Team-based Mayhem

Just to get it out of the way, I want to say that I have not played any of the Battlefield series before this. A friend of mine once tried to get me into Battlefield Vietnam. I bought the game, but was turned away from the complex controls, weapons, classes, and vehicles. Being multiplayer, it was very discouraging when others start calling you a newb or other put-downs.

Some how, I found myself downloading the BF2: Modern Warfare demo for the XBOX 360. As I played, I actually found it fun and the goals are more clear. I didn't really get into the vehicles, but the map was easy to understand and see. Of course, I would rather play on the PC with better controls via a mouse and keyboard, so I started looking into Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142.

I eventually decided on BF2142 since it was newer and may garner more players online.

Installation
Installation is just like any other game. It asks for you to set up the microphone as well, since the game have built-in voice communication. It also asks for you to set up GameSpy. I personally don't use them and rather not have a lot of junk installed so I opted out of it.

While there are some controversies that surround the fact that EA decided to use in-game advertisement, it isn't that big of a deal in my opinion. More on that later.

You will need to patch the game to version 1.40 (as of December 2007). This includes a new map as well as tons of bug and balance issue fixes. The patch is around 350 MB to download, and takes a long time to install.

Currently there is also a add-on for BF2142 called Northern Strike. It adds a few new weapons, vehicles, maps, and another type of game play. Surprisingly, the 160 MB add-on (called a Booster Pack) is smaller than the patch!

Performance
The graphics are getting dated, yes, but they still look pretty good. The least powerful machine is my friend's ATI 9800XT with an AMD Semperon 3200+ with 1 GB of RAM. Load time doesn't seem to get any faster with faster hardware. Load time takes about 45 seconds, which is an eternity if you are just sitting there waiting to get into the game.

Also, every time you change graphics settings, you have to wait almost 3 full minutes for the game to optimize textures and shaders. This can cause any player to go mad with impatience.

As for the power to run the game, my friend's ATI 9800XT runs the game just fine, but only if you turn the resolution down to 800x600. You must turn a lot of the eye candy settings down, too. My 7900GTX was able to play the game flawlessly with all settings turned up and at my LCD's native resolution of 1600x1200. Of course, that's a bit extreme. On my laptop's 8600GT (a mainstream video card), I was able to play at the LCD's native resolution of 1440x900 (after a hack to allow for wide screen resolutions) with all of the eye candy turned up without any issues either. Even my Windows Media Center with it's 8500GT was able to play at 720p without any issues (again, with all of the settings turned up).

The only time we see frame rates drop noticeably is when there is lag during internet play or if there are a lot of action around on my friend's low-powered Semperon machine. On any decent gaming machine (7600GT or higher), I have not experienced any noticeable depreciation in performance when playing.

Graphics
The graphics are pretty clean and detailed. It is not as rich as some of the current shooters such as Bioshock or Crysis, but it is a perfect blend of good graphics that is good enough not to slow down the game play when there are lots of players on the field. Unfortunately, there is no wide screen support (not officially anyways).

The buildings are relatively drab, but detailed enough to be believable. Vehicles seem realistic enough as well. The characters look good, but you may not be able to tell who's in your faction if you haven't played for a long time. The way I remember is if there are any orange on the person, they are in the EU faction, while white is the PAC faction.

There are some graphical glitches here and there. Such as when you die, your point-of-view with the body may clip. This allows for you to see where you were not suppose to for a little bit. Also, your body might fall through what seem to be solid objects after death. It does not really cause any issues in game play, but if you have communications with your team, you can relay some critical info to them on the enemies' position if they are near by to do something about it.

Sound
The sound is excellent! To put simply, the virtual surround used by EAX is surreal with headphones. In fact, this is the best way to play. You can actually pin-point where the action is coming from due to this virtual surround positioning. Not sure how EA did it, but rock on!

The sound of the guns and explosions have substance in them. Playing them on my Klipsch 2.1 speakers creates a lot of bass rumbles when riding in the tank or if there is an orbital strike (arieal bombing). The announcements and talk from players sound good. The canned phrases can actually communicate effectively without picking up your microphone. Need a medic? Need ammo? Just use one of the canned phrases, and it will show you who is close by that can help you. Also if someone else is calling for help that you an provide (ex: calling a medic, and you happen to be one), you can see where they are calling from if they are close by on your mini-map.

