Customer Reviews

Battlefield 2

5 star:		(127)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

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

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.

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.)

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.

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.

Ok. I have only downloaded the demo and I already love the game. I'll buy it after I get the money. It is simply a great war game that I can only infer that my dad and I will both love. He's been looking for a good game like this for years, but this will be the first time it isn't of the Wal-Mart clearance rack. Now about system requirements.

Now some of you people are sitting there seriously complaining about how "you need a $800 graphics card and 2 gigs of RAM". 1.There are no $800 graphics cards unless you do SLI in which you buy two, sorry to burst your bubble and 2. No one needs 2 gigs of RAM unless you want do to video editing. I have an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ CPU(slightly overclocked), an overclocked GeForce 6200 256MB AGP 8x video card, which was only $92.50 may I add, and 1 gig of RAM, although I know I could have ran this game with my old 512MB.

Now I'm not saying you can run it with a crappy computer, but all you really need is up-to-date technology. Go out and buy the cheapest and most recent graphics card like I did(avoid TC) and that will solve half your problems. Most of you probaly don't need to do that. You do need to have a graphics card that's in the Radeon 9000 series or the Geforce 5 series to run the game and 512MB of RAM with most CPUs not including Intel Pentium 3s or certain Athlons.

So most of you could run the game at low settings(not that you want to play it then), but caution. If you are running any integrated graphics(ESPECIALLY Intel's which are horrific) or if you're running an ATI video card that's not too recent, you might want to reconsider. The reason I mention ATI is because Battlefield 2 is built on Nvidia so not only does it take advantage of many Nvidia things, but it's not made for ATI therefore giving ATI people dissadvanteges.

Don't get it wrong though. This is a fabulous game. Frankly, some of you should even find it a good reason for a computer upgrade. Because if you can't run this, forget every game that follows it. That includes Age of Empires fans, or people who are waiting for other games to come out. Hope this helps.

Well, if the official servers ran adequately the game would be nearly as good as others have described.

But the reality of the game is that EA has not provided enough support for the game so the game is beset by horrendous lag in the instances you can find a non-full server to play on.

The connection front end is something out of the 80's with no BUDDY LISTS, no functioning filters, and crashes half the time you ask it to refresh. It'll take you a half hour of attempts to log into a server that allows you to earn rank, then you'll be sickened by the lag and usually disconnected before the mission plays out.

Wait for a patch or for the game to come out on console. Currently the game is more frustrating than fun.

I admit it's enjoyable to play, but it's really frustrating knowing you can't access all the features of the game in singleplayer. You get half a game for the full price. I have played online, and i just don't care for it much because of the numerous problems with servers booting you off for who knows what For example, forgetting to stop in the middle of the 'heat of battle' and apologize for teamkills, or missing the little message that tells you how to forgive someone for teamkilling you. I got booted for too many teamkills when I hadn't killed any teammates. There also don't seem to be that many newbie servers where you can go to learn the mp rules and practice.

I just don't have the time for figuring out all the ins and outs of multiplayer at this point in my life. I might consider a LAN party at some point, but for now singleplayer is my main option.

You're also limited to the smaller maps in singleplayer, and smaller numbers of bots. There are tweaks you can do (if you know what you're doing) to increase the number of bots, and possibly the size of the maps, but as I understand it the bots won't know what to do with the expanded maps. In the expanded territory, it doesn't add to the number of control points or special equipment/vehicles etc. in those areas either, it just give you more room to run around alone. Yippee. So far no one has come up with a mod that allows you to access all the features of the game as single player.

You also can't unlock new weapons kits unless you play online on ranked servers and earn them, ANDn the endless hours of play needed to earn them seems a bit ludicrous to me! it seems to be made for people who have no other life, don't go to school or work and never eat or sleep.

I would like to be able to access the whole game as a single player at home, even if none of that stuff works on multiplayer unless I earn it on ranked servers.

This seems to be a common complaint on most of the forums I've researched, and with all the modders out there you'd think they'd have come up with a mod that addresses these things by now, if it wasn't that difficult to do. I'm about ready to start looking into it myself, but as a full time mom with three kids and two dogs and a part time job besides that, it just isn't that feasible.

Another problem is the realism. Why is it that a shot to the head doesn't drop anyone? I can't imagine that putting a 3 round burst of 5.56mm , or a single 7.62mm round into someone's skull from any distance, would allow them to continue on their merry way and turn around and shoot you dead (with the first shot, no less) from 75 yards with an mp5. It's a darn good things those medics can cure any injury with those shock paddles, if only they can get to you.

One thing about the AI that annoys me is that all the bots clump together. I realize pathfinding is the most difficult part of all to program for. But man, clumping together is the best way to get killed. I tend to sneak around and flank, but even if I tell the bots to follow me, they may comply for about two seconds and then go back to what they were doing. I think the Tom Clancy games handled this kind of teamwork AI far better, and without needing the high system specs that BF2 and BF2:SF require. I have enjoyed all of the Clancy games far more, with the exception of Splinter Cell - too simple and easy.

Ok first off let me state that this game is one of the richest and most complete gaming experiences i have ever had on any console ever.
This game is bf1942+beautiful graphics+awesome sound+better gameplay=Amazing experience. That said this is only true if your machine can handle it and when i say machine i'm including your internet connection. EA's website states that the ram, video and cpu requirements for this game are as follows;

1.7 GHz Intel Celeron D / Pentium 4 or
AMD Athlon XP/ Sempron or greater
512 MB of RAM or more
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 or greater
ATI Radeon 8500 or greater

I would only recommend playing with this low of a spec if you plan on playing at the lowest graphics settings available and don't mind excruciatingly long load times(5+ minutes). This game is an absolute resource hog. On top of that, slow hd's are not taken into account. If you try and play with 512mb ram and a hardrive with only 2mb cache you're in for some serious headaches. If you have these specs i would HIGHLY recommend that you stick with BF1942 & the desert combat mod until you can afford to upgrade your machine.
Now on to the biggest probem of all with this game which are the bugs. My machine is as follows.

