- War simulation, online multiplayer action with 64 players on the PC
- Battle as U.S., Chinese, or Middle East Coalition troops
- 30+ land, sea, and air vehicles; choose from a variety of soldier classes
- New state-of-the-art weapon systems, including heat seeking missiles
- Increase rank and unlock awards; voice-over IP (VOIP) supported
Product Description
The award-winning Battlefield franchise invades the high tech frontlines of modern warfare in the new sequel, Battlefield 2. Engage in battle with over 64 players in some if of the largest online battles on PC, as you fight for one of the three military superpowers – the US, the Chinese or the newly formed Middle East Coalition. A variety of solider classes including Assault, Sniper, Special Ops, Combat Engineer, Medic, Heavy Weapons, and Anti-Tank units New stat… More >>
I used to furrow my brow at the site of each new model of S-Class Mercedes, usually redone every 5 years or so. I can remember my father telling me that Mercedes designs cars to look good tomorrow, not today. He was right. With every model, like clockwork, after a year or so they’d start looking good, then great. My bet is Battlefield will be much like that. As truly fun as it is to play today, it’ll be much better in a year or so.
Few quick reasons to love this game:
1. When you run it on a great machine the graphics/game physics are mindblowing.
2. The game encourages teamplay. I know, it’s hard to imagine quake trained gamers playing medics, but over the past months since its release, the game is conditioning its players to team up. It’s working, and it’s really really fun to work with a good squad.
3. The game/network is very intelligent. Scarily intelligent. Everything you do on a ranked server is tracked forever. Everything. Gaining rank gets you new weapons and status you can leverage into a Commander position.
4. This game not only supports VOIP, but encourages it. Commanders can talk to squad leaders, squad leaders talk to their members, very good order.
5. Online play will frequently (i’m talking multiple times an hour) give you “one of those gaming moments”. You know, when your pulse quickens, and you feel like you’re really in the game. My girlfriend can hear me screaming from my downstairs (things that would make a pornstar blush). I’m not even cognizant of it.
6. Helicopters with TV guided rockets. Nuf said.
7. Command and control. If a side plays without a commander, odds are they’ll lose. If one plays with few (if any) experienced squad leaders, they’ll lose. Very cool and unique feature.
Reasons you might not want this game:
1. This is the most insane system-hog of a game I’ve ever encountered…very frustrating for even relatively good systems.
I’ve had high hopes for games of all genres over the past 2-3 years, I’ve reviewed many of them, some favorably, but I think BF2 is the best action First Person Shooter on the market (and probably will be for a few years). One reason for that belief is the extraordinary hardware requirements it demands to truly perform. I started playing it on a 3.3MHZ w/ best Geforce card, and 1Meg of RAM. It lumbered, and the graphics were subpar compared to other FPS’s. I now have a freakin super-computer (dual cards, 4Megs RAM) and it runs like a different game. When hardware catches up, the underlying value of this game will get more appreciation vs. present-day frustration.
I’ve logged at least 70 hours on this game, and I learn something new every night. So many layers to uncover, then combine. I think this game still has allot to show people. And, like each redesigned model of Mercedes, will prove its true beauty over time.
Enjoy,
Christian Hunter
Santa Barbara, California
Rating: 5 / 5
The Battlefield series has been a gaming powerhouse, well known for its wildly intense and exhilerating multiplayer experience. Battlefield 2 and its expansion, Special Forces, are no exceptions. That much everyone knows.
However, I want you to know about something that isn’t widely examined in reviews. Multiplayer games are dependent on servers. For MMORPG’s, the game publisher handles the operation of the servers. For just about everyone else, it’s a free for all, and the gaming software includes the software to run a dedicated server. Install BF1942, hunt down a certain shortcut, double click, and you’ve got a dedicated server that 32 players can connect to. Sounds great, works great.
This produced a phenomenon in the web hosting business of people who would pay a monthly fee to have a game server hosted for them. For say $50 a month, you could run your dream server 24/7. Players jumped at the opportunity, and this developed into a pretty lucrative business.
Enter Electronic Arts.
They saw the business opportunity and thought “how can we maximize our profits on the game by taking advantage of this?” Their answer was the marketing angle of the ranking system. When you play Battlefield 2, you use an account tied to your CD key, and that account tracks and rewards your score over time. Higher ranked players take precedence when requesting the Commander slot, they have weapons unlocked, they receive general recognition as veteran players, it’s all very nice and fun.
