Battlefield 2: Modern Combat

"Not bad, not bad at all but could be better."

First of all, I played the whole Battlefield series for PC and I'm really happy seeing BF2 comming to PS2. The BF:MC sets all new standards for the new FPS' and finally introduces a real campaign! I gotta say that playing the original BF:1942 gets quite boring after a moment. The whole conquest/ticket thing has it's moments however Thank You EA for realizing that this sort of stuff should be in multiplayer only. So, here we go...

Graphics: 8/10
Overally pretty well done, just like EA normally does. The maps are cool and rich in buildings and surroundings. Colors and lightning aren't Splinter Cell but also good. Characters, vehicles, and weapons look above average and big attention is payed to details. Water effects are very good and dust/smoke looks real enough.

Sound: 9/10
Weapons and explosions sound very real: you can hear the clinging of metal pieces when destroying a tank or the hissing of the exhaust gases while firing a rocket. The music during gameplay could have been a little better but that doesn't have any effect on the overall playability of the game.

Single Player: 5/10
Here is where the major issues and big disappointments come in. First of all don't believe the box: the 50 weapons and 30 vehicles are all bull. There is maybe 3 types of rifles, a shotgun, a handgun, and a machine gun which are the main weapons. And the secondary weapons: frags, smoke grenades, flashbangs (if you count that as a weapon), laser target designator, knife (please...), rocket launcher, and claymore (I don't even mention engineer's weldtorch as a weapon because that's a joke). If you multiply that all together by four (for every army there is and yes it's almost all exactly the same no matter what army) then maybe you'll get the magic number of 50.

Same thing happens to vehicles, they may look a little different from each other on surface but in reality they are all the same and there is no jets (Arghhhh:(!!! One the other hand the helicopters are cool and yes those actually do differ from each other and there are several types for each army. The worst thing though is that you don't use vehicles and helicopters that much in single player missions! You fly the helicopter in maybe three or four missions from over twenty and there is like only one mission in which you have more then one available and they are all recon! I don't even recall any mission that you are able to fly an Apache. It is all Blackhawks, recons, and some Russian Mi's. Same thing is with tanks: the most you get in one specific mission is like four then it's one or two and most often none. You spend most time in Humvees or on foot. This is not the good old BF:1942 people, where you had Tigers, Panzers, Elephant Tanks, Jeeps, Stukas, Spitfires, and all that good stuff in one mission respawning, here everything is limited. What also becomes irritating is that enemy has everything from tanks to helos while you have to fight on foot trying to destroy them using LAW's/RPG's or laser target designator.

However screwed up the single player can be there is something that really catches the eye. The new Hotswapping technique is amazing. You can become any soldier from a friendly unit at any time, whether it's from a tank to a foot soldier to a helo you become that unit in a blink of an eye. You don't even have to travel long distances to get to your objectives, you just jump through friendly units using Hotswapping. It's also easier to destroy enemies this way, you strike them where they least expect it. This technique is really revolutionary and also what every FPS should have.

Multiplayer: 9.5/10
Whatever flaws the single player may have the multiplayer erases them all. It is really quite incredible: there is 12 different maps which are huge and believe me every one of those is as cool as the other one. All armies, vehicles, kits, and weapons are available online for your disposal whether, it is jeeps, tanks, helos, boats, anti-air, fast-attack, and you name it. There are two types of games: Conquest and CTF (Capture the Flag). Both are cool and played depending on different maps. It is especially enjoyable if you have a MIC and can speak to your friends over the net and discuss different strategies. It's so crazy that sometimes you have completely no idea of what the hell is going on – I mean smoke everywhere, grenades blasting, people shooting, helos overhead, you just want to say… damn! Battlefield is definitely a multiplayer game and that's where it shines.

Overall: 8/10
I would gladly give this game a ten however the single player really brings it down. Even with the Challenge Mode and Hotswapping it still doesn't meet the standards. The missions are random in difficulty which is a real pain, the story is confusing and uninteresting, even the old saving the world from a deadly virus or a nuclear threat would work better. Also playing on both sides really irritates you because while winning on one side you are losing on the other and then you have to switch which sucks because now you are on the losing side. If EA fixes those problems then they have a real good game. I have no problems when it comes to multiplayer, however they could include jets next time and increase the number of people on the server to at least 32. This game is worth buying for at least the multiplayer.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/09/06