Battlefield 2

Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2 box cover
Developer(s)	Digital Illusions CE
Publisher(s)	EA Games
Designer(s)	Dice
Engine	Battlefield 2 Engine
Platform(s)	Windows XP only
Release	June 21, 2005 (NA) June 24, 2005 (EU), (AU)
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Battlefield 2 is a computer game in which up to 64 players, over the Internet, fight in a modern battlefield using contemporary firearms and vehicles. Although the game was made primarily for Internet play, it also includes a singleplayer mode with three difficulty levels and only 16 players. It is a sequel in the Battlefield series, and was released in late June of 2005 to both critical and popular success. With a mixture of strategy and FPS elements, it utilizes a new engine for gameplay, physics, and graphics, as well as other functions. The game received an average score of 90% from reviewers and topped the PC game sales charts from June to August 2005. Battlefield 2 is often compared to the popular Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942. Both games take place in modern times and, after the acquisition of Desert Combat developer Trauma Studios by Digital Illusions CE (DICE), developers that worked on Desert Combat went to work on Battlefield 2.

Overview

The game portrays a hypothetical war in the near future between three powerful factions: the United States Marines Corps (USMC), China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition (MEC). The battles, however, only feature USMC versus MEC and USMC versus China. The armies use modern weaponry: the Marines use well-known American weaponry such as the M1 Abrams tank and the M4 Carbine assault rifle, the Chinese mostly use Chinese-made copies of Soviet weapons (such as the Chinese Type 56 Assault Rifle, though the game calls it an AK-47), and the Middle Eastern Coalition use mostly Russian weapons. The various forces still use the trademark feature of the Battlefield series - the large stable of vehicles that any player, regardless of faction, specialty or experience, can climb into and control.

Battlefield 2 was originally scheduled to be released on March 20, 2005, but was delayed until June 21, 2005 for North America, and June 24, 2005 for Europe and Australia.

A console version with a similar theme also exists, named Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, although the game is quite different in execution and gameplay than the PC version.

Official expansion packs

Battlefield 2: Special Forces

Battlefield 2: Special Forces Expansion Pack
Battlefield 2 Special Forces box cover
Developer(s)	Digital Illusions CE: Canada
Publisher(s)	EA Games
Designer(s)	Dice
Engine	Battlefield 2 Engine
Platform(s)	Windows XP only
Release	November 21, 2005 (SG) November 22, 2005 (NA) November 24, 2005 (JP) November 25, 2005 (EU), (AU)
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Battlefield 2: Special Forces is an official expansion pack for the computer game Battlefield 2. It includes six new armies (compared to just three in Battlefield 2): U.S. Navy SEALs, British SAS, Russian Spetsnaz and MEC Special Forces, a Russian Rebel group and a Middle-Eastern Insurgent faction. These last two armies are apparently inspired by, respectively, Chechen rebels and insurgents in Iraq, but not named as such in the game. There are ten new vehicles, twelve new weapons, and eight new maps.

This expansion pack is available for purchase via EA's content delivery service, known as EA Downloader. The expansion pack also includes new awards that players can earn, such as badges, ribbons and medals. The day of release of the expansion pack, EA/Dice released a new patch (version 1.12) which fixed a few bugs but mostly added art assets for the original Battlefield 2 game to support the new weapons from the expansion.

New features

• 6 new forces: US Navy SEALs, British SAS, Russian Spetnaz, Middle Eastern Coalition Special Forces, Chechnya Rebel Groups, and Insurgents.

• 8 new maps: Devil's Perch, Ghost Town, Iron Gator, Leviathan, Mass Destruction, Night Fight, Surge, and Warlord.

• 10 new vehicles: Apache Longbow, MI-35 Hind, ATV, BMP-3, civilian car, technical, Desert Raider, HMMWV w/ TOW, jet ski, and Attacklift.

• Night vision goggles, for use in night scenario maps.

• Crossbow-fired Ziplines are provided to the Special Operations and Sniper classes. They provide rapid movement from high locations to lower locations, that may be impossible to reach otherwise. Once in place, the zipline can be used by anyone. After use, the ziplines can be retrieved and reused by any Special Operations or Sniper class that has already used theirs.

