The Battlefield series stirs up many memories for me, good and bad. Battlefield 3 had a massive impression on my teenage gaming and was my introduction to a series that, if the stars align and Hell freezes over, I'll return to enjoy once more.
I have never been able to experience Battlefield as it was meant to be played, however. Lower player counts on consoles result in similar, but not really comparable experiences. I've never been in a 64 player Battlefield match. I've been in a 256 player MAG match on the PlayStation 3, though, but MAG isn't Battlefield. I do wish MAG would return. What is it with great FPS titles disappearing, or changing for the worse?
Before Battlefield 3, there had to be a Battlefield 2. I knew this going into BF3 of course, but have very little knowledge of the game itself. In fact, all I've really got in my favour is that some of the maps made it into the BF3 DLC. I guess I'll start there.
Fun Times
Bah bah bah-buh BA-BAH! I'm not sure where I picked up my copy of Battlefield 2, I think a charity shop, and while there was the tiniest of panics hunting for the disc before it let me play it, I am, finally, seeing BF2 in the flesh.
The iconic cover, a giant red two with a soldier chilling in the middle, lets us know this is war in a modern setting. It's not the first game to do so, but it's Battlefield, and that means modern weaponry, modern infantry, modern vehicles, modern mayhem. Even the intro video gets its "Only in Battlefield" going.
I'm really looking forward to this one. I'm expecting it to play a little like BF3, but with a lot less polish. As before, I'm going to play it safe with some bots first. The last thing I want is a repeat of the Battlefield 1942 multiplayer debacle.
The single-player mode is essentially offline multiplayer, sadly with a reduced player count - worse than the console versions of BF3 onwards, really. Instead of the 64 player action we want, I'm going to have to dip my toes into a fight with 16 bots, arguing over territory in Strike at Karkand, one of the maps that I'm familiar with from BF3.
You can play as either the Americans or the Middle Eastern Coalition here, and as one of several different classes, each with their own weaponry and equipment. These would be mushed together in BF3, but are quite spread out in BF2. I find it best to start with the grunts, so let's assault our objective.
Working our way forward through the dusty streets, we get familiar with the feel of the controls. WASD to move, obviously, with a double-tap and hold of the W-key putting you into a sprint. It's not infinite, and it'll tire you out, because BF2 isn't an FPS like Doom or Quake, but more a simulation like ArmA or Operation Flashpoint.
It requires teams to be on the same page, fighting together towards a common objective, or, in Battlefield lingo, P-ingTFO. Our aim is to take control of the objective markers. The more we take and hold, the faster our opponents' tickets tick down. The fewer tickets they have, the fewer respawns there are for their mounting casualties.
We start on the back foot as the US, having to push into enemy territory to take down the MEC flag and raise our own. A few seconds of hanging around is all you need to secure an objective, but the area needs to be free of enemy combatants before that happens, meaning you'll need to clear the streets and cap the objective in safety.
But this is Battlefield, so it's quite likely a tank will rock up any second now, and undo all your hard work.
Each side has specific equipment hanging back towards their side of the map that can be used by their commander, a player who plays BF2 more like an RTS, dropping artillery strikes and marking enemies on the map for all the players to see. If these cannons or radar dishes are destroyed, the commanders' toolset is crippled. I hatch a plan to lone-wolf it for a little while. Don't worry, I'm only playing with bots, remember.
Heading as far away from the action as possible, I hook around to the back of the map and start to take over some territory. This flank will pull some opposition from the front lines and have them fight on two fronts. The better I can do on my lonesome, the more chance the rest of the team will have elsewhere.
As a bonus, if I manage to get this objective, we can spawn here in future, and surround the enemy. But I don't.
The joy of Battlefield is that you can fulfil whatever role you want, preferably one that suits the map and the objectives, but ultimately one that best suits your playstyle. It's not a suitable map for vehicles, what with all the side streets and rooftops, but vehicles are deadly around here, so I switch to a class with something a little more useful at their disposal.
From up here, I can survey the battlefield and put the commo-rose to use. This communication panel comes up when you press the Q-key, where you can shout for some help or give some advice to your team, but, by default, is used to spot enemies, flagging them up for your teammates to be aware of. Spotting is vital in Battlefield. Think calling out spots in Counter-Strike, but you don't have to have an innate knowledge of the maps beforehand.
I didn't get a whole lot done from up on this building, however. Time to see what the special forces can do.
A different load-out, this time coming with some tacticool looking weapons and some explosives. Excellent. Sadly, I walk into the middle of a tank fight and learn that, much like humans, bots don't always know when it is best to revive fallen teammates.
In the middle of the street, surrounded by enemies, a medic brings me back into the fight. I don't survive much longer. What can the sniper do?
Instead of camping at my end of the street, I decided to try another flank all the way to the back of the map. This time, I am rewarded with an empty enemy vehicle. Are you looking for the keys, mate? There aren't any. If a vehicle is unoccupied, anyone can get into it, enemies included. And given that I'm riding around in your vehicle, you can bet I'm not getting out of it at all.
Moving it around is simple enough. It sure feels like a tank, put it that way. I'd love a gunner to watch my back or a third-person view, but I fear pressing the wrong buttons before I finish stealing this objective. What's that warning sign?