The vehicles also sound appropriate, with heavy thunking of the Walker, low rumblings of the tank, and eerie sense of calm when inside the safety of the Titan (at least before the invasion). The APC transport vehicle is slow, but can transport many people (like a bus). It also sounds like an appropriate diesel vehicle, and you can hear every transmission shift.

All in all, sound is very immersion and nothing is out of place.

Gameplay
If you have played other FPS, you will have to learn teamwork and communication to play BF2142 effectively. Sure you can play alone, but you will not be able to level up as quickly as other players. Your stats will not rise either. Also teamwork stats will remain low. Your best bet is to join a squad, let them know you are new, and try to follow the orders given to you by your squad leader.

There are 4 classes, which is reduced from the other Battlefield games. This makes the BF2142 easier to for people new to the series to play. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I love BF2142. With less classes, some of the responsibilities are shared.

Classes
Assault
This is your basic marine. You have guns that have good range and double a a medic. You can heal and revive your teammates. You can put down a medic box to heal multiple players. Unfortunately, it can also heal the enemy as well. It is not wise to leave the medic box lying around if its not around an area where you know your teammates won't be for long.

Recon
With the Recon, you can specialize in being a sniper or play like an Assault except you are an explosion specialist with the ability to cloak and be relatively invisible. This is a very fun class to play with if you are good enough! You have RDX explosives that are pretty much remote-detonation bombs you can use to place on vehicles and wait for an enemy to hop in. You can also throw them on the path were you think the enemy is going to cross. Protect your control point with them from afar!

Then there is the APM (Anti-Personal Mines) which can protect you from someone sneaking up to you if you are in a spot where you are sniping from. When they explode, they only do damage in one direction. Becareful not to put them down the wrong way!

Engineer
The Engineer is the person who can repair vehicles and other things (stationary guns, Titan guns, etc). He is also the person who can easily take out vehicles as well, including flying vehicles. With motion mines that track and follow vehicles and EMP mines that disables them temporarily, the Engineer is the worst class to encounter if you are the driver. Controversially, if you are an Engineer, you make a good driver or passenger because you can repair the vehicle if there is any damage.

Support
The Support class have a very powerful and accurate gun. Unfortunately, it overheats really quick and you will find yourself at the mercy of your other teammates. Thus, this class is truly only used for supporting the team. To continue the support theme, you are also responsible for supplying ammo for your teammates. Like the medic, it is a box that you can leave on the ground to supply ammo to more people at once. Again, this also means that the enemy can also ammo up as well from your box.

There is also another gun the Support class have that is very powerful but not very accurate. It's a trade off that you have to decide on.

Another great item the Support class have is a robotic turret gun that automatically shoots at near by enemies. Be careful how you position it, though, because if you put it down in a way where an enemy can sneak up behind it, they won't get hurt, and your turret gun can be destroyed easily.

Commander and Squad Leaders
Since this is team-based game play, there is some hierarchy. The Commander is at the top of the food chain. You can apply for being a Commander, and if you were the first to apply, you will get it. However, if others also apply and they out-rank you, they will get the Commander position instead.

Being the Commander allows for you to direct squads to objectives. You can tell them to attack or defend a point, or even the Titan. You can even tell a squad to send someone to repair some of your assets.

The assets allow for you to quickly scan the map to get a general idea of where the enemies are. You can then point out some of the trouble spots to the rest of the team. You can also call for an Orbital Strike that rains down bombs. This is only available in Conquest Mode. If the trouble spot is too much to point out, you can send in a UAV, which is like the full map scan except it concentrates on an area. The UAV is seen by everyone on your team, not just you, which is useful for your troops. You can also send out EMPs to disable vehicles. Squad leaders can communicate to you what they need, and you can also communicate with the squad leaders. Lastly, you can send out a huge supply box anywhere on the map. This box heals and supplies ammo and can be a real asset to have when there is a heavy fire fight going on and your troops are in danger.

Being a Commander has a lot of responsibility. You don't get points for killing an enemy directly. You get them if you squads obey your orders. If you are bad at your job, players can mutiny you. Once they mutiny, other players has to vote whether or not they want to join the mutiny. If there is not enough to mutiny the Commander, you stay. If there is, you get kicked out and anyone else can apply to be Commander, including yourself (again).

