Battlefield 2: Modern Combat: Game Survives the Port Over to the 360
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is an excellent online experience that can not be missed. It has a unique multiplayer system that is more fun then Halo 2s. It is an amazing title that can not be missed. The graphics in Battlefield are excellent. They are crisp, clear and look like a real battlefield. Craters litter the landscape and bullet holes plaster the walls.
Environments have the worn look to them. While it doesn’t have true geo-mod technology, you can effect the look of the environments with explosives and bullets. Concrete chunks fly off a wall when you shoot at it for example. The uniforms look authentic and there is interesting differences in the uniforms of the different kits. A big selling point here.
Battlefield has a unique combat system and controls. While some of the controls are questionable, b to reload, left bumper to jump, left trigger to crouch, others are innovative and comfortable. The right bumper+right thumbstick to change weapons is strange at first but is easy to use once you get used to it. The game has fairly normal classes (assault, engineer, sniper, spec ops, support) and objectives (Kill this, blow this up, take over this place). You aren’t in control of a single person. You can “hotswap” throughout all available troops on the battlefield. There is the standard variety of vehicles to rain destruction on your enemies.
Singleplayer should only be played to get the achievements and to familiarize new players with the game. At the beginning the enemies are stupider then a box of rocks. they will watch you shot them. As you progress they get smarter and stronger and at the last mission, they seem to have auto-aim. When they are on turrets in the end you can pretty much just bet on death. They are insanely accurate and know exactly where you are, even if you sneak around to the side. Later on they will also “shotgun snipe” you.
You can (and will) be killed by a shotgun from 30 meters out. There is little in the way of story and the small briefings you do get are crappy and get annoying. The plot basically revolves around a conflict between the Chinese and the Americans in the Middle East. You switch off playing for the U.S. and Chinese every few missions. The “propaganda fueled campaign” is really just U.S. and Chinese news stations lying about things.
The multiplayer is phenomenal. You play in one of two game modes. CTF, which is just your basic capture the flag, and conquest. In conquest both teams start with 500 “tickets”. Your team loses one ticket for ever friendly death. Scattered across the maps are flags. if you control a majority of the flags, your opponents tickets will drain.
The more you control, the faster they drain. The great thing about conquest is that you can do anything. If you want to just defend one flag, thats fine, or be a jeep driver and capture points. You get points for kills and flag captures. When you get so many points plus medals, which are awarded for playing well, you will advance in rank.
