 | | Battlefield is back, and my god is it better than the last one... |
|
I already
touched upon Battlefield 2's greatness last month, but let's get into some specifics. You see, to me this is not only the culmination of the Battlefield series...but the first person shooter as a whole.
Obviously, single player mode is rather non-existent here - something to be expected from the Battlefield series, if still a little disappointing. Instead the concentration is once again placed firmly upon the multiplayer game. And what a game it is.
The basic setup is similar to the original's conquest mode. Your team squares off against an opposing force with the sole aim of draining each other's reinforcements down to zero. This is done through a mixture of capturing command posts, and good old fashioned killing.
The greatness comes in the details though. Wonderfully, the game awards points based on performance of play and teamwork, not just raw kills. So a medic can dominate the scoreboard just as easily as a front-line heavy machine gunner.
 | | BF2's character creation and stat tracking mark PC gaming's turn towards more in-depth Xbox Live-style features long overdue |
|
In fact, by sticking to cover, not acting like the hero, and concentrating on the well being of his team and resurrecting those who fall, a medic will do a million times better than one who charges into the fray looking for glory.
The same applies to all the classes, from the engineer to the spec ops trooper; excel at your chosen class, and you're rewarded with a score that reflects it.
And rewarded you will be. In a stroke of genius, Battlefield 2 actually takes a massive huge chapter out of America's Army in its character creation and stat tracking. All your kills, deaths, heals, captures, and much more are recorded, and you're given medals, awards and an overall score that reflects 'em. As this score increases, you gain promotions and unlock new weapons to use in the battlefield.
Not only does this flavour the game with a minor MMO feel - levelling up your character as you play - but it also brings Halo 2 style stat tracking to a PC for the first time. It really does make a heck of a difference to your long-term enjoyment of the game.
I Command Thee
These wee little bonuses are nice and all, adding greatly to BF2's longevity, but the biggest impact on the game itself is the way the teamwork has been so successfully integrated this time out. All team members now have the ability to create and manage private squads, where they can dish out commands and orders via simple radio commands, or the fabulously cool built-in voice communication. On death, squad members can even respawn at their leader's position, meaning no more dead time spent on getting back into the action.
 | | While the option is still there to play lone-wolf, the game only truly comes alive once you start utilising the new squad functions |
|
While these squads will be working by themselves a lot of the time, the new commander class is what ties all of them together though. The commander is a soldier on the battlefield like any other, however he has additional abilities designed to lead the team to victory.
First and foremost is the overhead map. Using satellite style imaging, the commander can zoom in to any portion of the map and watch a real-time feed of the action. From here he can send orders to specific squads via pop up menus and voice chat, and call out enemy positions and tactics on the fly. More importantly though, he can also rain in artillery strikes and supply drops at will.
What's great is those artillery cannons can just as easily be destroyed by a few stray satchel charges if your opponents manage to break through your base's defences. Like I say...it's all in the details. There's just so much going on and so many different facets to this game that it's hard to take it all in.
While games in the Battlefield series have always felt a little aimless and random to me, the new order system rectifies that immensely by giving you so much more to do. Your commander may have you attacking waypoints, or he might send you over to repair equipment and heal team mates. Either way, there's always a job that needs doing in BF2, and a good commander will keep each and every man on his team busy if he plans to succeed. How this will all translate to clan play remains to be seen, but the mere thought of it all makes me harder than R. Kelly at recess.
On a full size server, the commander class has the potential to play like the most vicious, past-paced RTS imaginable, and although in reality it doesn't quite fulfil that promise due to those troublesome squads who repeatedly ignore orders til you're blue in the face, it's still an absolute blast and an epic addition to the conquest mode. The feeling of leading your team to victory as commander is kind of unparalleled in this genre.
Run Forrest, Run
 | | The ground combat has been improved hugely, with a much more stable, weighty feel to the guns, multiple firing modes, rag-doll deaths and some of the most useful iron-sights yet seen in a game |
|
The vehicles were always Battlefield 1942's strong point, and they're all but perfected here. Planes and choppers are slightly easier to control, and each and every vehicle has a wonderful sense of power without ever being invincible.
