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Ok, so we’re absolutely sick of World War II-themed shooters, and we can’t bear the thought of another shooter that takes place in Vietnam. So what did DICE, the keepers of the Battlefield series do to pique our interest? Simple. They went modern. And so it was that Battlefield 2 entered the world. And it was good.

Now before you go on and on with your accusations that Battlefield 2 is little more than a prettied up version of the popular Desert Combat Mod for BF1942, let us just clarify something. You’re wrong.

Combat Truly Evolved

Battlefield 2 is a substantial upgrade to the gameplay that made Battlefield 1942 so compelling. If you’re familiar with the series, then it won’t take you very long to get up to speed. There are some profound differences, though. First of all, instead of spending a paragraph telling you how good the graphics are, just look at the screenshots. There. See how cool it looks?

Now, as good as the teamplay aspect of Battlefield 1942 was, it was never very easy coordinating tactics with your teammates.  Most matches quickly devolved into a free-for-all with players scattering to all ends of the map in search of a flag to capture.

Band of Brothers

Battlefield 2 fixes this problem almost completely with a host of new features that all work in conjunction.  Players can now form squads of up to six soldiers. The interface for doing this couldn’t be any simpler. It’s easy to find a squad or create your own. Once in a squad, you’ll quickly notice that the squad leader is also a mobile spawn point. No more dying, respawning a mile away, and then having to hoof it back to your squad.  Squad leaders can also use the map to issue attack and defend orders at specific locations. 

Battlefield 2 also makes it easy to execute battle plans with the rest of your team. The quick chat commands have been remapped to a single key. From there a radial menu allows easy access to most basic commands, including a dynamic “spotting” command that broadcasts enemies that you’ve located to the rest of your team via the map. For squads there’s also built-in voice chat. While not mandatory, it really helps your squad quickly shift gears during a battle.

Supreme Commander

Tying this all together is the commander, a new role for one player per team. The commander can chat with squad leaders, drop supplies, uncover the location of enemies on the map, and call up devastating rounds of artillery fire.  While commanders can run and gun it with the grunts, much of his time is spend looking at a tactical map, ordering troops around, and sending support.

Because it’s so easy to get all of this organizational stuff up and running, you actually see more players playing as a team than you might expect. Of course it doesn’t hurt that the more organized team almost always wins.

Class Warfare

Battlefield 2 took some other elements of the core game and improved upon them. After the gross class imbalances in Battlefield Vietnam, playing with the different classes in Battlefield 2 is a pleasure. Each class is useful in its own way. And most of the superfluous equipment that no one used anyway is gone. 

Medics not only heal, but can revive dead teammates. The basic assault class has a grenade launcher that’s devastating to groups of infantry. The spec ops class is perfect for sneaking into an enemy base and blowing up their support structures. The initial opinion of the support class was that it was too weak due to the gun being too inaccurate. But within the dynamics of a good squad, the importance of suppression fire and the ability to re-arm your comrades makes it an invaluable class to have.

To top things off your performance online is tracked. And as you go up in rank, you’ll earn medals, awards, and eventually the privilege of unlocking special weapons for each of the classes. These are generally more powerful versions of your existing weapons, but boy do they pack a wallop.

Global Skirmishes

The map selection in Battlefield 2 is also a huge improvement over the previous game. There aren’t really any stinkers here, like the “water heavy” maps from BF1942. And each map scales to the number of people on the server. So if you’re playing on a 16-person server, the maps will be smaller. If you play on a 32- or 64-person server, that same map will be much larger and have more capture points. It’s all brilliant stuff that just shines like a diamond when you’re playing it. 

Really, there’s nothing else quite like standing on top of 20-story crane and watching the war unfold. To your left there may be a group of helicopters dueling, to your right two jets dog fighting and a third on a bombing run, while beneath you dozens of foot soldiers are launching rockets into the sides of exploding tanks and exchanging small arms fire. It's truly a sight to behold when 64 people are waging war using tanks, jeeps, jets, helicopters, aircraft carriers, platoon boats, artillery, and well, we think you get the picture.

Browsing Pains

If there's one complaint to lodge against the game, it's that the server browser can be downright hostile.  It’s slow, and the filter buttons don’t always work. Basic features like a favorites list or a reasonably robust search system just aren’t there. And then there’s that odd “Play BF2 Online Now!” icon they drop on your desktop.  Under no circumstances should you use this button as it immediately tries to connect you to a random multiplayer server. For some reason it attempts to load up the entire map before discovering that it’s full and subsequently kicking you back to the crappy browser.

A War Like No Other

Even with its sketchy browser (which will be one of the first things fixed with a patch), we love Battlefield 2. No matter what kind of person/player you are, you'll find plenty to get into. Each class changes the game so drastically that when you grow tired of slinging lead in the alleys, you can always go spec ops or engineer for a completely new experience. The depth and quality here is just staggering, and you won't find a better multiplayer shooter on the PC.