War is a Hell of a Game

By Holliday

So it is here. Battlefield 2 was released on June 22nd (and 21st in some places). I picked up my copy almost mechanically. I got up that day, ate breakfast and just wandered to the nearest place to purchase my copy. Having played the demo for only a few days there wasn’t exactly any “excitement” to the purchase. It was more like getting an upgrade to something I was already enjoying.

However, the excitement would come. I actually did not play it too much at first. It is quite a behemoth of a game to tell you the truth. There is no “easing” into it. The single-player tab might as well not even exist. All the tutorials are given “on the fly” while you get near new things in the game you may not have used yet. This is quite helpful. I kept feeling like I was waiting for something. Some go ahead signal to really sit down and play.

Well I finally got everything how I wanted it. Joystick set up, keys mapped out, VOIP headset set up, visual and audio options tuned to perfect (something the SP is good for, testing). So over the past 3 days I’ve dived in to all sorts of servers. Ranked, unranked, huge and small and even some which already had some bizarre player-run rule sets (size 64 map but only 4v4 snipers only). So, in list form, I bring you my positive and negative impressions (bad stuff first so you forget about it during the good stuff).

Bad Stuff:

• Horrible, horrible UI. It is clunky, confusing and frustrating. Changing your controls is a hassle because if you try to bind a key that is already bound it will not switch or erase it. It will just tell you “key is already bound”. It will not tell you where or even highlight it for you. Also I had some trouble setting up my joystick (need to set it in a pattern, Y-axis, X-axis then throttle or else it thinks the X-axis is the throttle).

• Steep system requirements. I fancy myself pretty powerful in the PC-pants but I still have to get a little humble for this one. I can actually run it stable and with good frames at 1280×1024 with most effects at medium to high. However when things get intense it starts to have little freezes that are really unacceptable and ruin the gameplay. Instead I run it at 1024×768 with 2x AA. Everything at medium except dynamic shadows at low.

• Lack of ranked servers. While EA and its partners are adding more everyday (I think it has doubled each day I have had the game) there still isn’t enough. The stats system proved to be quite popular and everyone wants to play on a ranked server. This means most all ranked servers are full and it takes quite a bit of time dealing with that terrible server browser (see below). Going solo isn’t too bad but try to get into the same server with 3 or 4 friends? Forget about it, don’t even bother. Just play on an unranked server.

• The Server Browser. This is part of the UI but it deserves its own mention for how terrible it truly is. I thought stuff like this was pretty standard. A server browser doesn’t seem to be a terrible hard thing to pull off. But for some reason BF2’s is just crap. It is slow, clunky and prone to error. The first refresh is ok, sometimes when you sort by ping all the pings read as zero. It actually takes a restart of the game to fix this problem at times. No excuse.

Good Stuff:

• Everything else. No seriously, the game is “fucking” fantastic. I would not normally swear but it needs to be emphasized. It is just brilliance in balance, execution, options and “feel”. While most all aspects of the in-game play are great I will highlight some of my favorites.

• Squads. Squads are definitely the best added feature. Squads are done to perfection. The squad leader interface is as simple as point and click. Attack, defend, repair, move to etc. Once a squad leader sends orders all squad members get a voice radio notification, an icon as well as a solid line to that icon appears on their radar (color coded to the type of action so you can make no mistake even when the radar is crowded). At the location itself is a can of color smoke that rises. All your squad members are highlighted on the radar and field of battle so you know where they are at all times. After 5 minutes of playing with a decent squad the game just becomes incredible. It feels like this tight group of incredible order in a huge chaotic battle. Almost like all the other guys are just extras in a movie and your squad is the star.

• Commanders. Commanders and squads go together rather well. A commander can send orders just like a squad leader except he sends his orders to squad leaders only; if the squad leader accepts it gets displayed for the rest of the squad. It is nice that the squad leader can overrule the commander if necessary since it would be confusing otherwise. Commanders also have 4 abilities that help out tremendously. Artillery and supply crates are pretty self explanatory but the UAV and Scan abilities are definitely (indirectly) the most powerful. If the commander can keep his squad leaders informed of incoming and awaiting enemies the whole team has a tremendous advantage. The UAV broadcasts a good sized radar sweep for around a minute and the scan covers the whole battlefield and shows enemies to the commander only, all the enemies. This is really good when you have secured all positions but there is still some stray enemies around looking to recapture a flag and allow their buddies to spawn. It also helps eliminate stalemates where people drive around for a while not finding any enemies. The UAV recharges fast so you always know where a point of conflict is.

• Strategy on the fly. All these team tools make it possible to have organized play with complete strangers. While not every server is full of squad-ready players the more I play the more people are joining. The first day I could barely get a 3 man squad going, but now all the servers I’ve joined today have at least two 4 man squads already working.

• The maps. BF1942 was a solid game but the map design was never truly gripping. The vistas in BF2, however, are both jaw dropped and ingeniously designed. The maps are no longer allow straight line journeys. In BF1942 you could pretty much get anywhere by driving straight on towards the flag on your map. BF2 however has some incredible geometry with steep hills and valleys, complex structures behind just houses (the Dam must be seen to be believed). They are very tightly designed too; there is no vast stretches of wasted space like BF1942 often featured. The design is great too. It creates some fantastic choke points with destructible bridges and parts of walls. They flow in a way that you end up in conflict quicker and knowledge of the maps will benefit you.

• Visuals, amazing engine. Incredible sense of scale and epic feel. Some locations are just amazing to look at and beautiful. A lot of variation in the locals and map types. Very “solid” feel. BF1942 suffered from a ‘floaty’ feel where at any moment you may fall through the map.

• Audio, just like BF1942 it is spot on. Great with a 5.1 system. Explosions, artillery, bullets and engines are near perfect.

• Infantry combat as a whole has been vastly improved. You no longer feel useless outside of a vehicle. Sprinting adds so much to the gameplay and “feel”. The animations are top notch too. There is nothing like seeing a teammate sprinting to cover.

• Communication. The radio command menu is incredibly simple to use. It is radial and very fast. The best part is the main function called “spotted”. It’s the default selection when you bring up the menu and all you have to do is aim at an enemy and hit it. You will say “Enemy X spotted” to your whole team and for 10-15 seconds that enemy will appear on everyone’s radar. It isn’t just “enemy” though it identifies the type, armor, helicopter, troops or APC. Even if you miss the enemy it will stay “enemy forces on the move” and a red question mark will appear in the general area where you spotted it. This makes snipers in high places quite effective for calling targets.

There is actually a lot more as well. This is getting long and I think you get the point. Battlefield 2’s weaknesses are ridiculous; they are such basic things that most all other games can pull off without issue. However, once you get in game it doesn’t matter. The game is so good that its horrid UI and server browser don’t seem to matter. It is unfortunate that such a great game would be scared with such simple errors. It almost feels like the burden we have to bear for such a great game.

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