The second tier are the Squad Leaders. You can create a squad and invite others to join. If you create a squad, you are the squad leader. It is your job to tell the troops what to do. If the commander asks you to defend a point and you accept the order, you relay the order to the rest of your squad. As a Squad Leader, you can tell the Commander you need supplies, EMP, or even an UAV. Since the Commander gets to see the entire map and can potentially see hot spots of enemies, if you have a good Commander, obeying his orders can be crucial to your team's survival or the goal. If you have a bad Commander, anyone can mutiny him.

Conquest Mode
In this game mode, your goal is to capture as many control points as possible. To do this, you have to stay close to the flag to raise your faction's flag. If the enemy's flag was up, you have to take it down before you can put your's up. This takes a while. The more people of the same team is by the control point, the faster you capture it. If there was an enemy hiding close by the flag, it will slow you down. In fact, if you are trying to capture a point but the flag isn't going anywhere, there may be an enemy close by, so watch your back!

You can also defend the control point, hiding in strategic spots. It's great for Recon to get some kills from sniping from a distant spot or use remote-controlled bombs (RDX) to defend a spot. If you are a Support, you can lay one of your turret guns down to defend and get some kill points without actually being there. As an Engineer, you can lay some motion mines to destroy any enemies driving up to the control point, or lay low to blast the vehicles away with your rocket propelled grenades.

The Commander are allowed to use Orbital Strikes in this game mode, which rains down bombs from above to clear out any enemy-infested areas. Be careful, however, because it can hurt your team as well.

Titan Mode
This is a new game mode in the Battlefield series, and it is a very fun one. Like Conquest, you capture control points. But instead of being flags, they are missile silos. You program them to hit your enemy's Titan (a battle ship of sorts). Both sides get a Titan ship, and both are protected by a shield. When the missiles wear down the Titan's shields, you either continue to allow the missle to keep damaging the Titans, or have your team go up there and destroy it yourselves.

The frantic nature this game mode provides is easily my favorite, as you have to defend your own Titan, or be offense and hit your enemy's. You can also continue to capture silos to do damage without actually landing on their Titan at all!

The Commander in this game mode does not have Orbital Strikes, but can move the Titan ship anywhere they choose. The Titan moves very slowly though, so most Commanders tell the ship to move to one spot at the beginning of the game and just start Commanding others without giving a second thought about the Titan's position. Becareful, though, not to accidently position your Titan above a missle silo because even if that silo was on your side, if your Titan was in the path of the missle, your Titan will take the hit instead!

Bugs
BF2142 takes forever to load,and sometimes crashes. In the game, it can kick you back to the desktop without warning. There is a bug with Creative Lab's Sound Blaster X-Fi and certain chipsets that causes BF2142 to crash and lock up as well. Neither EA or Creative Labs are willing to take the blame, and thus, the issue is still there even with the newest patch (v1.40).

It's been rare now, but the game is a little more stable than it was when it was first released. Hopefully it stays this way. Vista compatibility can be a hit or miss for some. Some people have no issues while others are experiencing crashes (like me).

In-Game Ads Controversy
While there is an uproar of players who hate the idea of the in-game ads, I thought it wasn't a bad thing. It doesn't seem to detract from the game play, as they are on old billboard signs of a community that is now long gone. They are scattered throughout the battlefield which set in urban settings. In fact, the ads feel right at home, with Intel and Discovery Channel ads the last I played. They don't appear when you play offline, however.

The ads do add a small realism and depth to the game. To me, it's like playing a basketball game without any ads on the stands or have fake ads that detract from the realism.

EA's Fight Night on XBOX 360 have an announcer who keeps saying that the fight is brought to you by Burger King, and it gets old after a while. With live ads, they change, which keeps it from getting boring or repetitive.

Of course, some players aren't complaining because of the distraction. They are complaining because they do not like the idea of a full-priced game with ads. "EA is making money from the ad revenue, so why can't they pass it along to us?"

Conclusion
There are lots of old Battlefield players who did not like Battlefield 2142. I found that if you never played any of the old Battlefield games, you will have a better chance of having fun with BF2142. I was able to get many other friends into the game. The future/sci-fi theme of the game was easier to swallow than the ultra-realistic World War or modern warfare. The Titan game mode is one of our many favorites as it combines the goal of capturing points with the thrill of defending or invading a ship.

The cost of the game has dramatically lowered now that it isn't a new release, so if you have a chance to pick it up, I recommend you to do so!