• Grappling hooks are provided to the Assault and Anti-tank classes. They can be thrown onto rooftops to be used to reach places that are impossible to reach by conventional means. Once in place, the rope can be climbed by anyone. After use, the rope can be retrieved and reused by any Assault or Anti-tank class that has already used theirs.

• Tear gas launchers are provided to the Supply class. Once deployed, the tear gas is released and creates a cloud that obscures sight, causes intense blurring of vision, and subjects coughing that can give away a soldier(s) position. Tear gas does not discriminate between hostile and friendly infantry, so always be prepared to equip your gas mask to protect yourself.

• Flashbangs replace the smoke grenade used by the Assault class. While flashbangs do not interfere with the sight of enemies at long ranges, anyone caught in the effect radius is blinded temporarily. Players are provided five flashbangs instead of one smoke grenade.

• RPG-7s are part of the new anti-tank weapons usable in Special Forces. They are more powerful than the other anti-tank weapons, but can not be guided in flight. They also do not trigger the lock-on warning when aimed at vehicles, making them perfect ambush weapons.

• New special forces weapons, such as FN F2000 and the FN SCAR-L.

Booster packs

Euro Force

Battlefield 2: Euro Force is the first booster pack, and was released on March 14, 2006. The booster pack allows players to play as a new European Union Army, armed with new weapons and vehicles from the various countries of the EU. It is only available for purchase online at Electronic Arts download service (EA Downloader). It was scheduled for release in February, but was delayed due to a substantial amount of new bugs caused by the release of patch 1.2. Euro Force is available to download here (370 MB).

Armored Fury

Battlefield 2 Armored Fury is the second booster pack to be released for Battlefield 2. This is the first game where the Chinese and MEC will fight the US in the continental United States. It will add 3 new maps, as well as two new vehicle classes: attack jets for close air support and reconnaissance helicopters that automatically locate enemies. This has been postponed and will be released in May 2006 along with patch 1.3 [1].

Demo

A demo is available for download from major game sites featuring a single map ("Gulf of Oman") for both single-player and multi-player. The 16-person version of the map has a time limit of 10 minutes; the 32-person version has a time limit of 12 minutes. The 64-person version is unavailable in the demo, though up to 64 players can still play on the 32-person map.

Some aspects of gameplay, such as jet combat, are markedly different in the demo compared with the current game. This is due to changes made in recent patches.

Features

File:Bf2.jpg

Battlefield 2 screenshot from intro CGI

• Gameplay engine includes realistic physics and dynamic lighting, material penetration feature.

• Server admins can set maps to use 16, 32 or 64 player versions to provide the ideal vehicle-to-player ratio, custom maps can be made to scale to fit any number of players.

• Squads:
  • Squads can be locked so that people can only join if they have been invited.
  • Players may be invited to join a squad, if accepted, are then moved into that squad.
  • A max of 6 players can be in one squad (including the squad leader).
  • There can be as many as 9 squads per team.
  • Squad members, not leaders, have a minimal T key menu for requesting orders, artillery, and a supply drop.
  • All Squad members may use Voice-over IP (VoIP) to talk to each other, if the server has VOIP enabled.

• Squad Leader Position - Commander and manager of a squad
  • Squad Leaders have an extended T key menu that sends request directly to the Commander and will show up on the Commander screen.
  • Squad Leaders can manage squad by locking or unlocking the squad to new members.
  • Squad Leaders may invite players to join the squad.
  • Squad Leaders can set waypoints and orders.
  • Squad Leaders are mobile spawn points while friendly flags exist.
  • Squad Leaders can talk to the Team Commander.
  • Squad Leaders can kick squad members out of a squad.
  • Squad Leaders can issue commands (i.e. attack, repair, defend, etc.) to his/her squad members.

• Team Commander Position - strategic role of a battlefield commander directing his forces:
  • Players must "apply". The highest rank gets the position, ties go to a vote.
  • Team Commanders can be voted out by team.
  • The Team Commander is like any other soldier on the battlefield in that he chooses a kit, spawns in, can die, etc.
  • Available to the Team Commander are four assets: Artillery Strike, Satellite Scan, RQ-1 Predator UAV and Supply Drop.
  • The Team Commander can issue orders to squads which may be accepted or rejected by that squad's leader.
  • Team Commander's points are accrued differently than a regular soldiers and the total score is doubled at the end of each round if that commander's team is victorious.

