Battlefield 2 First Look

Gamers are a funny bunch. We'll bitch and moan about a game, and how everyone is hyping it to death, but as soon as we get the chance to get our hands on it, we'll jump at the opportunity and be as giddy about it as little schoolgirls at a boy's locker room.

In other words, we're all unabashed hypocrites, and instead of fighting the urge we might as well embrace it.

Keep it up with the suppressive fire, soldier!

This is just like how we used to do it in Somalia!

EA released Battlefield: Vietnam a few weeks back and everyone thought it will take them some time before we hear any mention of the franchise again. But wait, we're talking about Electronic Arts here! All of us were very wrong, of course, as they've gone ahead and announced Battlefield 2. OK, so we thought that Battlefield: Vietnam was the sequel to Battlefield 1942, but it turns out that's not correct. Battlefield 2 (working title) is the sequel to Battlefield 1942. This makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Everyone knows that 2 comes right after 1942, and Battlefield: Vietnam was I guess not a sequel and not an expansion pack either. It was an undefined project that everyone hailed as the sequel until Battlefield 2 (number two being the dead giveaway here) cast away any doubt about the identity of the true Battlefield 1942 sequel. Will the real Battlefield sequel please stand up?

In all honesty, this whole "sequel" business is very confusing and all it does is confuse the hell out of fans and press alike, but who cares really! The important thing is that we'll get to play a whole new Battlefield game that by the looks of it is going to bring everything that the old BF games (Vietnam included here) lacked.

Taking a cue from its immensely popular unofficial predecessor, Desert Combat, Battlefield 2 is a modern day warfare game. In Battlefield 2, players will choose to fight for one of three military superpowers: the United States, China, or the newly formed Middle East Coalition. Wait, wait, wait... Middle East Coalition?! Wait a second here, isn't Israel in the Middle East as well? So they've joined forces with the Arabs to fight against the Americans and the Chinese? Of course not! We're dealing with fiction, but such creative license is too much for any developer to exercise. Instead, Middle East Coalition can be best described as the low-tech, sneaky BF version of the GLA, made famous by EALA in C&C: Generals. If you're worried though that Middle East Coalition will have many political connotations and similarities to the mess that's happening right now in the Middle East, you can put those thoughts to rest, as DICE plans to forgo the political side of things in favor of straight up gameplay and some "rock-paper-scissors" gameplay balance that the Battlefield series is known for.

Placing the game in present time and working on modern day warfare scenarios naturally means that players will get to drive fly and feel the hurt from the latest, most technologically advanced vehicles and weapons systems available to man. At this point we know that the game will feature some 30+ vehicles. The US side will of course have at their disposal the Abrams tank, the Apache helicopter, and the Humvee, amongst other things. Having modern day weapons also implies a lot of practical gameplay changes like the fact that the clumsy artillery feature in Battlefield 1942 is replaced by laser painting a target and another player guiding a missile along the beam.

As for the weapons, we know for a fact that the US assault class (infantry) will be issued an M4 assault rifle with the M203 grenade launcher, just so they could, you know, say "hi" in a peaceful and friendly manner to the enemy.

Although the vehicles and weapons in the game will be quite sophisticated, DICE says the accent is on simplicity and ease of use when it comes to the controls interface and other things that influence the fluidity of the action.

Even though changing the settings and fast-forwarding the time frame of the conflict is all good and well, it's hardly groundbreaking by any stretch of imagination. So what exactly are the groundbreaking features of this game that will knock your socks off when you get to actually sit down and try them out?

How about the fact that Battlefield 2 will have support for up to 100 (yes, that's one-zero-zero) players and features maps that adjust in scale to support the number of players in the game, providing the ideal vehicle-to-player ratio and an optimized gameplay experience. I don't know how they plan to pull this off, but this thing can potentially be huge for the franchise, ensuring that your average Joe gamer gets the best possible game experience even if he's playing against a handful of players online.

And then how about the fact that Battlefield 2 team play features allow players to enter the action on the front lines as part of a formal squad, or smoke a big fat Cuban and carry a pointy stick in Commander Mode to direct the strategic assaults of their teammates? If your squad and you as their head honcho are successful in kicking enemy butt, you can increase your rank from recruit all the way to General and unlock awards, including new weapons, vehicle decals, medals, and more.

But that's only if you want to "play military." Naturally, players can ignore all this and play Battlefield the traditional way if they choose. The nice thing about being a team player is that DICE is reworking the scoring system to reward players that don't cap many flags or kill a lot of enemies, but instead choose to be busy little bees that repair stuff and heal people. These guys will be rewarded in Battlefield 2 for their role-playing. DICE is currently designing other reward systems as well to encourage team play.

You're still not convinced? OK, here comes the killer part. Battlefield 2 will feature destructible environments, courtesy of the brand-new 3D engine they're building from the ground up, as well as a new, proprietary advanced physics engine that includes rag doll physics and something called material penetration feature. The new material penetration feature measures weapons' ability to fire through barriers based on their composition and players will need to know the difference between concealment and cover if they want to stay in one piece. Add to that the destructible environments, rag doll stuff, and much improved ballistics, and it becomes very apparent how much more dynamic the battlefield actually becomes.

Besides the abovementioned terrain feature, the new engine will boast such things as: a vehicle / character parts system, dynamic lighting effects, multi-texturing detail processes, normal mapping of characters and vehicles, and many other features.