Developer: DICE | Publisher: Electronic Arts ||
The Battlefield franchise is coming around for a new shot at the market with EA’s Battlefield 2, developed by DICE. Battlefield 2 supplies those who yearn for a modern combat Battlefield game (since the other games were based on WWII, and Vietnam), by making all the stuff in the game, well, modern. There are tanks, jeeps, helicopters, and guns just like those that are being used in combat nowadays.
The traditional Battlefield formula has been preserved well in the demo I played at E3 for Battlefield 2. While the only mode that was allowed was multiplayer, there were eight people playing at the same time. Needless to say, once you got used to playing the game on a PS2 controller rather than a PC set-up, the game becomes fairly involving. As with the other Battlefield games, the game revolves around taking over and controlling all the spawn points as dictated by the map you play on. While you can have some very hard times making it to the point where you control all the flags in the game so that there is no spawn point for the other team (thus winning once all the remaining enemies are left on the map are killed, unless they take another flag over), you can win by killing members of the other team until all their tickets run out. Usually killing the other team for all their tickets would take a very long time (since you start out with a couple hundred usually), so it becomes the priority to take over all the spawn points.
The multiplayer-only demo I played for Battlefield 2: Modern Combat captured the same feeling as the other games in the series. Being able to chose one of five different positions in your respective team, you can be equipped with a special ops gun, an M16 with a grenade launcher, a sniper rifle, a rocket launcher, a shotgun and other secondary weaponry to help you in your conquest of the map. This allows for flexibility in what kind of gun you like to use, and you don’t mess around with picking up your gun off the floor.
The demo’s sound was excellent for being in such an early stage of development. Almost all parts of the gameplay were very good as well, but there were a couple of issues I did notice. A minor issue is when you move (with the left analog stick) and then let go of it, your player keeps moving afterwards, and it feels almost as if they are sliding. The other issue which is more annoying is the lack of precision using the right analog stick in aiming with your weapon. Hopefully these issues will be solved before it hits retail.
Though there was only one map available for play, it looked fairly nice. A lot of the objects and textures were sort of bland, but most likely the graphical look of the game will be improved as well.
Playing Battlefield 2 for about an hour, I can say that the development of the game is going well, and the game can only get better from what it is now.