• Online profiles:
  • Rankings from Private all the way to General (held by the highest ranked player), one's online profile can track kills, weapon usage, medic stats, engineering stats, etc.
  • One can earn awards(badges,medals and ribbons for certain tasks acomplished. Ribbons can be compared as lower tier awards as to medals, which require more dedication.
  • A total of 14 extra weapons can be unlocked and used ingame.
  • There is a special access to forums/download servers.
  • Ranking is only available on "official" (EA and EA leased) BF2 servers.
  • Ranking/unlockables can be used on all servers, but only "official" servers record and send back stats.

• Battlefield Recorder - BF2's built-in game recorder
  • Files are around 1MB in size and are played within the Battlefield 2 engine.
  • Camera angles can be changed (free roaming & selected player), as well as the speed.
  • Files can be exported to AVI format.

• Radio commands are displayed on an ingame menu brought up using the Q & T keys(default):
  • In this mode, the crosshair is replaced with gray rose with radio commands around the circle.
  • There are two radio sections; Global radio (Spotted, Need Medic, Need Backup, Follow Me etc) and Team Commands radio which varies depending on the player's position in game (Squad Member with limited requests going the Squad Leader to the Commander with the ability to place artillery strikes and supplies).
  • If menu is activated while aiming at an object such as a tank and "Spotted" is clicked, it recognizes the tank and sends out an "enemy armor spotted" radio command. Q key spotted units are displayed on teammates' mini-maps for several seconds. This function can be overrided by holding the right mouse button, which shows a list of the types of enemies that can be spotted.

• Voice-over IP (VoIP) is supported, which allows players to communicate via audio ingame without the need for third-party programs.
  • Squadmembers can talk to fellow squad members and squad leaders.
  • Squad Leaders can talk to Team Commander or fellow squad members.
  • Team Commander can talk to Squad Leaders.
  • VoIP is not available between maps, but is available during map start delay.

• The minimap shows a white triangle simulating the players' field of view.
  • Minimap also displays the kit of nearby players if that kit is requested (i.e. if a medic is requested, a red cross will appear as an icon for nearby medics).
  • Commander abilities (artillery, UAV, and supply drop) are displayed on the minimap.

• Custom shortcuts can load up a server with parameters set in the players' profile.

Maps

Main article: List of maps in Battlefield 2

BF2 originally shipped with 12 maps, with Wake Island 2007 being added from the 1.03 patch onwards. Depending on the number of people the server is configured to accommodate, the scope and objectives of maps change. For example, when "Gulf of Oman" is played with only 16 people or less, it is an infantry and armor combat scenario with 4 objectives to capture. With more players, 2 new bases open up, spawning fighter aircraft and helicopters.

Single-player mode only allows access to a selection of the 16 player version maps, and several maps are not available at all for single-player, such as the "Kubra Dam" map.

China versus USMC Dalian Plant Daqing Oilfields Dragon Valley Songhua Stalemate FuShe Pass Wake Island 2007 MEC versus USMC Gulf of Oman Kubra Dam Mashtuur City Operation Clean Sweep Sharqi Peninsula Strike at Karkand Zatar Wetlands

US Navy Seals Versus MECSF (Special Forces) Devil's Perch Iron Gator Leviathan Spetznaz Versus SAS (Special Forces) Ghost Town Spetznaz Versus Rebels (Special Forces) Mass Destruction Surge SAS Versus Insurgents (Special Forces) Night Flight Warlord

European Union Versus MEC (Euro Force) Operation Smoke Screen Taraba Quarry European Union Versus China (Euro Force) Great Wall China Versus USMC (Armored Fury) Midnight Sun Unknown faction Versus USMC (Armored Fury) Operation Harvest Operation Road Rage

Infantry classes

Battlefield 2 has seven classes per team, up from Battlefield 1942's five, and Battlefield Vietnam's four, with four sub classes. As a player advances in rank, they can unlock their choices of special weapons - two per rank after Private First Class - which can be used on any server. It is possible to bypass this unlocking system by playing on servers that have "global unlocks", however these servers cannot be ranked. It is also to note that in the expansion pack Battlefield 2: Special Forces that there are additional unlockable weapons.

