[Fineus]

Having dabbled with the newly released Battlefield 2142 demo, here's why I think that EA has managed to kill a damn fine franchise.

In short - it's simply not Battlefield anymore.

Battlefield 1942 was fantastic fun. It was well balanced, challenging and consistently entertained. The expansion packs added new aspects and were great fun to play with, as well as some nice free maps as well. Desert Combat was released for it which breathed a breath of fresh air into it that it didn't need but massively benefited from.

Battlefield Vietnam renewed the engine a bit but bought with it a slew of problems. Despite this it was quite fun and quite nicely themed (the included music being a particularly nice touch). It was somewhat rushed though.

Battlefield 2 saw a massively improved engine and graphics overhaul - and with it an entire sack of bugs and errors. For all these though I still find it entertaining - although it did see more novel ways for people to be idiots than I've previously encountered. Such things as dolphin diving and bunny hopping were both pathetic and unacceptable - and ways to prevent them should've been built into the first patch release but still haven't. Overall though the game is well worth playing - although I've spent more time on the core game than on any of its expansion packs which are unashamed cash-ins and nothing more. Certainly more effort was put into the expansions than into bug fixing and patches.

Battlefield 2142 is - to my mind - another downward peak in the Battlefield franchise. The first to not be based on any present or historical conflict - it plays very much like a dumbed down, glossy mod for Battlefield 2. The engine is incredibly similar with few advancements there, a lot of the menus have only experienced a new skin. It once again feels like EA has done two things:

1. Rushed out a game to make a buck. This is no suprise, they have a history for it. It is a great shame however as the premise of Battlefield is an excellent one and doesn't deserve to be dragged through the mud.

2. Nerfed, toned down and removed all aspects of skill from the game.

As I said, the first instance is no suprise. The second however is a great shame and somewhat alarming if it's any indication of the requests of who is buying online FPSs these days. There are more auto-lock weapons in the game than ever before which make it play more like a point-and-shoot than something you have to bother aiming. Weapons are unoriginal and it seems they rely heavily on unlocks which are only available in the full game. While I quite like the idea of working for unlockable features - I feel they've gone rather overboard with the idea and should have done things differently.

If anyone has played the mod POE2 for Battlefield 2 - they'll know the kind of gameplay I had in mind. Accuracy is everything in this mod and if you're a crappy shot then you'll get no kills - it's as simple as that. The auto-lock features of BF2142 are so intensely boring that I really didn't enjoy the demo that much at all.

Following that trend, the handling of all vehicles feels more and more arcade than before - with jeeps bouncing across terrain as if in 3/4 earth gravity and the aircraft of the game handling very strangely indeed. I long for the days of a nice BF1942 dogfight - it might not be pretty by todays standards but the level of skill required - and the amount of entertainment provided - were much much higher.

All in all I'm disappointed. EA seems to be squeezing the life out of the game in favour of making a quick buck, and the direction of dumbing down rather than challenging players is sad to see indeed.

End review/rant.

[Nuke]

bf 2141 is gonna suck a long monkeyschlong. its really just a gimick to score buys from the unreal and quake crouds. it will loose to things like quake wars and the new unreal engine. hell id rather just play ut2004 over the new bf game. bf2 was ok, it had a gameplay wich didnt feel like a penis measuring contest. where was some skill involved. you couldnt successfully apply any generic fp[s tactics, so it made the game different enough to level out the playing field. the frag rackers of old had to learnt the game over again to be any good. of course the noobism element still exists. and you have your share of idiots, people who would kill for a plane only to crash the damn thing and not score any points. there are is room for games like bf2141, but its a mistake to add it too the battlefield series.

[Davros]

also battlefield 2 has just about the lamest players in the known universe
you wouldnt beleive some of the crap that goes on

[redmenace]

I still enjoy BF2. I especially enjoy the attach helicopters and jets. Yes there are asshats out there that seem to think that the point of the game is to **** over your team mate.

Expansion wise, I did fully enjoy Armored Fury. yes it is 3 maps and a A-10  for 10 dollars. But those maps were truly enjoyable.

[aldo_14]

My opinion is simply that BF2 isn't worth the time or effort it requires.

[redmenace]

It depends. Do you have a bunch of friends that you like to play with? I do: www.codebluebf.com

On a side note:

[aldo_14]

I simply don't see the fun in a game that has iron-sights less accurate than the crosshairs.  Yes, it's fun sometimes and I enjoyed it when I first tried it, but ultimately I find it.....dull.

[CP5670]

My brother plays BF2 for several hours every day, but I never got much into it. All these modern FPSs are too slow paced for my liking. I want to see a return of the old school UT or Q3 style gameplay.

[Colonol Dekker]

Anything past BF1942 secret weapons isn't Battlefield, So i wont play it.........

