There is no doubt Battlefield 2 will be a popular game, thanks to Desert Combat. Newcomers will be overjoyed by the graphics and gameplay, but those moving from the original or DC will be disappointed to find nothing much has changed.
To think Battlefield began with Codename Eagle, a game that according to the DiCE website, sold 250,000 copies worldwide. Not bad considering it was a title made by a foreign developer in 1999. Looking back at Codename Eagle, and Battlefield, one can deduce that multiplayer first-person shooters are more than just a genre for the Swedish game studio – they are an obsession.
While Codename Eagle has been and gone, people still play Battlefield: 1942. The funny thing is, it’s not plain BF1942 that people play, and it’s not the reason they’re still playing it. BF1942 has a mod called Desert Combat to thank for that. Much like Half-Life and Counter- Strike, the game was eclipsed by a community created modification, leaving it, and an official expansion, to hibernate.
So, what did DiCE and EA decide to do? Why, create a sequel that’s almost identical in every way to Desert Combat! Apart from a mighty fine engine tune, an official ranking system, and a squad system, nothing much is new. This doesn’t mean it’s a bad game – just an uninspired one.
The premise of the Battlefield series is objective-based team multiplayer. Players log onto online servers and compete to hold points, invade enemy bases and kill one another. The duration of each match is decided using tickets – as players die, they use up a team ticket from a pool of (usually) 200. Holding over half the points on a map causes tickets to deplete at a steady rate. This wonderful mechanic helps to get players working as a team, rather than going solo, and it works for the most part.
Vehicular combat in the form of jeeps, tanks, planes and choppers is also present, but most vehicles require multiple occupants – one driving, one gunning, etc – to make the most of them. Unlike Battlefield: 1942, BF2 is set in the modern day, giving the player access to many of today’s weapons and allowing hordes of teenage kids to slaughter foreigners in their thousands with them. What is sad is that none of these game mechanics have changed at all. To add insult to injury, BF2 has only a small selection of maps (about 10) and a single game mode (Conflict).
What the hell?
One thinks the developers got too caught up overhauling the graphics engine. Dynamic lighting and shadows, pixel shaders galore, and excellent sound effects and animations do much to cover what is quite obvious once you play the game for any appreciable amount of time.
Don’t expect to enjoy any of these graphical improvements however, unless you’re running a machine crafted by Zeus’ IT guy out of raw lightning bolts and ambrosia. Without a 6800 Ultra or X800, 2GB RAM and a Athlon 64 4000+, you’ll be turning the graphics settings down to Medium and Low just so you don’t get creamed online.
On the upside, much has gone into making the netcode efficient, and apart from the odd stop-start, gameplay is pretty smooth on an ADSL connection. The commander role allows for a controlled and co-ordinated gaming experience, as long as the person in the role is up to it, and the players actually listen to his commands. The commander can issue orders to squads, fire artillery and easily see the progress of battle. Like Tribes and Natural Selection, this adds another enjoyable facet to the game – if used correctly.
When you join a battle you can select from a variety of defensive, offensive and specialised classes. Medics and Engineers will keep your troops and vehicles moving; Support (heavy machinegun), Assault and Special Forces act as grunt; and Anti-Tank troops and Snipers provide unique combat options. Medics are perhaps the most interesting, able to bring dead units back to life to keep the flow of battle going.
There is no doubt Battlefield 2 will be a popular game, thanks to Desert Combat. Newcomers will be overjoyed by the graphics and gameplay, but those moving from the original or DC will be disappointed to find nothing much has changed. Regardless, people will make the move anyway simply because they can.
At its best, Battlefield 2 is an awesome gaming experience and a bastion for the ultimate in intense team multiplayer. However, at anything less than a full server packed with people who aren’t total idiots and a commander who knows what he’s doing, it’s just the same old Battlefield/Desert Combat, except shinier.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012