|
|
Dice PC |
|
Battlefield 2 is the modern-combat sequel to the WWII era Battlefield 1942. Battlefield 2 is a team based game where each highly organized side attempts to defeat the other by attrition and capturing spawn points. The reality is a bunch of headless chickens with names like "kingkilla" and "n00bFr4g3r" running amok and trying to personify their namesakes with varying degrees of success (or failure). The game is thankfully not as bad as I make it out to be. Although I never played the original Battlefield, nor any of its expansions, from what I've heard, Dice (the designers) have fixed pretty much all of the flaws of the original and improved the aspects that were already great to begin with. Plot. There really isn't much of a plot. There are three factions in the game: the US, China, and a fictional group called the MEC, or Middle East Coalition. There are many maps, and while each map has a small text blurb describing what is going on and who is trying to capture what, it's all pretty trivial. Basically, there only plot is in the background information for the game. Graphics. A few things: first, the computer requirements for the game are high. Additionally Windows XP is required to play the game. As a high end game, the graphics are everything one has come to expect from new games, so I'm just going to touch on some of my favorite aspects of it. When walking though fields with a lot of brush, sometimes you will startle a flock of birds, which will take to wing and fly off, potentially giving away your position. The packs and pouches on everyone's uniform bounce in time with the running. Lastly, the shadows, shaders, and textures are terrific. You can stand behind some slatted boards, and the sun will cast slatted shadows on your body. If the sun is near sunset, some areas, depending on the surrounding structures and lighting, will take on an orange shade. Finally, watching a plane fly through a small building with the afore-mentioned slatted boards and orange haze, and still cast a shadow of a plane as it flies through the room is just stunning. Sound. Sound is one of my personal biggest complaints. The sound, while there is some background music, mostly consists of just gunfire and explosions. While these may be helpful if you have a fancy sound set up, with just my two speakers, it becomes vaguely annoying and discordant. This is not to say that the sound is bad, or monotonous. In fact, the sounds are quite good, and there are even small little things, like the Chinese shout in Mandarin, and the MEC shouts in Arabic. Its just for me, the overall effect of the sound is discordant, and personally I'd turn off my speakers if I didn't need the actual noise of gunfire and explosions to know what is going on. Gameplay. Ok, this is gonna be long, so bear with me. The standard game revolves around spawn points. Each side will normally start off with at least one spawn point, and there my by some unclaimed ones on the map too. Additionally, each side has an equal and set number of "tickets." Each time someone on the team dies, the team loses a ticket. Whichever side runs out of tickets first loses. Now if your team controls more spawn points than the enemy, the other team's tickets will start decreasing regardless of if anyone dies. If your team manages to capture all of the spawn points, and kill off the remaining people from the other team, your team will win there and then. To help your team accomplish these goals, there are several different "Kits" or classes of soldier to play. All three factions have approximately the same equipment, so I'm going to use the US Marines as my example. The Assault class is the basic class. You get a sturdy Kevlar vest to help you take a little extra damage, and you get an M-16 with a grenade launcher. (All classes have a 9mm semi-automatic, a knife, and some form of grenade (smoke, concussion, frag) as backup). Another class is Special Ops, which has a submachine gun with a laser sight and C-4 bricks. Their job is to sneak behind enemy lines and destroy equipment, bridges, and occasionally vehicles. Then there is Support. Support carries a light machinegun, which is best used lying down. Support can also re-supply your teammates with ammunition, since there are no ammo or health stations. The medic class can give med-packs, heal teammates, and revive dead ones with a defibrillator. (Revived teammates don't cause your team to lose a ticket) The medic can also auto-kill enemies using the defibrillator, but they have to get close enough to touch them with it. (Whenever this happens, the game posts it on the screen in red for everyone to know that someone just suffered the indignity of being killed by the defibrillator). Additionally, whenever a medic is in a vehicle, there is an aura that slowly heals everyone nearby. The Engineer carries a shotgun, which is useless at anything but short range. The engineer can repair broken equipment and vehicles, and place minefields. An Engineer in a vehicle puts out a repair aura. Finally, there is an Anti-Tank class, which carries a wire-guided bazooka type weapon (in addition to a sub-machinegun) Thankfully, the bazooka type weapon is highly ineffective at killing soldiers, so it should cut down on everyone running about with only the bazooka. In addition to the soldier classes there are some 30 or so vehicles, ranging from dune-buggies to humvees to Bradley Fighting Vehicles, tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets. Battlefield 2 supports a high level of organization. Voice chat is included by default, so teammates on a squad can talk to each other. Additionally, the squad leaders can speak directly with the team commander. On a squad, the team leader also acts as a mobile spawn point for all members of the squad. The battlefield commander is a new addition from Battlefield 1942. The commander has access to a special screen where he has a satellite view of the battlefield (he can even zoom in to the point where individual people are visible.) He also has access to satellite scans, UAVs (remote survey robot planes), supply drops, and artillery strikes. The opposing team can deny the commander these advantages by blowing up corresponding pieces of equipment (like the UAV shed or the artillery units) which then cannot be used until they are repaired. The commander is also a soldier on the battlefield, though in larger games would probably be of more use hiding somewhere and just directing the battle. An original complaint from Battlefield 1942 was map size. Some of the maps where just too big and it took forever to get anywhere. In Battlefield 2 the maps are designed to enlarge depending on how many people are on them. Difficulty. Battlefield 2 is an online FPS, so you are going against real opponents. In my opinion, this game is harder than some other FPS because in a random pickup game, there is very little organization, so at least I tend to find myself going up against a tank, and the tank wins 99 out of 100 times, unless I'm playing anti-tank, and then I won't see a single armored vehicle the rest of the game. Overall, in my opinion, the vehicles are a little to prevalent (though I'm sure other people will like it for this very reason). One time I was guarding a spawn point, as anti tank, and some guy comes up in a tank to capture it. I take cover and start shooting the tank (2-3 shots to take it out). When the tank only has a sliver of health left, the guy jumps out. Just then one of my side's tanks spawns right beside me, and he runs, immediately hops into my tank right before I get to it, then runs me over. While I have no problem stealing enemy equipment, there's just something wrong about the way this little battle played out. I find this game a lot more frustrating than something like Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. Maybe it's just me, and perhaps playing in an organized clan would be better than the chaos that is open play. Spiffy Stuff. One neat thing is the ranked servers. Most servers are ranked and report all your stats back to a persistent database, so you can see your gameplay statistics. Additionally, you can gain ranks (people of higher rank get first pick at being commander) and you can unlock weapons for each kit that are generally better than the default main weapon. Replay Value. While there is a basic single player 16 person bot practice maps, this game is pretty much online only. It does support modding though, so I'd expect this game to be around for a long time. Overall. I find the game to be very well designed: content, technology, and gameplay wise. My only complaints are with the sound, and that for whatever reason, I find the game to be very frustrating to play. While I don't claim to be a FPS master, I'm not terrible either, but something about this game just frustrates me to no end. Final Ratings:
|
|
| [Back to Collector Times] |
| [Prev.] | [Return to Reviews] | [Return to Gaming] | [Disclaimer] | [Next] |
|
|
|