This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.
When Battlefield 1942 came out a few years ago, many people jumped on the bandwagon and played the heck out of it. Soon after its release, people started to hold LAN parties for the title because it was such a great game. Just imagine 32 or 64 players on one map at the same time. Electronic Arts then released Battlefield Vietnam, which is pretty much the same thing but with a Vietnam theme. Now we have Battlefield 2, which takes both of those titles’ great atmospheres and revamps them with better controls, insane visuals, and more things to blow up!
Battlefield 2 is a huge step up from Battlefield 1942. There weren’t as many vehicles or large maps in its predecessor, but Battlefield 2 features numerous vehicles and incredibly large maps. Another thing was that you had to use Team Speak or any other third-party software to talk to your friends within the game. It was quite a hassle, because you had to go to the software’s website and download the program/s and then install the package. This time, Digital Illusions decided to make communication built in. Now you can use that handy microphone and talk to any player on the server.
There are now squads which play a huge role within the game. When you join a squad, you are automatically connected to your squad mates via a VoIP channel. If you have a working microphone, this will come in handy as detailed above. The squad leader will use this to give orders because it is important to listen to the leader – he has direct communication to the commander while the rest of the squad mates do not. A cool thing about being in a squad is the fact that whenever you die and the squad leader is still alive, you can spawn from wherever he is located. So you have the action spawn points and the ability to spawn with the leader. If you want to create a squad, you can access the squad screen by pressing the home or caps-lock keys. This will show the squad menu.
There are seven different types of soldiers you can choose from. These include special forces, sniper, assault, support, engineer, medic, and anti-tank. The special forces come armed with silenced pistols and C4 explosives. This class was the best in my opinion due to the precise weaponry and the items that you come packed with. Sniper is pretty much self-explanatory if you have played first-person shooters before. You are suited up in camouflage with a sniper rifle and this time you get claymore mines. The assault class is equipped with the machine gun/grenade launch combo and the smoke grenade. The support class is essential for any team; this is the ammo guy that supplies the ammo to you when you’re low. Engineers can fix every vehicle, weapon, and bridge there is in the game. Medic is also an essential class, because this one can heal you when you’re hurt. And finally the anti-tank class packs a deadly missile launcher that can do some heavy damage to nearby tanks. The engineer, support, and medic classes get extra points for what they specialize in. For example, if you’re in the support class, you will get points for giving ammo to your teammates.
There is a new character development feature for when you play online. Once you log into a server, Battlefield 2 will then track your stats0 throughout the game. This feature will keep track of your kills, deaths, aim, and various other items. Once you log out, you can see how well you compare. If you do well enough, you receive special items such as decals and new weapons.
When we saw the first screenshots of the game a few years back, I was quite amazed with how good it looked. Now that it is out I can say that the game’s environments, vehicles, and characters look simply incredible, however you do need a high-end system to witness all of this. The maps are huge and still comfortable even if you had all 64 players in on the same server, although if you’re playing a game with just eight people, expect yourself to be playing for quite awhile.
Now for those who don’t play online, you can now play as if you were playing with real humans. The single-player mode is quite fun. Battlefield 1942 had some “stupid” bots that didn’t know what they were doing. We all knew that and not many people played its single-player portion. Digital Illusions fixed that, thankfully. Battlefield 2 gets it right and we now have smarter bots that are team-coordinated. The commander gives the correct orders and the team actually does it. Very surprising! Hell, I wish the bots were brought into the online mode and replaced some of the humans. One can only hope.
There isn’t much to say about Battlefield 2 in this department. There are a few major gripes such as the irritating server browser. Whenever you start the game, you are first introduced to the game’s browser. This allows you to go online or play in single-player mode. The worst part of the browser is that it freezes up quite often and not to mention the lack of adding in favorite servers. There is also an annoying lag that plagues the browser when we press refresh server list.
Before the game came out, Electronic Arts announced that you would need a pretty kick-ass system to run it. Heck, you can’t even have a GeForce 2 to play this. It kind of sucks because there are tons of gamers out there who had to drop their current graphics cards just to play this. Another issue that totally irked fans was that it takes a year just to go back to the main menu. While you’re in the game, you must press escape to go back to the server browser/options. Well, as soon as you hit escape, a box comes up stating that the menu is loading. Oh c’mon now – since when do you have to wait for options screens to appear in games? All the windows have this sort of lag which slows the gamer down.
Since Battlefield 2 is an online game that requires you to team up with others, you are often joined by people who have no clue what the hell they’re doing. This isn’t the game’s fault, but rather today’s modern gamers who think team killing is the funniest thing in this world. For example, I jump in a helicopter and not knowing what kind of skills the pilot has – I’m immediately heading for a building and this guy has no intention of pulling away. So my choice is to bail or get blown into little pieces. The point is, you will come across this when you first join a server, so don’t be surprised.
Overall, Battlefield 2 is a major improvement over Battlefield 1942. VoIP is finally in the game which makes Team Speak pretty pointless now. The graphics have drastically improved along with smarter AI – to an extent. The maps are massive just like they were in its predecessor. If you want something to play at a LAN and you’re bored of Quake 3, Counter-Strike, or World of Warcraft, then this is your title. This is a great game to play as a group; it’s absolute fun when there are 64 people in a server at once. I suggest you head out to your local videogame retailer and purchase this game (and a new graphics card) today – you won’t be disappointed.
The maps are massive and the new square options are exciting. It’s very fun to play!
Very beautiful. Only drawback is you'll need a high-end system. Expect to shell out some cash
Sounds just like Battlefield 1942 with some new elements. Still very good.
The new vehicles and aircraft are fun to control. Newbie helicopter pilots annoy me.
Online play is where it's at. This will keep you busy for months.
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