Ah. Ok. Well, let's see what a sniper can do outside of a tank.
My Battlefield philosophy is to PTFO in the way you're not expecting. I love to flank. Sometimes I like to charge. If the situation allows for something cheeky, even better. This time, I'm just going to cause a nuisance. If I can get the enemy looking at me, I stop them looking at everyone else.
I suppose what actually happened was that my first shots missed, or else didn't deal enough damage, and so the enemy turned their attention. But still, the plan was working. Until I rank out of luck.
I was having a good time, despite the dusty graphics and low player count. This was Battlefield. It wasn't mayhem, but it was exactly what I was expecting. I was able to affect the battle in numerous ways, I was able to approach a situation how I wanted to. I was having fun, even though we were losing.
Why are we losing? Other than not having control of the majority of objectives, I mean. Wait a minute. Shouldn't I be in a squad?
Sure enough, for the entirety of the game so far, I hadn't been playing in a squad. How filthy of me. Battlefield demands teamwork, and here I was, ignoring it. Putting myself in a squad, and making sure I wasn't the leader dishing out the commands, I got my medic bag and started doing what my squad leader wanted.
The medic bag does what it says on the tin, where players can run over it to heal their wounds. Don't drop them in the middle of the street, drop them somewhere in cover. Same with ammo packs, if you've got them to dish out. Stop and think.
Finally working as a team, we were able to push up and take a second objective - a key objective, overlooking the third, but an open one. Exposed on three sides, and on the main road where all the tanks can be found. I needed to get the shock paddles out and revive my downed squadmates if we were to make use of these draining tickets. He was in enough cover, don't worry.
But the MEC didn't stop. The objective was hotly contested, and if I wasn't around the back of the map stealing tanks, it meant they had a tank available to cause us a fair few problems.
Frustrations
It caused me so many problems that after it killed me, I couldn't even respawn. I wondered if this was because there was nowhere safe for me to spawn in anymore, or that there weren't enough tickets left to let me back in. Ultimately, I'm not sure why I had to sit out the rest of the match looking at the site of my death. A sad end to my first match of BF2.
Picking another map, the Gulf of Oman, and deciding to see what weaponry the MEC have to use, my mood quickly returned back to happiness. Do I want to sit in the gunners' seat? Why yes, yes I do
Further Fun Times
This is Battlefield. Charging around the map in a tank, obliterating anything in sight. Yeah, it came to an end, but I blame the driver. What was I going to do with a machine gun against a tank? Duck? There is a duck button for the gunner, surprisingly, which must mean you can be shot out of the gunners' seat of a tank. I don't know how revolutionary BF2 was, even when going back through video game history with this 1001 list. Was that attention to detail mindblowing, or to be expected?
While it looks basic compared to BF3, in the sunshine over the desert sands, BF2 looks excellent, and I was absolutely absorbed in it. I spawned right in front of an enemy in his hummer, fumbled for a grenade and was eventually outgunned, all in the space of twenty seconds. In another minute, I was hiding from a tank, because there was no way I was equipped to deal with it.
Further Frustrations
A few minutes after that, however, I was driving around the entire map in the loudest tank I could find, trying and failing to get someone to shoot at me. All the objectives were ours. The enemy ticket count was draining, but there was nobody to be found. Had we managed to stop them from spawning into the battle at all? That can't be right. Another match ends with a whimper.
Further Fun Times
The third and final match on familiar territory took me to the skies. Literally. My sniper perch was targetted by artillery, and I pulled out the ragdoll physics once more. This is Battlefield.
When it's fun, it's fantastic. When it's not so fun... well, let's not dwell on that. If you take Battlefield seriously, good luck. If you take it for what it is - a sort of military sim where car bombs are a viable strategy and snipers fall from the sky - you can have a damn good time, win or lose.
Final Word
You just have to enjoy getting caught in a tank fight while running around a corner, and then revived in the middle of a gaggle of enemies intent on cleaning up the mess. When you get through a skirmish by the skin of your teeth, running on adrenaline, Battlefield gives you the buzz you want from a great game.
While I haven't gotten to experience 64 player carnage, no doubt full of squad leaders with no clue and players with no interest in following orders from those that do, I have now played Battlefield 2 and can better appreciate what it means, especially in relation to BF3. The game I know and love was a refined and remarkable looking sequel that built upon what worked in Battlefield 2.
I'm not sure on the state of the multiplayer in 2020. The one website I see isn't currently working, and it's a fan-made thing because official support went away a long while ago now. Games age and newcomers replace them. Battlefield 2 was replaced by BF3, altered by BF4, wounded by BF1 and perhaps killed by BFV. I guess the best we can do is to enjoy them in the moment because coming back to them after all these years doesn't always work.
Battlefield 2 may only live on in players' memory. I'm not quite sure. I know that it lives more in my imagination than my memory, having never played it to its fullest, but I have at least seen a little of what it had to offer, and it was just what I wanted to see.
Assuming there are multiplayer servers (I bet there are somewhere), that you want to play with random players, or are happy with a small count of bots, Battlefield 2 can be a lot of fun. Just don't take it seriously.
Fun Facts
Extra content, including factions, vehicles and weaponry, was released to players for free. How times have changed...
Battlefield 2, developed by Digital Illusions CE, first released in 2005.
Version played: PC, 2005.