Customer Reviews

Battlefield 2 The Complete Collection DVD

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have been playing the Battlefield franchise since the first demo, and have owned Battlefield 2 since its launch circa 2 years ago. Although the series has had its ups and down, (with the pinnacle being the BF1942 modification Desert Combat by Frank Delise and crew), with the recent crop of Battlefield games being mindless cash ins, (ever sine EA bought out DICE games and Trauma Studios). Nevertheless, Battlefield 2 is the best retail version you can currently buy. With that being said, there are several issues with BF2 that have only gotten worse with each subsequent EA/DICE patch which has led to a drastic inbalance in the game, with air power completely dominating in every level, (although there are infantry only levels). When the game first launched, the balance was fairly adequate, and ground troops using mobile AA or the defenses on a carrier could take out a pilot who was repeatedly bombing a spawn point, but that has changed. The only way to actually take out another plane is to be flying in the air, and to dogfight him/her until only one of you is surviving. This leads to several issues that almost have completely ruined a lot of the enjoyment one can experience in Battlefield 2. First, most people camp the planes, (I've seen 8 people camp for an a10, 7 for a j10), and some will force a teamkill on you if you happen to get in the plane before them, (putting your score in certain areas in the negative ). This is incredibly frustrating, and although I understand that jerks are abundant online, I'm surprised a patch doesn't prevent forced tk's. If you enjoy flying, as I do, I recommend joining smaller servers.

When all is said and done though, this is still an excellent game and much better than BF2142 (mostly because of no ads), but you will have to have patience and play on a decent server to gain much enjoyment out of it. Really, I'm only playing it until Quake Wars is released in a month or so. I am certain that the people over at ID Software will pump out yet another quality release that is balanced in every respect, much like Enemy Territory for PC is to this day. I will all but abandon BF2 once Quake Wars comes out, because EA/DICE have pretty much dropped BF2 like a bad habit since their spyware/adware infested BF2142 game came out, (which is completely subpar in every way imaginable).

If you are a new player, then I recommend this pack, (with all of the expansions), but know that you will be at a disadvantage for at least the first 100 hours of play time. Veteran players have a majority of the weapon unlocks, (gained through an experience points system of sorts), and you will not be able to compete in ground combat for the most part, unless you are in a vehicle. As far as system specs go, they are not as demanding as they were 2 years ago, and a medium build machine should run this flawlessly. Finally, if you want to ever be a good pilot, invest in a solid joystick, because you will be a sitting duck with a mouse and keyboard in a jet. I can usually tell who is flying with a mouse/keyboard, and they are always my priority targets.

At the end of the day, this is still a great game, but has been bogged down by a lack of support, major nerfing of infantry weapons (c4 especially), and EA's overall disregard for their player base and for the bottom line. Honestly, as much as I love the Battlefield series, this is my last Battlefield game because I have a lot of disdain for EA due to its ill will towards the community. Also, this is most likely the final Battlefield game that will ever be Ad free/Billboard free. EA/DICE's recent deal with major advertising agencies essentially makes this a sad trend.

to make bf2 run smoothly with windows vista. Here are the steps:
1. Make a shortcut of BF2 and all the booster packs if you got any.
2.Then right-click on the shortcut and click properties.
3. Click the compatibility tab and check the box "run as administrator"
4. Check the box to run it in compatibility mode and click apply. Then click ok.
5. do this for each shortcut if you have booster packs.
Remember to only start BF2 from thos shortcuts or the changes you made wont be applied! ENJOY! I did those steps to make bf2 work for me and it was really easy.

One line recommendation: skip the pack, just buy the original Battlefield 2 game by itself - you'll save yourself hassle, and enjoy the fun at a lower price.

First the good news: The game itself has very nice graphics, and is a blast to play single player AND where it shines: multi player.

Now for the bad news: The additional maps aren't all that much to crow about, and playing online, you will mostly be playing maps designed for the original Battlefield 2 game itself, not the add-on maps.

More bad news: INSTALL/REGISTER PROCESS. The complete collection comes with 4 separate setups. Battlefield 2, Special Forces, Armored Fury, and Euro Force. The setup file in the main folder only does a partial installation. Apparently you are supposed to somehow divine that you need to run the other setups from the cryptically named "AF" and "EF" directories on the disc. And along the way, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you pick an EA.COM login name which exactly matches your screen name. During the install process, you must use the EXACT same screen name, and the prompts as far as Screen name or EA name are EASY to confuse. (By picking the same name/passwords for both, you avoid making mistakes).