But one of those MBA chimpanzees at EA, who no doubt will be fired in 14 months after this all shakes out, put together two synapses and realized that this system would require game servers to somehow be authenticated as ranked. Otherwise, I could set up my dedicated server and start whoring points any way I could manage to, and easily inflate the ranking system. The chimpanzee’s thought was to have EA charge hosting companies a preset fee per player per month for ranked servers, in addition to having some preset requirements.
So, rather than $50 a month for that great server, we’re now looking at $8 per player per month for servers, in a game where maps are best played at the 64 player level. That churns out to over $6000 per year for a game server. Well beyond the means of normal players. What you’re left with are servers run by hosting companies for advertising, and servers run by very dedicated and very large clans.
There aren’t many of either, so at this moment in time, there are exactly 14 servers that, in DFW, I ping well enough to to play, that have over 15 players on them. That’s a serious problem for a top-selling multiplayer game. It means that you’re playing king of the hill just to jockey for a spot on a server you like, on the team you want. Usually an uphill battle against clans who can systematically monopolize a team’s assets.
Throw in two absolutely malicious players, invariably on the two best servers (best for map rotation, ping, player count, stability, etc.), and the experience is totally ruined. You fight to get in to the game, you fight to find any player who cares about teamwork, you fight against clans who’ve monopolized the team assets, and you fight against malicious players on your own team who abuse your own assets such that your team can’t possibly win. At the end of the day, you’ve spent more time fighting the players over the ability to play, than you’ve spent actually playing.
EA’s business decision makes any good experience in Battlefield 2 an unlikely outcome. Their best game is ruined by their inability to empathize with the needs of their customers. This is a common thread throughout the history of Electronic Arts, and one which destroys the value of Battlefield 2.
Rating: 2 / 5
Ok, to start. I have had this game since day one. This game is great fun, when it works. I love the fact that you have the ability to work in squads and the total teamwork environment is fantastic. Granted you need people willing to work together to take advantage of this but the fact is the game gives you the option. Graphics are top notch. However, EA has totally dropped the ball in terms of customer service and they have released what is essentially a Beta game at finished game prices.
Lets start with the problems. First, regardless of what EA claims the minimum hardware requirements are, dont try to play this game with anything less than a top of the line gaming system. EA “says” that you can play this game with 512Mb of RAM. Dont even try. You may be able to get away with 1Gig but during start up BF2 can eat up 1.3 Gigs of ram, so if you have less, it starts to lag, lock up, and generally give you serious problems. If I were to write the minimum requrements they would be as follows.
2 GHZ CPU
ATI 1600 or better (or equivilent Nvidia card) video card with at LEAST 256 Mb onboard ram
2 gig of ram (MINIMUM!!)
Next lets talk bugs. For all intents and purposes, this is a beta game. This game should never have been released in this condition. Graphic errors, gameplay errors, team errors, vehichle errors, and the list goes on. I’m just going to mention a couple of errors that EA is aware of but will not fix. First is what in the game we call the “red/blue bug”. The way the teams work is that “your team” has blue names, and the “enemy team” has red names. Regardless of which side you play on. Frendly soldiers are always blue from your perspective. Now there is a bug that has friendly soldiers show up as red so that you cant know that they are on your team. If you kill them you loose points, and if you play on “ranked” servers (ones that track your play for ranks and weapon unlocks), after a few “TK’s” (team kills), you get kicked or banned. This bug has been known about since the games release and we have now had seven (or is it eight) patches for the game and they still have not addressed this issue. Some may say this sounds like a minor bug, but the fact is this is just an example, that EA has not addressed. Some other bugs are.. missles that lock onto friendlies, weapons that pass through solid objects, “dalphin diving”, “bunny hopping”, and this is just the beginning.