The classes are:

• Assault troops carry an assault rifle with an attached grenade launcher, and can throw smoke grenades to cover friendly forces. Assault soldiers perform well in most all-out combat situations, and are equipped with body armor.
• Snipers pick enemies off from long range with a sniper rifle, and can plant Claymore anti-personnel mines. Snipers wear a ghillie suit which camouflages their figure amongst tall grass or bushes, although it is less useful in urban combat.
• Spec Ops can destroy structures and vehicles with 5 C-4 explosive charges, and also carry an accurate carbine. Spec Ops are the only class that can effectively destroy commander assets and bridges.
• Engineers have a wrench, which allows them to repair vehicles and strategic locations, such as artillery, bridges and UAV trailers. Engineers can repair transports faster if they are riding in a back seat of the vehicle in question. They can also deploy anti-vehicle mines, one of which can destroy any vehicle which travels over it, and defend themselves with an extremely powerful shotgun. Engineers automatically repair vehicles within a certain distance of the one they are travelling in.
• Medics are armed with a standard assault rifle, but also have the ability to heal teammates with medpacks and revive them with a defibrillator, which works like the reviving syringe in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. The defibrillator can also be used to zap enemy soldiers, although the knife is more effective because it has a shorter attack animation and does not need to recharge after each use. Medics also have the ability to convert any vehicle they are travelling in into an ambulance, healing any player near to or inside the vehicle.
• Support troops wield a light machine gun that can provide heavy covering fire, and replenish allies' supplies with ammunition packs. Like Assault, this class has body armor. Support troops automatically replenish the ammunition of any vehicle within a certain distance of the one they are travelling in.
• Anti-tank soldiers have both a submachine gun and short-range anti-tank rockets, which destroy lighter vehicles in one hit and can damage heavily armored tanks and APCs. With careful targeting, the rockets can also destroy helicopters and jets, although the latter are extremely hard to hit while in flight. The Anti-tank class has body armor.

All classes carry a basic pistol, combat knife and hand grenades, with the exception of Anti-Tank, which forgoes the grenades in order to accommodate a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, and Assault, which is equipped with a grenade launcher on their default kit weapons. After many points are earned, players can unlock alternate weapons for each class. For instance, snipers may choose the glass-piercing M95 sniper rifle (firing .50 BMG ammunition), and Spec Ops can use a H&K G36C carbine instead of the M4 Carbine.

On ranked servers, the players must earn points and become promoted to a higher rank in order to unlock a weapon of their choice (one per kit, two if the player owns the Special Forces pack) if they wish to use them. Once unlocked, non-ranked servers can allow or disallow (server side) players from using the weapons they have unlocked on ranked servers.

Different classes are able to sprint for different lengths of time than others, and have different amounts of body armour. Support and Assault classes have heavy body armour and can sprint for 8 seconds. The Anti-Tank class has heavy body armour as well and can sprint for 9 seconds. All other classes can sprint for 10 seconds, but have no armor protection.

Weapons

Main article: List of weapons in Battlefield 2

Battlefield 2 uses a number of different real-world weapons, however, they do not always perform the same as their real-world counterparts. Weapons are organized according to country and kit, and special unlockable weapons can be used by any country - however, the player must obtain a certain rank to spawn one or more of them. It is possible for a player of any rank to use unlocks by picking them up off dead soldiers.

Vehicles

Main article: List of vehicles in Battlefield 2

There are many different types of vehicles playable in Battlefield 2. They are all based on real-life vehicles used by the militaries of different countries. All pilotable vehicles take damage from guns, missiles, rough terrain and crashes, and catch fire and explode when they become submerged in water (with the exception of the APCs and RIBs). All vehicles have a damage meter which is lowered with successive damage, and can be replenished by a supply crate or Engineer kit. Helicopters and jets can also be repaired by returning to a friendly helipad or airstrip. Once a vehicle reaches a certain damage level, it catches on fire and its damage meter automatically lowers until it explodes or is repaired to a safe level (if a hit lowers the damage meter to zero before this, the vehicle explodes instantly). All aircraft explode if they crash into any terrain object at a high enough speed. Being damaged does not affect the vehicles' performance, albeit making them more vulnerable to destruction. If a player is standing close enough to a vehicle when it explodes, they will take damage or be killed by the explosion, depending on the size of the vehicle and type of projectile used. Standing next to its charred wreckage when it disappears will also cause some damage.

