To say Battlefield 2 inspired a few PC upgrades is a lot like saying Michael Jackson grabbed his crotch in a few music videos. So intense was PC gamers’ desire to play EA’s latest Battlefield game that they seemed to stop at nothing to get their computers ready to play the newest WWII-themed first-person shooter.
Not content with leaving the Battlefield franchise (and mania) on PC, EA this fall will release Battlefield 2: Modern Combat on the PS2 and Xbox. This iteration, a console exclusive, has a much more arcadey feel but still retains much of the Battlefield flavor (vehicles, objective-based play and massive team battles). We recently took Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for a spin around Kazakstan, and we definitely came back intrigued.
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is essentially divided into two games: single-player and multiplayer. Normally that would be an asinine comment, as first-person shooters generally have both a single- and multi-player component. But in the case of BF2: Modern Combat, the two modes are decidedly different.
In the multiplayer mode, BF2: Modern Combat plays much like the other objective-based shooters Xbox and PS2 gamers have grown accustomed to. Players control a single troop and coordinate their efforts among their squadmates, all of whom are played by other real-life humans. In 12-versus-12 matches, players can choose from 50 different weapons, 30 vehicles, 12 maps and several gameplay modes, of which the base-capturing matches are by far the most popular.
The single-player mode, though, is where BF2: Modern Combat begins to turn the corner. During the course of the game’s 30 levels, players control not one troop in a vast army, but every troop in that army. No more do gamers select a character class and remain stuck with a sniper rifle for the entire match. Instead, players start each level with a given character type and “hot swap” from soldier to soldier throughout the game.
Naturally this spices up the gameplay, with gamers able to play as a heavy weapons expert, sniper, assault rifleman and pilot in the span of three minutes. But spicing up the gameplay isn’t the hot swap’s sole purpose. In BF2: Modern Combat, players can upgrade their equipment (thermal vision, anyone?), their vehicles (five weapons firing simultaneously from an Apache helicopter sure sounds nice), and they can also upgrade their overall rank. To do this, they must score more points by killing more foes. Hot swapping, then, becomes vitally important as players look to stay in the action and rack up kills. After all, if the friendly AI takes down all the enemies, that just means the computer increases its rank rather than the player.
Hot swapping in and of itself couldn’t be any easier. As players walk around the level, they will see different-colored icons above each friendly character. As long as players can see a soldier, and the icon above that soldier’s head is blue, players can “teleport” into that soldier’s body. And yes, that includes pilots and drivers in any vehicle. Hot swap back out of that vehicle, and the AI simply takes over where the player left off.
In essence, hot swapping keeps players continually in battle, and the ability to teleport from soldier to soldier reduces the monotony of trudging across an entire map on foot. It also therefore makes BF2: Modern Combat feel much more action-oriented than many other military-themed first-person shooters, which for the twitchy crowd will be a most welcomed feature.
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is looking to give gamers a fresh take not just on the Battlefield franchise, but on military shooters in general. The hot swapping may not be for everyone, and it might feel a bit too arcadey for traditional Battlefield fans, but it’s an interesting experiment that we’re interested to see pan out. Xbox and PS2 owners, prepare to be guinea pigs as of one the PC’s most-storied franchises makes its console debut.
— Jonas Allen