OUR RATING: 8.6 GREAT About our ratings

TANGIBLES: Gameplay: 8 Visuals: 9 Audio: 10 Value: 9 Quality: 8

Why you should buy it: Not Available Why you should rent it: Not Available

UNIQUE RATING: 8.6 SUGGESTION: N/A

Battlefield 2 isn't actually the second game in the series; it's the third. As it is, some fans of Battlefield 1942 are perfectly content to forget Battlefield: Vietnam anyway. Either way, the Battlefield games were excellent team-driven games that provided visceral, unpredictable experiences we'd never had before, and they made it easy to forgive a certain amount of polish and a few technical clunks here and there. Last year's Joint Operations upped the ante with more user-friendly vehicles and larger maps, but it didn't have the same magic, and the result was great, but even more chaotic than its inspiration. Now, DICE and Electronic Arts bring us Battlefield 2, a worthy successor in almost every way, featuring beautiful graphics, improved communication, and a sense of method to the never-ending madness. The slightly cumbersome feel of BF 1942 is gone, replaced with a silky smooth combat model and a nifty commander and squad system that take the guesswork out of team play. Unfortunately, a multitude of bugs, impossibly laggy ranked servers, and long loading times mar what could have been the best team-driven shooter in the history of gaming. Even with these noticeable flaws, however, Battlefield 2 is an excellent follow-up, and a gripping title in its own right.

BF2 is all about the online action, so there is really no story, nor is there one needed. The backdrop is modern-day drama, pitting the United States Marine Corp against either the People's Liberation Army from China, or troops from the fictional Middle East Coalition. Each map's goals are set up by a story snippet shown in the game menus, but they're window dressing: you are there to fight. Who needs a reason? You can practice offline with 15 bots, which is admittedly helpful, and we are thankful that their AI has improved over the computer-controlled teammates in Battlefield 1942. The meat of the game is online, however, and it is there you will spend the far majority of your time.

Before joining the game proper, you not only choose which team you will join, but you also must choose a soldier kit. There are several types of soldiers you can play as; assault soldiers come with a standard machine gun and array of grenades; support soldiers bring ammo to their teammates; medics revive fallen comrades and can use their shock paddles to electrocute enemies; Special Forces use explosives and silenced pistols to catch their foes unaware. Rounding these choices out are snipers, engineers, and anti-tank specialists. Once you choose a weapon kit and a spawn point, you fall directly into the action, and you aren't apt to encounter a dull moment until the match is over.

There is only one gameplay mode in Battlefield 2: Conquest. This mode was the staple of the previous titles, and if it sounds limiting, that's far from the case. Each team of up to 32 players is provided a number of “tickets,� which deplete at a rate determined by the number of control points a team holds; those control points which be defended and captured to retain supremacy. A winning team either captures all control points, or brings the opposing team's tickets to zero. There are a total of 12 maps, which come in three different sizes, so you never need to worry that the action will be too thinned out, and they are all varied and appealing. There are vehicles strewn about them, from tanks and speedboats to helicopters and jets. Not only are they useful offensively, but they are invaluable for transport. Ground vehicles control as intuitively as before, although we're disappointed that flight controls are no more user-friendly than in BF2's predecessors. Flying a helicopter in Joint Operations is far easier, and considering the obvious efforts DICE made to make the Battlefield experience a friendlier one, it's perplexing that they didn't replace the simmy flight model with one tailored for a keyboard and mouse. Players with a joystick or even a gamepad are bound for greater success in the air.

But what of the action itself? It's as exhilarating as ever, thanks to the unscripted nature of the events, and the complex, open maps that don't necessarily make getting to an enemy flag a simple affair. Getting there in a Jeep may seem simple, until you realize the roads wind around the control point, making advance planning—and getting a teammate to hop in, weapon at the ready--a necessity. Alternatively, a motorboat might be quicker, and if you are careful enough, your unannounced entrance will take your enemies by surprise. You can even parachute in from a helicopter if the pilot is otherwise occupied and you need to drop in on a teammate that needs healing. All about you, gunfire will be ringing through the air and even distant explosions are chilling, let alone the artillery bombardments from which you will suffer; during them, your vision blurs and you will be forced to hit the ground prone just as a real-life soldier would.

That same artillery attack came from the opposing team's battlefield commander, a new position for the series that rectifies one of the original game's biggest complaints: the action was too random, because there was no easy way to organize your plans. At the beginning of the game, you can apply to become a commander, and if chosen, you can sway the tide of battle by issuing direct commands to your players, ordering artillery strikes against enemy bases, or sweeping the area with a satellite signal to see where the hottest pockets of activity are. It isn't a true RTS/FPS hybrid like Savage: The Battle for Newerth or Natural Selection; rather, the commander is an experienced player who has great tools at his disposal and can rally the team together, rather than leave them fending for themselves. This works to BF2's benefit, since even a bad commander can have a successful team, as you do not have to rely on him to get the job done.

The rest of the players in the field can join each other on a squad level, making for a coordinated effort for both members of the squad as well as the commander. While you can still “fly solo,� as it were, being in a squad has the added advantage of instilling camaraderie rare even in team-based games. By sticking together as a team, not only are you more apt to get desperately needed healing and support, but you are also more focused on specific objectives beyond “stay alive and capture control point number two.� Not only is it proof that there is strength in numbers, but it also makes life easier for the commander, who can order squads to attack or defend points as necessary. The squad leader can give these orders on his own, or simply accept orders from the commander, which are then relayed to the rest of the team and identified on the familiar minimap in the top right of the screen. You can also spawn next to your squad leader after death rather than at a team control point, provided he is alive at the time.

Once you factor in the supported voice chat, it's obvious that DICE wanted to bring the entire concept of team gameplay to a new level. Still, while this somewhat affects the vibe of the series, battles themselves are as chaotically overwhelming as ever, and yet everything feels far more balanced. Obviously, tanks are overpowering on the ground, but a player with anti-tank missiles can make short shrift of an armored annoyance. Heat-seeking missiles from the FA/18 can devastate a commander's artillery, but anti-aircraft devices on the ground can bring the jet to its knees. It's also worth noting that the scoring system has been completely revamped, so that classes that don't sound initially inviting, such as the medic and engineer, are surprisingly rewarding, as those players earn points for healing and repairing.