Battlefield 2

"Battlefield 2...does it meet expectations?"

Since 2002, Battlefield 1942 had proven that it was more than a typical war game...it had seamless vehicle battles, infantry combat, and lots of varied "kits". Battlefield Vietnam was a disappointment to many, even though if you broke it down to the bare basics it was still as good as 1942. With the release of Battlefield 2, people were worried that it wouldn't match the legendary Battlefield 1942. Fortunately, Battlefield 2 has delivered on its promise.

Story: N/A
Being the type of game it is, it doesn't really have a story. Battlefield 2 is set in the near future (2007). The United States battle it out with the People's Liberation Army and the fictional Middle East Coalition for supremacy of...uh...oil? I dunno. They just like to fight I guess. Standard stuff.

Graphics: 9/10
Wow is all I have to say. There is immense detail in everything, from the dirt kicking up behind a tank's treads to the markings on the F-18. You will see your teammates' mouth move when they talk and bullets will knock up dust when hit on concrete. Every vehicle looks exactly like their true life counterpart. Nearby explosions will blur your vision temporarily. To make a long story short….it's virtually perfect. However, the reason why it gets a nine instead of a ten is because you'll need a pretty damn good computer to run Battlefield on high graphics; anything less than medium will look really, really horrible.

Sound: 8/10
The sound effects in this game are very well done. You will hear sound of bullets whizzing by your head. You will hear the churning of a tank coming ‘round the corner. Explosions will muffle all sounds. The voice acting in particular is pretty well done too. The PLA (People's Liberation Army) and the MEC (Middle East Coalition) both speak their native language, Chinese and Arabic, so it adds a lot of authenticity to the game. However, that could pose a problem to some people because you wouldn't know what the heck “Poompola” means until you've played for awhile and have memorized all the phrases (poompola means grenade, by the way). Fortunately, there's an option for the voice to all be in English, although in my opinion it takes away from the feel of the game. One gripe I have about the sounds is the gun sounds. They all sound really…weak. Like, sure, this isn't Doom 3 or anything, but they should've made the guns sound more powerful. It feels like you're shooting peas or something.

Gameplay: 10/10
Ah…game play…the category that makes or breaks the game. Fortunately for Battlefield 2, it excels at this category. In case you're not familiar with the Battlefield series, it's basically like this: two armies fight it out in a huge map. Throughout the map are scattered numerous “control points”; strategic areas/buildings that the armies fight over. To capture a control point, one or more people have to stand around a flag and wait for a while. Once the flag is fully raised, the control point will be theirs and people will be able to respawn from that flag. Both armies have what Battlefield calls “tickets” which is basically points. To win a game, an army has to reduce the opponent's tickets to zero. Whenever someone dies, that's a ticket gone. If an army captures all of the control points, then the losing army starts to lose tickets very, very quickly. Armies consist of different “kits” or, for those MMORPG or RPG players, classes. There are seven different kits: spec ops, sniper, assault, support, engineer, medic, and anti-tank.

The assault class is your typical shoot-em-up guy. He gets an assault rifle equipped with a grenade launcher and wears heavy body armor. The sniper is, as the name implies, a sniper. Spec ops is a variation of assault except that he can blow up key emplacements on maps: bridges, enemy artillery, etc. Support supplies ammunition to teammates. The engineer is responsible for repairing bridges, artillery, and friendly vehicles. The anti-tank basically blows up enemy vehicles. The medic can heal people slowly in an area of effect radius, instantly heal one person, and can revive unconscious teammates.
So that's the general gist of it.

The actual game play is very smooth. There are various vehicles lying around waiting for people to hop in and create some havoc. The vehicles range from APCs to buggies, from anti-aircraft to assault copters. All have their strengths and weaknesses. The buggy is very fast but fragile and has minimal firepower, while the tank has a very strong shot but is a huge target for anti-tanks and jets. A new addition to Battlefield 2 is the sprint button. A stamina bar tracks the amount of stamina you have and the sprint button gradually depletes that bar. However, you cannot shoot while sprinting, so it will mainly be used to dart from cover to cover.

Before Battlefield 2, 1942 and Vietnam had almost no teamwork. Sure, you were on a team with fellow soldiers fighting it out, but there wasn't any sense of teamwork. But this has all changed now. Armies are divided into squads, consisting of a maximum of 6 people each. In each squad is a squad leader, someone who acts as a mobile spawn point which means that his squad mates can spawn next to him as long as he's alive. The squad leader is also the only one who can talk to the commander, which will be explained later. This squad system (in most games) forces the squad to work together and become quick 5 minute buddies, especially if they use VOIP.

VOIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is basically in-game chat. If you have a microphone, you're set. VOIP connects you and your squad to your own channel, which means you can talk only to your squad. The squad leader can talk to the commander. Therefore, information that's only available to the commander has the effect of being relayed to the squad leader, then to the individual members of the squad themselves, just like they do in real life.

The commander, as his name suggests, commands the entire battle. He looks at a bird's eye view of the entire map and gives basic orders to the squads, such as “Attack this position”, “Defend this area”, etc, etc, etc. However, he can also do four actions that could change the tide of the battle; he can send in artillery, drop down a UAV (basically a radar), initiate a satellite scan, or call in a supply drop. The artillery is basically a huge bombardment of cannons in a small area, wiping all living things from existence. The UAV will reveal enemy positions to the entire army in a small area. The satellite scan is kind of a UAV, but instead scans the entire map. The downside of that is that only the commander can see the enemy in a satellite scan. A supply drop drops a crate down, allowing teammates to replenish ammunition and repair vehicles.

Games vary from 16 players to 64. The maps scale to the size of the amount of players. A 16-player map feels like a Counter-Strike like experience, while a 64-player map feels like, well, a battlefield. Maps fluctuate between the lush greens of Dragon Valley, the city streets of Karkand, the swamps of Songhua, to the large cliffs of Kubra Dam. The downside of all these maps are that some feels kind of one-sided, especially the ones where the USMC (United States Marine Corps) start out with a single base and are sent to take out all of the others. The opposition can easily corner them off and beat them senseless. However, with a good squad and commander, the odds could turn in the US's favor.

EA and DICE (the developers) make a fairly good effort at balancing out the game. For example, there was a case of people “dolphin-diving” which basically means they go prone, jump, prone, jump, in very rapid successions. This makes them immensely difficult to hit and ruins the game for the gamers wanting to play the game properly. So in a recent patch, they added an actual animation of a soldier getting up after being prone, so you can't instantly jump after lying on the ground. However…EA/DICE tends to screw up on their patches; patch 1.2 added around 60 new bugs which they had to fix with patch 1.21 which caused a bit of problems with some people. Fortunately, only the most hardcore Battlefield fans actually notice this, so it'll be easy for the casual gamer to overlook this problem.

Replay: 10/10
There is no end to this game, so you're not really replaying it. Nevertheless, this game will keep you hooked like any good MMORPG would. A dedicated stat tracker keeps track of all your stats, where you'll eventually “level” up or promoted. Being promoted gets you new weapon unlocks. There are also a vast amount of ribbons and badges that you can acquire during game play. The maps are varied enough and most importantly, big enough to avoid any repetitious matches; one round will never be the same as another.

Overall: 9/10

Pros
- Big maps
- Varied game mechanics (vehicles)
- Graphics/Sound
Cons
- Bugs
- Steep system requirements

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/15/06