Immensely playable, fantastic graphics and an unmissable online experience
Disadvantages:
Requires a powerful computer to run
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
This game combines the best elements of the best first person shooters with the polished graphics of the best war simulators and retains all of the gameplay of the best, well, games, out there. Yep, it's the best of the best and it's begging to be installed on your computer right now!
"Rover, fetch!" -------------------- Well, actually, it may be begging to be installed on your computer but for your computer it's the equivalent of being thrown an overladen Land Rover and being told to fetch. This is a very resource intensive game and will leave the insides of your unsuspecting computer cooked if you really want to see what it can offer in terms of graphics. For those of you that DO have the top-end high spec PCs, then this probably one of the few games out there worth buying just to see what your machine can do when let off the leash. Dynamic lighting effects give the environment extra depth with shadows to die for (actually, I DID die quite often - too busy watching the shadows of the hordes of rampant enemy squads running toward me). Textures, both world and character, are also stunning. Thrown in with nice details like individual blades of grass and bushes that feel more 3D than 2D we have a particularly good platform to have a good, solid killfest. Likewise, the sound quality is good but I must admit the constant American drawl if you have the friendly audio radio on English gets on my nerves. That can be easily remedied, however, by listening to the odd spurt of Chinese or Arabic, which is far more preferable.
Rules of Engagement -------------------------------- Newcomers to the Battlefield series may be somewhat taken aback at the lack of plot or direction behind the gameplay. You're simply given a number of maps with various control points that, when captured, act as spawn points for your team, played by bots. Each of the two opposing factions are given a number of tickets (lives) that are decreased when the opposing faction holds more control points. In addition, each time a team member dies one ticket is deducted from his team's overall ticket count. Essentially, the you're all drinking from the same cup, as it were.
You have the choice of six variants of troop type: Special Ops, Assault, Medic, Engineer, Support and Sniper. Each do have an important role to play in the team and ignoring that role can be the difference between winning and losing. Special Ops are needed to destroy enemy artillery and radar capability, assault well, erm, assault, snipers provide cover fire, support troops carry a big machine gun and are able to drop ammo boxes, medics revive and heal and engineers lay mines and repair vehicles, artillery and stationary guns etc. If you want a quick bash, you can just select an assault trooper and go out guns a-blazing but if you prefer a more subtle approach then being a Special Ops and sneaking behind enemy lines to destroy that artillery piece with your demo charges may be your cup of tea. Whatever you style, you'll find it accommodated in one of the six troop types.
Each map has 3 variants: Large, medium and small. Each has a smaller number of repositioned control points, which does add to the longevity of the map. It forces the player to think of the same map in a different way and doesn't feel that like you're playing the same map twice. The small maps tend to be fast and pacy whilst the larger maps become more tactical as it is then impossible to just keep running all over the map defending everything.
However, the bots can't handle large maps since the AI is so intensive. It seems the developers have limited the size of the maps to medium. And the AI is pretty top-notch to say the least. If you're fan of other first person shooters and think you can just start by putting the difficulty on 100% and jumping around like a loon firing rockets left, right and centre - think again.
"Yes, Sir!" ------------------ One feature that stands out from all over similar first person shooters is the squad and commander system. Instead of a team of, say, 20 individuals, the players can choose to join generic squads. The commander then relays orders from his tactical screen (a plan view of the map) in order to bring the mayhem his team is inflicting into some kind of concerted action in order to win overall. Also available to the commander are artillery, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and radar capability, all of which serve to help to identify and destroy enemy troops from a distance. This means the commander really has to just sit somewhere safe but it can be a very rewarding role when you place artillery down on a horde of massed insurgents and watch their red blips on the radar just blip out of existence. But if you think you can win a game this way, then you'd best find a good spot to hide because these actions only serve to help support your team whilst they capture the vital control points. And all of this is providing that a Special Ops team don't sneak in and blow your artillery and radar to smithereens.
It's features like these that mean you'll soon realise that the single player option is really only a practice for the REAL game: The online game.
Jack-In and Clear That Space Under Your Desk ----------------------------------------------------------------- Online gaming is where this game really comes into its own. You haven't experience the best that wargames have to offer if you haven't played Battlefield 2 online with 63 other people. Vehicles such as jeeps, humvees, boats, APCs, tanks, helicopters and various aircraft are used in the game (all easy to control and handled reasonably well by the bots too) but you just haven't experienced the full depth of gameplay until that human controlled helicopter swoops down between two buildings and the gunner nails the dirt around you. Added effects to mimick ringing ears and disorientation only add to realism that will have you diving off your chair to take cover under the desk if you aren't careful.
The online scene is still very active and there are servers running 24/7 for those of us who (think we) can take the pace, If fantastic gameplay wasn't enough, then there is also a ranking system that takes into account your total number of kills, how often you've revived people, fixed tanks etc.. that rewards you with higher rank and some weapon unlocks that aren't available in the single player game. And trust me, when you've played online enough and been frequently double tapped by some previously unknown weapon and your measly assault rifle barely tears the fabric of the enemy's uniform, you'll appreciate the worth of better weapons.
Patchier Than Your Grandmother's Quilt ------------------------------------------------------ Yes, with all good things there is a rotten side lurking in the darkness waiting for some unsuspecting bystander. The game suffered greatly from bugs when it was first released but have since been mostly fixed by the numerous patches EA Games released soon after. However, one or two still remain and are sometimes exploited by some nefarious characters online in order to get those extra few kills. But all in all, if you purchase one of the newer versions of the game most of the patches will be built in and you won't have a problem.
Also, once you played each map and it's associated variants often enough in single player, the game does stagnate a little. There are enough options, such as being able to vary the number of bots and their difficulty to keep things interesting but this game was really built for multiplayer games. But to access these you have to start a LAN (i.e. on your own) and make the computer think you're wanting to play multiplayer. Otherwise, you have only three difficulty options and no choice in the number of bots.
So if you want a good network on this game, ring your friends, use whatever internet-chatting program you use with your microphone and join them in a squad online. The only other option is the cooperative mode, which has a reduced number of maps and includes mixed human and bot teams. You find a couple of these kind of games online where you might have 5 humans holding off 40 bots. Great fun at first but lacks the dimension of the full online game.
The Final Word ---------------------- If you're looking for a top-notch, immensely playable first person shooter that delivers bucket loads of fun and endless carnage, this is the game for you but you'll need a high spec computer and a fast internet connection to really appreciate the game.
More details
Addictiveness
Very hard to stop playing
Originality
Good
Value for money
Excellent value
Longevity/Expected Longevity
ongoing
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