[Fineus]

My brother plays BF2 for several hours every day, but I never got much into it. All these modern FPSs are too slow paced for my liking. I want to see a return of the old school UT or Q3 style gameplay.

That's a whole different debate right there

I think slow paced FPSs have a place, it's fun to tactically out-think your enemy then blow them to dust once you've done so. That's what BF1942 and BF2 let you do - it's a great feeling to see an enemy tank heading at you, so you pop the smoke and drive around the building block to come up behind them and blow them away. In a more fast-paced FPS you simply can't do that - it's far more "run and gun".

[CP5670]

They certainly have a place, but it seems like all the games are like that these days. Even UT2004 is pretty slow compared to the original UT. Sucks for me, as that is the sort of gameplay style I like best and excel at. I'm hoping UT2007 will change things in this respect.

[redmenace]

My brother plays BF2 for several hours every day, but I never got much into it. All these modern FPSs are too slow paced for my liking. I want to see a return of the old school UT or Q3 style gameplay.

That's a whole different debate right there

I think slow paced FPSs have a place, it's fun to tactically out-think your enemy then blow them to dust once you've done so. That's what BF1942 and BF2 let you do - it's a great feeling to see an enemy tank heading at you, so you pop the smoke and drive around the building block to come up behind them and blow them away. In a more fast-paced FPS you simply can't do that - it's far more "run and gun".

It is even more of a blast when you can ask your commander for closed air support and an Cobra comes and oblitherates incoming armor.

[Fineus]

Fair play then... are there any third party mods out there that speed things up?

I still think Quake 3 has the definitive combination of a solid engine, good netcode and fast gameplay in that respect. I know some people like UT and some like Q3 and yes both were good - but Q3 seemed that much more of a complete package.

[Mefustae]

Just wait until Forgotten Hope 2. It'll make pissing away $50 for BF2 seem totally worth it.

[Fineus]

Mmm, it looks fantastic but when is it coming out? The nearest answer I can find is "when we're ready, we don't want to make false promises" - but that's not much of an indication of how long I'll have to wait

[Bob-san]

I personally enjoyed Delta Force Black Hawk Down... more fun... no commanders... a few cool weapons...

the best thing was sniping on a certain desert map for MP... it was 2 spawns/armories and 3 spawns between them... all north/south of each other, with each team starting east/west of them... the classic thing for snipers was to go gunner, capture the north spawn (i think it was north... maybe south), die, and respawn as a sniper with MRCT .300 Tactical... Claymore the spawn point to keep it for a bit, and run around to the mountains...

It wasnt that hard to get there, but about 1km from the enemy armory was a mount range... you sit back and start antisniping, staying behind the mountains. It was fun looking for snipers that were 3px high with binoculars... the scope was 18x on the sniperrifle, with like 100 rounds or something. I ran out of ammo a few times.

Turn off tracers on weapon fire and it got better...only thing is you have a problem calibrating your fire when at odd distances (850m, 1100m, etc) with only 4 "buds" (which are 250m each or so)...

it was fun and balanced because it was fastpaced with calm spots... sort of the gunners who protect flags... four or five of them start out... sniper fire and then random shooting at anyone and anything that moved... including the grass (since you could easily hide in them... it takes of patience to find everyone).


of good maps have large bushes that you hide in... I would go gunner and sit in the grass. You cant watch your six easily in small bushes or your M60 will be seen moving...

took skill to get everyone out... of spawns were captured fast...

but anyways i got BF1942 and BF2... I like BF2 a bit more cause its modern but i cant play much cause I dont got MP anymore and my system is crap.

[NGTM-1R]

I gave up on the battlefield series when I realized they hadn't bothered to find out what kind of weapons the Japanese used.

[Unknown Target]

Bob-san, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down had so much potential for a strong multiplayer and a tight action/team based game. Unfortunately, Novalogic doesn't know how to design a game to save their lives - none of the weapons have reqoil, you travel just as fast with every gun, the guns have basically unlimited range, no ballistics drop, and one to three shots from every gun kills you. This basically means that everyone either picks the sniper (to scope on those super long range maps), or the machine gun, which has a massive ammo belt.

If someone would go in there and tweak DF:BHD's weapons, it could become a serious competitor IMO.

[Turambar]

lol, UT you should play Joint Ops.  you'd love it.  instead of different speeds for different weapons, your speed is based on how much all your stuff weighs.  there's bullet drop and effective team tactics.  non-cheap vehicles that are reasonably balanced with anti-vehicle weapons, and with the expansion, up to 150 people on a server.

[Mefustae]

Aaaaaah, Joint Ops. Good game, that. It's oddly amusing to be flying your Blackhawk around with your minigunners laying down some serious hurt below you.