Next lets talk about the so called expansion pack and “booster” packs. Not only did EA rush this game to the market before it was ready. They also rushed the exapansion pack “Battlefield 2: Special Forces” with all the same bugs as the first one. Now, when I say expansion pack, this sounds like it should be able to play along with BF2, right? WRONG!!! While some of the weapon, your rank, and your awards are transferable between the two. NONE of the maps are able to be played together. You cannot have a server that plays both BF2 and BF2:SF at the same time. That is the whole point to an expansion pack!! An expansion pack is supposed to enance the original game. This does not. Then does EA give you any new maps or enhancements to the game? Again NO. Instead they give you “booster packs”. All these do is give you a few new maps (Euro Forces gave you 4 I think), two new weapons, a couple of vehichles, and a new Army. Thats it!!! Any other game company would have given you these in a patch to thank you for putting up with the errors that they were correcting. Not EA, they want you to beta test the game for you then charge you more for what should have come with the game in the first place. Finally, EA has NO customer service. Their web site says “maximum 24 hour response”. I have never got a response from them in less than 6 days. Usually up to two weeks for a response (if they respond at all). Their customer service on the phone is rude and anything but helpful. They dont care about their customers or their game. All they care about is that they got your money.
My final judgement. If you can live with being a game beta tester and you have fifty dollars that you dont want anymore, then go for it. If you dont have the money to throw away, look for another game from a company that cares for its customers.
I know this sounds like a disgruntaled customer review. And to some extent it is true. However, take this into consideration. I have had the game since it came out and I still play it daily. I am used to the bugs and errors, and they frustrait me to no end. But for cooperative play, its hard to beat this game. I have made lots of friends in this game and we have a lot of fun with it. But we already spent our money on it, so we may as well get our moneys worth. Would we buy it again? No way. Will we buy the next BF game? Probally not. Unless EA gets it together and finishes a game before it is released (we expect some problems of course, there are always problems, but the game should be stable prior to release, which this game is NOT and still is NOT after 7-8 patches.)
Rating: 2 / 5
After months of listening to my friends talk about how great BF2 is, I finally broke down and installed this mother of all First Person Shooters (FPS). I am usually more of a Civilization type of player, and typically can’t stand playing online multiplayer games. But, I was pleasantly suprised by BF2. For those that are complaining that they “got half the game for the full price”, please keep in mind that the Battlefield series of games are intended to be played online. This is NOT a standalone, singleplayer game. With that said, if you have a broadband connection, BF2 is probably the best online gaming experience you are likely to experience with any other game currently on the market.
The Good:
- Hours of online, cooperative multiplayer wargaming.
- Wow factor: Even my wife, watching over my shoulder, was amazed at how life-like the game looks. It really, literally, feels like you are on a modern battlefield.
- Replay value: Lots of unlocks, several different factions, two more expansion packs coming this year, the game has tons of replayability.
The Bad:
- You will need a kickass system. I have a 3 gig Pentium 4 and 512 megs of RAM, with a new ATI graphics card, and, the game can sometimes chug on high settings. Set your graphics to medium or upgrade your RAM.
- LONG LOAD TIMES. I have never experienced load times like this. Most games on my system have only a few seconds load time between maps and game sections. If you thought the load time in TheSims2 was bad, you’re in for a rude shocker: load times in BF2 can take up to five minutes (though most run up in three or four). Be patient and grab a coke while you wait.
- Difficult installation: Once you install the game for the first time, in order to play online (which, like I said earlier, is a MUST), you will need to download the latest update. This is a huge quarter-gig file that takes a long time to download from the official server (took me about an hour with my DSL connection). I also had to download the patch twice, as, the first file I downloaded was corrupted (download from the official EA server, not from a 3rd party site like filefront).
Overall, I would HIGHLY recomment Battlefield 2 for any gamer that enjoys First Person Shooters, or, for any gamer in the mood for hours of online multiplayer combat.
Rating: 4 / 5
After having this game for a little over two months now, I still have not even begun to get bored by it. The maps are big enough that you can always find a new hiding place or shortcut. The truly great thing about this game is that it is easy to just jump in and start playing, but as you start getting more involved in the battle you start to discover new things. The path of discovery ultimately leads to learning how to fly the various aircraft and becoming an ace pilot. Until the Battlefield series, the only exceptional online shooters were in the Medal Of Honor series, but the Battlefield series easily trumps any other war shooter with a combination of servers that support up to 64 players, the ability to team up with said players in a variety of ways (for instance, one time my team took a helicopter to an attack point, parachuted out of the chopper when we were getting shot at, and landed by a land transport vehicle, which we hijacked and drove to a nearby port, making our getaway on a boat), a truly brilliant game engine, and some impressive maps. I still have to get the expansions, which I have heard make the game even more astounding. If you are interested to any degree in online shooters, pick this one up.
Rating: 5 / 5