lthough the Battlefield series didn’t write the book on the multiplayer shooter, it has become the defining series in the genre. Each title in the series has shown growth in different areas of gameplay like graphics, level design, balance and more. Last year saw the release of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat on Xbox and PlayStation 2, and console owners celebrated with a large scale frag-fest. This year, the Xbox 360 will get its own version of the game. Battlefield fans foam at the mouth for this series and it’s up to DICE and EA to feed them.
The Xbox 360’s history with ports is relatively short, yet the results are very mixed. Need for Speed and Burnout made it over the bridge quite smoothly, but games like NBA 06 and Quake seemed to have fallen off somewhere along the way. Until now, the Battlefield series had yet you see a ported version of a game. If some games have made it over the port bridge and others jumped off, it seems as if Battlefield can not decide what to do.
After playing through the Xbox version of single player, booting-up the Xbox 360 version creates a strange “It’s the same, but it’s different” sensation. Jumping right into the first mission, deja vu set in. Everything seemed exactly the same until it started feeling like the objectives went by too fast and the mission ended quicker than before. Some objectives seem to have been removed altogether. Shortly into the next mission, it was apparent – this game has a new awkward difficulty. This is not due to increased AI performance, (which they did improve) but rather a difference in the way the reinforcements are delegated. Once in a while, back-up will parachute in with impeccable timing. These moments, however, are too far and few between. Unfortunately, this seemed to have set the tone for the rest of the single player experience. I replayed almost every mission at least twice and some missions up to five times. All of this is due to so-called mission retooling intended for the next-gen version. Throughout the entire single player experience I kept thinking. “This just isn’t as fun as the Xbox version.”
What does this button do?
The star ranking system returns to keep track of your progress in the single player campaign. Also returning is the medal system. Well, sort of. The previous game had over 70 different medals to earn in single player but the build we played only showed 23. The few medals we did earn netted us Xbox Live Achievements. Other awards include weapon unlocks and upgrades. Whether it’s more ammo or better damage, your performance during a mission dictates what you get. The pacing for this seemed about on-par with the current-gen versions.
The controls felt instantly familiar, but DICE seemed to use the PlayStation 2 method of control rather than the Xbox version. Turning, moving, shooting and all of the other basic controls did not suffer, but at the same time, no improvements were apparent. It would have been nice to see some work done on the helicopter controls. The stiff steering makes any required helicopter time in a mission more of a chore than anything.
The first thing everyone thinks about with the next generation is the graphics. BF2: MC definitely looks good. The character models are rendered quite nicely, but the expressions on their faces look like they caught a wiff of a freshman’s gym shorts. The environments also look very nice. Because this game takes place in a winter setting there’s a certain lack of color. But that isn’t always a bad thing. All of the objects in that game that should be reflecting (like the icy ground), are nice and shiny. Looking into the sun creates the same flooding sensation one would get looking at the real sun – a cool effect, but maybe a touch overdone. Perhaps the best improvement is one of the subtlest. When you fire a gun, a shell comes out and lands on the ground and there the shell will stay. You can tell how big of a firefight was just by looking at the ground. And the rain of gold casings from a chopper chain gun is unreal. This is due to the fact that DICE went back into the game and added brand new physics.
Best Friends Forever
In the build that we played, the game ran just fine until the battle got out of hand. Slowdown revealed its ugly face and brought its nasty friend, the hiccup. Although the slowdown was not terrible, it seemed to be persistent in the bigger battles. The hiccups on the other hand got in the way of many possible headshots. Hopefully DICE can nip these little problems in the bud before the release.
The audio sounds nearly identical to the current-gen versions of the game. (Some things were rerecorded) Even the NPC chatter sounds the same. This is disappointing because a game like Battlefield has so much potential to be an audiophile’s dream. One part of this choice is positive though, the music in this game is surprisingly cool. The mix of Lord of the Rings style orchestra sound and the Bourne Identity thriller style works quite well.
Multiplayer was sadly not available at play time. However, the game will feature the same 24 player online action that current-gen owners are now enjoying. All of the additional Live content that has been released for the Xbox version will also be included on the disk. All 16 of the maps available will be right on this disk as well, no downloads necessary. Voice chat is fully supported and pretty much a necessity for team communication. Also returning is the very in-depth stat tracking system for both in-game and on the internet.
Battlefield fans are in for a visual treat, but pretty graphics never make the game. One would think that there would be an unspoken rule that a port should always come out at least as good at the original title. Unfortunately, there is no such rule to count on. Battlefield 2: Modern Combat on the Xbox 360 could be at least equal to or better than the current-gen versions if some bugs are ironed out, but trying to slide by on improved visuals and tweeked missions may not work for a series that has such a hardcore fan base.