with is how instable the game platform is. You may find yourself in an intense fire fight or making a strafing run in a helicopter only to freeze for 10 seconds, black screen for 5, and minimize (if your lucky) to find some little notice like your anti-virus needs be updated sitting in the corner. When you maximize, black screen for 5 seconds, and get back to the game (again if your lucky), you find yourself dead, your team pissed, and many times experiencing pretty bad lag. Quick tabbing is something done by many games, but not this one.

Multiplayer 2/10 For a game built for multiplayer this is really disappointing. Most servers have horrible ping/lag rates, making anything other then running around violently shooting your weapon extremely hard to do, effectively defeating the more stealth like planned out game the devs were trying to create with this expansion pack. This brings up another issue, once you get past their annoyingly slow log in/sign up screen. You find yourself waiting another 2 minutes for all the servers to refresh. Then once you find a game you like you spend 5 minutes loading up the map/server many times only to find that they are switching maps or they have reserved slots. Another habit the server browser has of doing is reporting the wrong population numbers. So when you think your joining a 14 vs 14 player slug fest you join to find yourself and an afk admin.

As much as I wanted to enjoy this expansion I just wasn't able to bring myself too

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/28/08

Game Release: Battlefield 2: Special Forces (US, 11/21/05)