TIME: It took me about 10 minutes to install and register the main game, and about 1 hour more to figure out how to activate Special Forces. It took me 2 and 1/2 days to get the Armored Fury and Euro Forces Booster packs working. For reference, I am an IT person by trade, who installs and patches over 600 computers and servers.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT: during the registration process, I ended up asking for help from EA with their online support. Basically, within 4 hours I received an email saying that either I was typing the code wrong, or someone else was already using it. After that one e-mail, I never received a reply from the support team - not one, despite updating the support site with each on-going attempt to register.

Overall, I liked the game and hated the installation. As I recommended initially, I wish I had simply bought the plain old Battlefield 2 disc without the packs. CAVEAT EMPTOR...

BF2 is a great game, some small flaws, but a great game. Special Forces is a pretty good add-on. Armored Fury and EuroForce do not add very much to the gameplay, but installing them is a hit or miss proposition. From my recent, last couple of days (04/27/07) experience, EA does not have a reliable method to register the Booster Pack add-ons so that you can play them. The number of other owners who also have this problem and are getting little to no help from EA is quite large. I was lucky, after using the right information over a period of four hours I was finally able to register and play the add-ons, but the registration process is not reliable, the same information that allows the registration of the game might not the first several times you try.

This pack is a good value for BF2 and BF2:SF, but the installation procedure for the Booster Packs is amateurish and should have been done reliably. If future games are released with this type of registration I will either return them or never buy them in the first place.

I bought Battlefield 2 quite some time back, but found air power to be frustratingly overpowered. Anti-air defenses are a joke, and it didn't take long for good helicopter and jet pilots to learn how to utterly dominate the game. Being a fan of ground fighting, I put the game on a shelf and decided to check back in a couple of years to see what had changed.

Fast forward to last spring when I bought this pack with all the expansions. Bad news: nothing's changed regarding air power. It's still a joke to do anything but hop in a cockpit. Good news: playing on maps WITHOUT air power at all was a new found joy. Take out the helicopters and the game becomes playable for the full range of infantry to tank to dune buggy. Bad news: The new expansions don't add much. The new maps are mostly mediocre and thus go unplayed overall. Worse news: The player base is largely a bunch of basement dwelling asshats who think video games are SERIOUS BUSINESS and 13 year olds with ADD. Worst news: the game is now riddled with hacking. Blatant, even humorously so. I can deal with the 100 jeeps suddenly falling from the sky at once and blowing up half a square mile, (at least that's kinda funny) but the jerks who hang out making impossible shots over and over with aim hacks to crank up their "1337" online stats are the real game killer. Because as we all know, being the 2,523rd ranked player out of 56,965,928 in an online game is an accomplishment worth dogged pursuit.

The game can still be fun, but searching for a server not completely ruined by hacks or just generally nasty players made the game more trouble than it was worth once the novelty wore off. As hacking is already bad and will likely only continue to get worse, I can't highly recommend the game. That's a shame, because it's a darn good game overall despite some frustrating imbalances in air power.

The game is loads of fun and especially online now that I can get online. Be aware that there is a widespread problem with this product producing an invalid key error when you try to join a ranked server. I found the solution for me as listed below but be forewarned that if it doesn't work for you, you may only be able to play offline, lan or on unranked servers.

The fix that worked for me was Option #1 in this post:
[...]
I just followed the instructions and in 5 minutes I was playing online.
Don't expect any help from Amazon. They'll just refer you to EA, a fact that makes it doubtful I'll risk purchasing any more downloads from here.

This is a pretty fun game, good graphics, realistic weapons, Large battles and maps. The only problem I have with it is it is a pain to get going. I run a normal windows 7

First I will tell you how I tried to install the game the first time. I told it to install everything It installed BF2 and then asked if I wanted to restart the computer(I recommend pushing no). After that it starts to Install the BF2:SF this also goes through fine. Then it starts trying to patch to 1.41. The first time I just let it go it got to the end and stoped saying there was an error. Then a message pops up saying that BF2:EF & AF need V 1.3 or something and the installation says it is finished. When you try to get either game started the screen goes black and you either press Escape to exit or the task manager to exit. This is all that happens.