It's the infantry combat that truly shines though, with a solid and stable ground game that almost goes toe to toe with Valve's offerings. Let's be honest, that wasn't exactly the case with the previous Battlefield games was it?
BF2's new and improved engine is a sight to behold, and with all the settings ramped up to full, even rivals the Source engine. Sure, the physics aren't quite as good - more comical and over the top than anything - but there's nothing quite like lobbing a grenade into a room full of enemy troops and watching them go flying out the windows.
It does however, require a significantly more vicious beast of a PC to run than pretty much any game currently on release - something at least partially understandable, given the epic size of the maps.
These maps scale in size depending on the amount of player slots, and for me it's a simple case of more the merrier. On 16 player servers, the action remains close and intimate, with a heavy focus on infantry. Ramp it up to 32 players though and brilliance starts to show itself. The maps double in size, capture points move to more strategic locations, and more vehicles are thrown into the mix.
 | | Maps include boggy swamps and mountainous valleys. Best are the intercity ones though - very Black Hawk Down |
|
But find yourself one of the lucky few able to snag a slot on a 64 player server, and you'll witness what internet gaming is truly capable of. Massive war zones that dwarf the first game. Dozens of self contained squads off doing their own thing. Commanders tying all the team members together for coordinated attacks. Artillery firing off all over the place. Choppers and planes dog-fighting all around you. Explosions constantly ringing in your ears. My god, for such an arcadey title, BF2 has the surprising trait of pulling off the most realistic sense of being in a full-on war yet. Forget Call of Duty and its miniscule backyard scraps, BF2 feels both so much more real, and so much more terrifying.
Tying up all these positives, is the sound. The gunfire, explosions and sound effects in general are so gloriously chunky in this game that you'll be ducking in your chair.
The chaotic fire-fights on the larger servers will happily rival Saving Private Ryan for sheer auditory power, and with a 5.1 surround setup, it's about as realistic a game as I've ever heard.
Server is Fucking Full. Try Again, Douche Bag
On the downside, I must say that while engaging in colossal fire-fights in these most glorious settings, part of me wonders what it'd feel like to see a proper single player game integrated into the Battlefield universe. Here we get the bog-standard bot matches as expected, but only playable on the smaller 16 player versions of each map.
We've seen massive open ended war experiences pulled off brilliantly in single player games before (Hidden & Dangerous and Operation Flashpoint to name the best), and the potential is so blatantly here for similar scripted adventures in the Battlefield universe. And don't even get me thinking about the potential for online co-op games as I'll most likely blow a load.
 | | Technical issues unfortunately plague the game for a small fraction of players. Just taking these screenshots was a mammoth crash-filled undertaking that still haunts me at night |
|
Instead I almost feel like Dice don't bother chucking in anything of substance for the single player because after three successful titles they know they can happily get away with it.
Also I must say the game's front-end is absolutely horrible, and a big old ugly blemish on an otherwise stunning game. The menus take forever to load, key binding is an un-intuitive mess and the inbuilt server browser is a travesty. The recent patch helped alleviate some of this ever so slightly, but it really needs to be castrated completely and rebuilt from the ground up.
These annoyances are joined by some unfortunate technical issues. Crashes, disconnects and stuttering framerate lapses are no stranger to BF2, albeit of varying degrees from player to player. Dice have more than proven themselves genuine beauties when it comes to providing post-release support and patches to their games, so I'm in no way worried about these niggling problems getting resolved at some point though.
To be honest, any small probs you have with the game tend to turn invisible in the shadow of how monumentally fun it is anyway. Battlefield is a blast of a game, one that finds that golden spot between hardcore realistic warfare and good old arcadey action like no other ever has. With cutting edge graphics, ferocious sound, a wonderful sense of team work and some of the most rock solid FPS action seen since Counter-Strike, this title is destined for great things.
EA, this is one franchise you can milk for expansion packs all you want - I'll happily nab every last one of 'em. BF2 is a monster of a game that happily goes toe to toe with WoW and Resident Evil 4 as 2005's greatest yet.
