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In practice, pretty much every player takes the assault route, with the occasional medic scurrying around. Battlefield 2 attempts to remedy this by making the other troops more useful, and awarding tickets--or points--to those MOS-es that accomplish their missions well. In practice in the sequel, everybody pretty much takes the assault route. The engineer class has actually been weakened. In an attempt to prevent spawn-camping, vehicles respawn quickly, making repairing them a time-consuming, risky affair that is not worthwhile. Even being able to blow up bridges (strangely enough, bridges are the only part of the environment that is destructible) does not round out the usefulness of the engineer.
The hallmark of the Battlefield series, however, is the vehicle selection, and it is the strength of Battlefield 2. Fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, boats, jeeps, APCs, and ATVs all compliment what is an impressive array of vehicles. The vehicles for the most part handle very well, and the much-maligned controls for aircraft have been improved, but not perfected. The player will spend some time trying to get used to the controls for airborne vehicles. Tanks in particular are much easier to control and make up the most fun vehicles in the game.
Combat, especially on foot, is uncompromisingly lethal, giving the gameplay a visceral thrill. In Battlefield 2, ricocheting ammunition poses a real danger. This lethality makes cooperation particularly important. To assist in cooperation, Battlefield 2 incorporates a commander, who issues orders to his or her troops, has access to a battlefield screen that shows troop movements, and acts as a mobile spawn point. Having a commander that acts as an eye in the sky can help swing the tide of battle when it is utilized. Unfortunately, all too often during internet play, the combatants treat the map as a massive free-for-all, with mutiny and player-kicking the order of the day. Playing a LAN game with designated teams is where the commander function really shines, allowing for skillfully and intensely waged battles. Put simply, the commander function only really works when every player is disciplined enough to work with it. Online, that is rarely the case.
Another nice touch is the scalability of maps. Maps scale their size dependent on the number of players present. This helps prevent large maps from feeing sparsely populated and small maps from feeling like wall-to-wall combatants. In practice, however, most maps are either capped out at their highest population level, or only have a few players present, so it isn't a perfect implementation.
All that being said, one of the biggest frustrations with Battlefield 2 is the interface. The greeting screen is a hodge-podge of tabs and buttons and selections that can make the player feel overwhelmed. Remapping keys is difficult since the game does not allow for duplicates, even temporarily. You also cannot wholesale-erase all controls, so any remapping requires you to first find the key you want to remap, assign that control to a temporary key not used anywhere else, then map the key to the control you want, then reassign the old control a new key that again isn't in use somewhere else. Repeat for every one you want to reassign. Sounds confusing? It isn't much easier in implementation. Moreover, reassigning keys doesn't always seem to “stick” causing the player to use the default configuration--a layout which isn't that efficient to begin with.
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GRAPHICS: 9
Battlefield 2 is very pretty. The man-made structures have great layouts, feel impressively heavy, and have great textures. The same can be said for the organic objects. The vehicles are the best looking items in the game: curved surfaces look curves, and metal surfaces look like metal. Shadow and fire effects are done very well and are very impressive. Battlefield 2's graphics are worth the hype, where Battlefield Vietnam 's were not.
Battlefield 2 requires some high-performance hardware to work optimally, but if the player has the hardware to handle it, an experience that cannot be found in many other multiplayer games is to be had. Game performance is never hindered by multiple explosions and vehicle movement. Watching a fighter strafe a column of tanks from the top of a building with a bridge blowing up and chaos all around is a mighty experience. Battlefield 2 hosts some of the best graphics that can be found, but does not rise to the level of Half-Life 2 or Far Cry. That being said, this is still a very visually impressive game.
SOUND: 9
The sound is well done as well. While Battlefield 2 does not incorporate the same popular soundtrack that Battlefield Vietnam had, more care went into the sound effects. Explosions sound impressive, the weapons sound good, and the vehicles are wonderful. The sound, particularly in 5.1, is very immersive and contributes greatly with the graphics to create an experience rather than merely a game.
MULTIPLAYER: 8
Battlefield 2 is really only multiplayer, and must be played online to enjoy it to its full potential. While the lag of the previous series' entries has been lessened, it hasn't been eliminated, and can rear its ugly head at inopportune times, allowing for a frustrating experience. Worse still is the server browser, which isn't very user friendly. Installing GameSpy, included with BF2, doesn't help the situation since GameSpy--even with the $20.00 update--doesn't automatically find Battlefield 2.
Battlefield 2 does a good job of punkbusting, preventing cheating, and the ticket scoring system is well balanced and keeps things fair. That said, there are still minor complaints, like a player near death in a vehicle logging out of the server right before their health runs out and saving their side the ticket loss of a kill. Many times a well-orchestrated attack that gets the drop on an enemy fails because of smacktard logouts rather than because of a blunder. That is more of a complaint on player behavior than with the game, but some system to record and penalize through the ticket system these mass-logouts would be a great benefit.
All that said, BF2 is remarkably addictive and satisfying. If you have a clan or a group of friends that want to go fighting together, it is a great way to spend a couple of hours. If you freelance it on your own, you may find it frustrating at times, but still a fun diversion. BF2 is definitely worth the money.
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REPLAY VALUE: 10
The name of the game here is replayability. With scalable maps and a smooth multiplayer component, Battlefield 2 is by definition replayable.
MISCELLANEOUS:
BF2 is not without its technical issues. You must have the absolute latest video driver for the game to work reliably. The installation can be hairy--on the test machines, the first installation “disappeared” where no icon was created and the install directory did not exist. A reinstallation was successful. On another test machine, the BF2 installation corrupted the existing DirectX 9.0c installation, requiring a reinstall of the Operating System. Do yourself a favor and back up prior to installation, or at least set a rollback point with XP. BF2 requires Windows XP to install.
Online, there aren't enough servers to handle the players. Most servers are either full, or are completely empty. Having to browse around for a length of time to try to get into a game can be aggravating.
Furthermore, GameSpy is not as useful as it should be. Even with the paid upgrade, it did not automatically find BF2, nor did it find BF2 after a full hard drive scan. Having an add-on distributed with the game that does not function turn-key with the game smacks of being rushed out the door. All in all, these issues are minor, but will leave a bad taste in the mouth of many gamers, and cheapens what is a great game, and what otherwise would have been a solid recommendation and an instant classic.