Ranks

Main article: Table of ranks in Battlefield 2

Awards

Main article: List of awards in Battlefield 2

Easter eggs

File:Cropcirclesbf2.jpg

An example of the crop circles in the Zatar Wetlands map

Battlefield 2 includes a number of easter eggs:

• Fish boxes: Seen on the Songhua Stalemate level, these boxes appear as any other normal box, with illegible writing on the sides. If an explosive such as C4, Grenades, or M203/GP-25 is used on the box, the box will explode and fish will land in the surrounding couple of metres.[2]
• Bear boxes: Similar to the fish boxes, these are seen on the Strike at Karkand, Songhua Stalemate and Sharqi Peninsula levels. Unlike the fish boxes, these boxes are plain, with no writing on them. When destroyed with explosives, teddy bears with hearts on their stomachs fly out. [3]
• Crop Circles: In the Zatar Wetlands level if you fly in a helicopter you can clearly see four small and one large crop circles in a field. [4]
• Coins: on maps, such as Strike at Karkand, there are parking meters on sidewalks. When run over, or destroyed with explosives, coins will occasionally scatter across the area. These coins cannot be picked up.
• Battlefield 1942 Reference: In some levels, like Ghost Town of the Special Forces Expansion Pack, there are posters for the arabic version of the game [5]

System requirements

• Windows XP (32-bit) with Administrative rights
• 1.7 GHz Intel Celeron D/Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP/Sempron or greater
• 512 MB of RAM or more
• 8x or faster CD/DVD drive
• 2.3 GB free hard drive space or more
• Video: DirectX 9.0c compatible (see video)
• Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible (Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series recommended)
• Video card must have 128 MB or more memory and one of the following chipsets:
  • NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 or greater
  • ATI Radeon 8500 or greater
• Multiplayer requires 1 set of discs per PC and a broadband (Cable, DSL, or a faster) connection. Internet or Network (2-64 players).

Patches

There have been a number of patches made available since the release of Battlefield 2.

Patch version 1.2 (officially released on February 14) was the last major patch to be released. The primary reasons for the patch, as stated by EA Games, were as follows:

1. To ensure multiplayer compatibility with the Battlefield 2: Euro Force booster pack,
2. To address numerous minor gameplay issues,
3. To address several game exploits which could be utilised to gain unfair advantage.
4. Adds 2 new unlocks L96A1 and the P90.
5. Adds 9 new ranks (1st Lieutenant up to General)[6]

DICE created quick-fix patch (1.21) to address several bugs and other problems that have stemmed from the 1.2 patch. It was released on March 9, 2006, allowing the Euro Force Booster pack to be released on March 14.

The latest patch is version 1.22, and it was released on March 28 through the EA Downloader. Like 1.21, it addressed several bugs and problems in gameplay.

Mods

Mods that are known to be in development for Battlefield 2 include:

21st Century Warfare [7] Allied Intent [8] Ancolius [9] Australian Forces [10] Battlefield 2 Pro [11] Battlefield Pirates [12] Battlefield 40k [13] BattlePaint [14] BF2 Nights [15]

Battlefield Ninjas [16] Battleracer [17] Brickfield [18] Desert Conflict [19] Eve of Destruction [20] Experience WWII [21] First Strike [22] Forgotten Hope [23] Battlegroup: Frontlines [24]

Interstate 2004 [25] Insurrection 1776 [26] Operation Peacekeeper [27] Point of Existence [28] Project Reality [29] Red Alert: A Path Beyond [30] Red Crucible [31] Rising Conflicts [32] Shattered Faith [33]

Silent Heroes [34] Silent Thunder - British Forces [35] Swedish Forces [36] Tactical Mod [37] Terranova [38] The Last Offensive [39] Total Retardation 2 Download US Intervention [40]

Total Conversion Mods (not Mini-Mods) for Battlefield 2 that have been released include:

Codename Eagle: Legends [41] Surreal [42]

External links

Official Battlefield 2 website Official Battlefield 2: Special Forces Website Official Battlefield 2: Euro Force Website Official Battlefield 2 system requirements Battlefield Nation Planet Battlefield Total Battlefield 2 Battlefield Files Battlefield 2 Demo Battlefield 2 Stats BF2Combat Tour of Duty