The 'events' in Battlefield 2 are based around a fictitious conflict between the US Marines, the Chinese Army and the Middle East Coalition. There is no narrative to speak of. Instead, each map in the game is a set scenario with two of the three armies involved, usually with one country invading another in order to secure a resource. But basically, as soon as the bullets start flying, all of this becomes completely irrelevant. The game supports games of 16, 32 and 64 players on each map, which is scaled appropriately according to the number of players (the game itself can support up to 128 players, but no maps currently support that number - Ed). Strangely there is only one combat type, Conquest – basically, one giant game of capture the flag. You must make your enemies run out of 'tickets' – one is used each time a player respawns – to win the map.
Dodging bombing in the Gulf of Oman.
Each of the three armies have the same classes, with only weapons differing. There are seven classes in all, each with their unique abilities. The Special Forces class gives you a submachine gun with a scope and C4 to destroy objectives, the support class allows you to give other members of your team ammo, the medic can revive the dead and heal the injured, the anti-armour class comes complete with a rocket launcher, while an engineer can repair vehicles and plant mines. There is also your assault class, who does the bulk of the fighting and relies on the other classes for support. They all work brilliantly well, and each action they perform is rewarded in points. For example, a medic gets as many points for reviving a team member as they do for killing someone. This stops the support classes from trying to kill everything in sight and encourages teamwork, as they get just as many points for killing somebody as they do for repairing a jeep. Great stuff. Unfortunately, the sniper is the weakest class. The first problem is that the zoom isn't quite strong enough, making long distance aiming hard. This could be understandable if the gun was a one hit kill – but it's not, unless you can manage to pull off a headshot which is no easy task given the zoom. While you can unlock better versions, a stronger default gun would have been nice. Apart from this though, the classes are wonderfully balanced.
It has to be said though, that most of this balance is destroyed by the vehicles in the game. Overhead jets can simply carpet bomb an area and knock out half a dozen players at a time. A tank can perform similar acts of slaughter, and helicopters are, in the hands of a skilled pilot, a menace. Then there is the artillery, which can wipe out countless players in a single strike. Very, very annoying if you're on the receiving end of it – but if you’re dishing it out, you'll be grinning ear to ear. While the balance has been sacrificed for the vehicles, it has to be said that they are just so much damn fun to use (and fight against) that it's definitely worth it. However, it is curious that a tutorial mode for the vehicles has been omitted, particularly for the helicopters and jets. Just flying them at first is tough – let alone making a successful bombing run.
The previous Battlefield games haven't really had any sort of organisational structure to the teams, which isn’t particularly good when there are 64 men hocking it to the front. Battlefield 2 has introduced a squad system to combat this problem. Basically, when you connect to a server you can join an existing squad of up to six people, or create one of your own. Each squad has a leader, who can give orders to the rest of the squad. While often this won't come into play as members of the squad will do what they feel like, when everybody works together the game becomes infinitely more interesting. The way voice communication has been implemented adds to this. Squad members can only communicate to other members in their squad, which encourage squads to work together. On top of this, only the squad leader can communicate with the team commander through voice communication, building a virtual chain of command.
The commander is another new addition to the game. The commander must balance a number of different priorities and tasks, such as giving each squad instructions, ordering spy planes to perform reconnaissance, and even set up artillery strikes. Balancing all this along with actual combat is a tough ask, so much so that a bad commander will, just like real life, cause you to lose the battle. Should you happen to be stuck with a bad one, you can mutiny against them easily enough – although this shouldn’t happen too often, as the commander is usually given the job based on a player's rank. Again, a tutorial mode would have been a great help here.
Unlike your standard online shooter, Battlefield 2 has a new theory of a constant identify. You create a profile when you first play the game, which accumulates statistics based on your performance. The classes you play as, the number of people you kill, how many times you die and so on are all recorded for your pleasure. On top of this, there is also a ranking system. For every certain amount of points you gain, your rank increases. It's a great way of establishing prestige, and driving people to play the game in an attempt to level up, so to speak. This also enables you to open up some better weapons, too. If this wasn't enough, there are also various ribbons and medals to obtain for each class, as well as unlockable weapons. Phew.
As a medic, you even get paddles to revive people.
Map design is crucial in any multiplayer shooter. Unfortunately, Battlefield 2 is a little disappointing in this area. Not much, mind. There are twelve maps in all, each of which scaled down on the number of players participating. Most of the maps, such as FuShe Pass (a giant canyon battle), Strike at Karkand (Black Hawk Down in the Middle East) and Gulf of Oman (Urban beach landing) are quite good. Some, such as the Kubra Dam, are not as good. In this particularly instance, the terrain is quite mountainous in places, making movement impossible without a vehicle. But, the biggest problem with the maps is a lack of variety. All take place around China and the Middle East, usually around oil refineries. A few more unique locations, such as a Chinese invasion on the West Coast of America (it is totally fictional, after all), would have been appreciated. Hopefully when the Special Forces expansion pack comes out soon (this year, apparently) some different levels will be available.
One of the biggest problems with Battlefield 2 occurs through no fault of developers Digital Illusions. Team killers are present on a lot of servers, and while you can punish them, it doesn’t really do much good. You can initiate a vote to kick a player from a server, but it requires basically two thirds of the server to vote for it – most will be too immersed in their own activities and they will never notice. Funnily enough, this also works in the opposite way. Some total failures at life seem to find jumping in front of a plane/helicopter just as it is taking off funny. Of course, they are team killed – and they punish you for it, affecting your overall statistics. Ridiculous. But, there's not really a whole lot that can be done to stop it other than vigilant server administrators, so it's unfair to punish the game for it.
As you would expect from any modern PC game, Battlefield 2 looks particularly good. While the detail is not up to the standards of Half Life 2, it is still quite spectacular – especially taking into consideration the 64 players battling it out on huge maps. Each class is unique in some way, with their own unique distinguishing features visible if you know what to look for. Vehicles are also very well modeled, almost looking like the real thing. Best of all, we found no substantial trace of lag or slow down. Considering this is an online shooter played on old hardware at high settings, it's certainly very impressive. The sound is just as good, too. While music isn't really prominent, the various effects for the different guns and vehicles in the game are most impressive. Each gun as its own unique sound, which can often help establish friend from foe.
The lifespan of Battlefield 2 is simply ridiculous, in a very good way. While there is single player mode, with some much improved AI, its sole purpose is to prop up the huge multiplayer. Basically put, do not buy this game if you don’t intend to play the game online. But once you get online, mastering the various classes in vehicles will take the rest of your life. The different ranks, medals and ribbons mean you will be playing the game for years – the top ranks will require countless hours of playtime to achieve. Countless.
Pressing the print screen button here caused the game to stutter, and hence we flew straight into the dam and died.
As an online shooter, Battlefield 2 is as good as it gets. It is not faultless. There are balance issues, particularly with vehicles. Team killing is a pain in the ass, to put it bluntly, be it through no fault of the developer. Some sort of game tutorial, particularly for the vehicles and commander, would have been appreciated, as would some sort of single player campaign. There are some really minor problems too, like the EA/Digital Illusions intro moves you can't skip, no listing of servers by country, and even a dodgy server list that almost crashes the game (but has since been patched). But, all this is instantly forgiven the second you go online and join a squad that is truly working together, because it is just so much damn fun. And really, isn’t that what games are all about?
.
, although I do have an ATI.
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