Amd Clawhammer 3200+
1024mb kingston valueram
2x80gb seagates w/2mb cache(raid0 array)
Geforce 6800 GT 256mb

With the default install this game for me takes 5+ minutes just to join a game and start playing! Between connecting to the account server(2-4min), refreshing servers(20-60sec) & connecting to a server/game load time(1-2min) you have enough time to pop some popcorn, crack open a cold one and have time left over to ponder the perplexities of the universe. Then if and i say IF you can find a server that has a ping under 150(required for decent gameplay) you will be ready to play. On top of that even the few servers that seem to offer decent ping times often seem to have connection problems. I can't tell you how frustrating this has been for me. On many an occasion i wanted to pull my hair out trying to play. Why would i pull my hair out over a videogame? Because on one out of about every five occasions i find a really good server and get to experience computer gaming as is should be. An unsurpassed lifelike experience as far as wargames go.
Please keep in mind however that low ping has nothing to do with a high speed internet connection. My connection is 1mb and still i get bad pings. If you are too many hops from the server(in an isolated spot in the world) chances are you will get bad pings. My closest servers are 700 miles(alaska-Seattle) and i get bad pings. I would highly recommend trying the demo before you buy this game.
So there you have it. An amazing game IF your machine can handle it and IF you are one of the few lucky ones to get good ping times.

Want to play the best single player war game? Then go play Call of Duty 2. Want to play the best SWAT type tactical? Then go get Half-Life 2 and play Counter-Strike: Source which goes through periodic updates. Want to play the best multiplayer war game? Then before you even consider playing Day of Defeat: Source, go directly for Battlefield 2 instead which is certainly what you have been looking for and probably more. As a sequel to Battlefield 1942 (one of the best multiplayer games ever devised) it is well worthy of its predecessor's name but abandons its World War II premise for modern twenty-first century urban and rural warfare. As the game is built for multiplayer the single player campaigns do not do it justice. You really need to have a broadband connection and join a server to see the game the way it was meant to be played. Player statistics are monitored on-line and allow you to improve in rank and receive new weapons (unlocks). This makes it highly competitive. The same player classes are retained from BF1942 with some additional ones - sniper, machine gunner, anti-tank, medic, engineer, assault and support. The big bonus is the amount of new vehicles that the game has to offer, such as several types of planes, helicopters, tanks and cars. BF2 is one big CTF (capture the flags) with a huge array of photorealistic maps to play in. At player spawn you are given a wide choice of weapons and classes to choose from. Then you have the option of either working as a unit, driving a vehicle (that can also act as carriers) or just leaving your team behind and going on a solo mission frag-a-thon across a vast map (and these are some of the biggest maps ever made). Where BF1942 gave us the historical Pearl Harbor, Petersburg, German Forests, French Country, Operation Overlord, multiplayer style, BF2 goes for made-up non-historical global wars that have a futuristic atmosphere about them. Essentially you will play wars that have yet to be fought with the exception of several Iraq and Middle East type maps. It feels prophetic. The graphics are certainly heaps and bounds ahead of BF1942 giving us better textures, right down to photorealistic grass that you crawl through and branches on bushes that you can snipe behind. You can dash at very fast speeds until your stamina runs out. Explosions rock the world around you, can stun you and send pieces flying through the air. When a black hawk is downed in the town square it destroys everything around it on impact. Medics can revive dying team-mates. This is some of the best multiplayer entertainment you have ever seen. It is the biggest war game that people play online with a very large community (so large that you will find difficulty in choosing a login name for your ID) meaning plenty of 60 player (30/30) servers up and running and for you to join. All though you might just want to start running across a map shooting all around you, as in a real war this approach will probably just get you killed. The game itself takes days to grasp with patients that you must master. You must ensure that for bug free gaming to download and install the latest BF2 patch (currently 1.12 at this time of writing) which prevents crashing to desktop and has extra maps. Never use a CD-DVD crack with BF2 as they don't work. Instead either use the CD-DVD or learn how to load a BF2 mini-image. To be honest the quality of technical support is not the best (but does not make the game experience less) and could be a little clearer. The community is less responsive to answering questions and without something like IRC (internet relay chat) it can be difficult to find a channel of users who are willing to help you learn more about how to play the game. Another gripe is that this game has the hardest controller configuration that simply does not have to be as difficult as it is to program. BF1942 had this problem also. Sadly BF2 hasn't bothered to solve it. A major con is in the load times. High end systems take about two and a half minutes to load each map. The menu screens are not instant. Before Operation Flashpoint 2 brings us the best war multiplayer simulator ever conceived we still want to be able to play a multiplayer war game that will match the experience of Call of Duty 2 on a server with up to 64 players. BF2 does just that.

Pros:
- Multiplayer must-have.
- Fairly realistic simulation experience that you will play again and again.
- The only World War II simulation worth playing on-line right now.
- Good game engine. Solid Gaming.
- Replaces Operation Flashpoint and BF1942 and Day of Defeat: Source as the best on-line war simulation game.
- Really big player numbers of servers.
- Massive Maps.

Cons:
- Needs updating and this is not made clear on the EA website.
- Needs broadband.
- Steep learning curve.
- Long load up times.
- System resource heavy.