I uninstalled the game and tried again. This is what I did

When I tried the second time, where it asks you if you want to install the expansion packs. Tell it NO. Only check off the battlefield 2 original game. Once the original game is installed get the auto run going and tell it you want to open files not run the updater (Game's autorun).
In the files find the 1.41 patch, install it and it will update your game so you can just cancel the patch whenever it tries to in the installation (which it does several times). Patch it first or it won't work. Start up the updater and tell it you want to install the expansion packs. It will say 'patching to 1.1' let it do that. Then just install the Special forces. After that it should try to patch to 1.41 this never works as it has a problem with the computer. So just cancel the patch the installation should continue.It will then install the BF2: EF & AF with no problems. It says the installation is finished.

Close it and click on the BF2:SF The screen will most likley turn black. If you fiddle around with it for a while under the compatibility window (by right clicking) you can get it say what is wrong.
It told me I was missing 'Lighting.fx and Rain.fx.' If you back in the program files (Again by right clicking either BF2 or BF2:SF) you can find a folder that says 'Shader Client' Open this and Find what ever is says was wrong it told me it was missing Lighting.fx and Rain.fx so copy those and paste them under the Shaders. Try the BF2: SF and it should start up. It made the game work for me I am still having problems registering the BF2: EF & AF but I think someone just used my product key already.

I hope this helps. It worked for me some of the information may be loose because I was just using memory but It should work if you fiddle around with it.

Battlefield 2 is a wonderful game and getting the expansion and booster packs in one set was great. ONLY one problem though...EA Games has now released the booster packs, free of charge, on their web site. That kind of makes the purchase of a pack that contains the booster packs unnecessary. If I would've know that at the time, I would've tried to find a combination that just contained Battlefield 2 and the expansion Battlefield 2:Special Forces. Enjoy!

Let me get one thing out of the way, I think Battlefield 2 is a great game (there are a lot of good reviews here that do a nice job of telling you why) with the exception of one big 'thing'. That 'thing' is Battlefield 2's underlying Netcode.

What is Netcode? Here's a good definition I pulled off the internet.

Netcode: this term refers to the application code that handles how data and instructions are passed from computer to computer during a multiplayer game.

To put it simply, Battlefield 2's Netcode is terrible. In BF2 you generally need a ping (another computer networking term) of 100 ms or less for a playable game over the internet. For players in geographic areas where there's a lot of servers, specifically for US or European players (China may have a lot of servers also), that's not a problem b/c pings of less than 100 ms (to game servers) are very easy to find.

But for players who don't physically live in the US or Europe, Battlefield 2 is unplayable over the internet b/c the pings are not low enough (again, a BF2 player generally needs less than a 100ms ping; I get 150 to 200ms pings to servers). And believe me I have tried playing a game over the internet connecting to a server with a 150ms ping....its unbearable.

Even BF2's interface (not the actual gameplay) is laggy. I'm talking about the 'server lobby' where a player browses the sever list and their respective pings. There's terrible lag when I even try to update the server list. These central servers (which aggregate all the BF2 servers in the world and present them to you in the 'server browser' interface) must be few in number and located in the US.

I'm not newbie either. I can play internet games of Battlefield 2142 (another great game) perfectly fine with pings of 150 ms to 250 ms on the same computer with the same internet connection. And BF2142 has less players and less servers.

Some of you may be thinking 'Hey buddy Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 are essentially the same game. You make no sense.' Not entirely true. BF2 and BF2142 use **mostly** the same engine BUT the Battlefield 2142's "code" is much more refined compared to BF2's "code" (it came out something like a year later). I'm thinking one of the things DICE (the developer of the BF games) did during the time gap between BF2 and BF2142 was to refine the Netcode for BF2142 (because its so much better than BF2's Netcode).

To sum it up, Battlefield 2 is a great game with the exception of its horrid Netcode.

EDIT: Since I am unable to play BF2 online, I play the game offline with bots. And the great thing about BF2 is that there are free downloadable mods that allow you to play with 63 other bots....very fun. And check out the AIX (Allied Intent Xtended) single player mod....its free and AWESOME. Seriously, the AIX mod feels like a $30-40 expansion pack but like I said, its free.

I have been playing this game for about 1 1/2 years now. I even got my dad hooked. Call of Duty 4 can't come close. The squad based combat with a commander is fun, but add the VOIP and it becomes fantastic. The gameplay and game mechanics are very true to true FPS fans. It take only a short while to learn how to move and shoot, but a heck of allot longer to master it. This makes the game rewarding after the initial learning period, but also still rewarding as you perfect your game. The rank system and medals and ribbons to earn also keep you interested for a long time.

The best computer game I've played with Starcraft, the WarCraft series, and AOE not even coming close.