Battlefield 2: Modern Combat

aka: BF2:MC
Moby ID: 19863
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

Although called Battlefield 2, this is the first of the Battlefield series to pass over to console. Vehicles like the Humvees, tanks, APCs and helicopters all make it into the game although fixed wing aircraft are noticeable absent.

Multiplayer allows up to 24 players battle it out in a Conquest mode where you capture flags and maintain control of them until the enemy tickers run down, or Capture the Flag which is all out attack to get the enemy flag back to your own base. A single player campaign, which is story led, see's China and USA go up against each other in Kazakhstan. Throughout the single player campaign you switch between China and USA armies as you follow orders based on news reports which show both sides of the war giving you a view of how war is and how it's reported. The new Hot Swap feature allows you to jump into almost any other allied troop on the battlefield which saves loads of running and gets you into the best position for your next attack or defense.

Spellings

  • 战地2:现代战争 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

486 People (477 developers, 9 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 65 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 28 ratings with 2 reviews)

Quite simply, an amazing achievement in modern war games, and the best excuse to get Xbox Live.

The Good
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, although different from its PC counterparts, definitely delivers the goods when it comes to intense, non-stop modern war action.

The combat in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is outstanding. Primarily a multiplayer game, Battlefield 2 does not play like a run-'n-gun action game. You don't feel invincible like you did in Halo 2 -- you are a perfectly normal soldier that will only take a few bullets before dying. In order to avoid enemy fire, you must duck down and take cover so that your enemies don't see you, but whatever you do, kill your enemies at all costs! Couple that with an astounding variety of vehicles to operate (such as jeeps, gun turrets, tanks, and helicopters), and the immersion here is unparalleled. You truly feel like you're fighting in a war, rather than just running around and killing bad guys. More importantly, the AI is also equally excellent. They react to in-game situations just like any human player would while playing the game on Xbox Live.

Amazing graphics and sounds also fuel the game. All of the in-game sound effects are realistic, and the musical score is movie-quality. The graphics are extremely detailed, and all of the explosions and weather effects are disturbingly realistic.

The game will sometimes deviate from realism a little bit and reward players with a health increase if they're really good at the game, but that's a plus. After all, players would feel cheated if they didn't get some kind of reward for having so much skill at the game, right?

The Bad
Nothing. This game rocks!

The Bottom Line
Combining high realism with non-stop action that truly feels like war, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat may just be the game to make Halo 2 look boring. Two thumbs way, way up!

Xbox · by Spartan_234 (424) · 2006

Fun, on many different levels

The Good
My brother and I enjoyed the 360 demo for this game so much, that we rushed out and purchased the full version for XBOX... while graphically the 360 version is far superior, the quality of the game shines through even on regular old XBOX.

An innovative feature of the game is the "HotSwap" function, enabling a player to switch control from team member to team member throughout the course of a mission. This is great, because your character might become wounded and vulnerable, yet you can still switch over to any other team member within your visual sight to stay alive. Or, you might switch characters to move across the map quickly to reach a checkpoint or target more quickly than your character could by running.

The strongest feature was the multiplayer function via XBOX Live. One can never truly consider themselves the master of any game until they play online against other humans, the kind who sickly devote their entire lives to bettering their gaming ability! I felt that my skills got significantly better playing against other people, and there is no more satisfying (or frustrating when losing) way to experience a game than online.

Playing offline, I found the Campaign mode to be surprisingly deep. There were enough missions that it took me quite awhile to beat the full story. What keeps a player coming back even after the story is completed is the rating system. Each mission is graded and compared with goals in several categories: Score, Time, Accuracy, Teamwork, and Losses. Stars are awarded for each goal met, and stars earned throughout the entire campaign are pooled together to determine your rank (stars are subtracted for extreme loss of team lives). Earn enough, and you can be promoted to a higher rank. Achieving a certain amount of stars in a level can also unlock hidden Challenges or equipment upgrades for future use.

Ribbons are also awarded during gameplay for task-related achievements over a career, such as "100 kills with Special Ops pack" or "Perfect Clip" (all bullets in a clip resulted in kills). There are also little ongoing goals like destroying statues or sea mines whenever you come across them in any level. All these things are fairly unimportant, and not relevant to the story, but add extra challenges and goals for the completist gamer.

The last point worth praising is the Challenges section. As mentioned, Challenges are unlocked throughout Campaign completion. Ranging from vehicle challenges (Humvee, Helicopter) to weapon (Shotgun, RPG) to Hotswapping, each one asks you to complete a timed course to achieve a stated goal. Stars are again awarded for optimum times or scores. Another facet of the game that increases re-playability, trying to get that perfect score...

The Bad
Small gripe, but I didn't like that the story in Campaign mode required the player to switch back and forth from mission to mission on both the China and US sides. One moment, you're fighting for America, and the next, you're fighting against America. It was an interesting idea, but you feel like you're not making any headway in the story when you're basically harming your future team with each successful mission.

Like a lot of teamwork/military games, your CPU-controlled teammates are basically useless to helping you accomplish your mission goals. I've watched groups of my teammates running out in the open against one enemy, getting slaughtered. I've HotSwapped to teammates who are driving the wrong way AWAY from our destination. I've HotSwapped to teammates standing in the corner of a building with their pistol out (instead of a more practical gun) aiming at the ceiling! All this can be really frustrating when you look on your map and you're going into battle alone because all your CPU teammates are dicking around elsewhere. Then, when your character dies, and you're swapped to a teammate, you get zoomed all the way across the map to the closest buddy who is nowhere near, and you have to repeat the process alone. Maddening!

It can be quite difficult to reach the goals set for missions, challenges, and ribbons. This is good, on one hand, because the game requires skill and precision (and practice) to perfect... but it's also frustrating at times when your best just isn't good enough.

One of the criteria for a good score is Teamwork, meaning that you HotSwapped often by switching characters frequently. The player is penalized for succeeding with one or few characters, and this doesn't seem right. I found myself HotSwapping randomly a lot at the beginning of missions or during slow times waiting for the next wave of attackers just to get my Teamwork stat up.

The final critical point I have to mention is the terrible Chinese voice acting when you're playing on their team. The voice-overs are clearly done by white guys trying to sound stereotypically Asian. It's godawful, but sometimes comical...

The Bottom Line
It's a really, really fun game, whether you're playing online or alone. Whether trying to complete the Campaign story, challenges, or working on getting promoted, there's plenty to do solo. It's great to be able to go back and re-play old missions and try to better your score, or take on that old challenge that's stymied you for years, then compare your score to your brother's and rub it in his face!

Xbox · by Condemned (71) · 2010

Trivia

Development

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is two games on one disc. The multiplayer game was made by DICE Stockholm whilst the single player was made by EAUK North West studios and designed at EAUK Chertsey. The game was then combined into the single players front end system. The change over can be seen when going into multiplayer in the form of a black screen with the word LOADING in the top left hand corner as the game changes renderer.

Electronic Arts logo

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat was the first title to use a general EA logo in place of the EA Games label.

Intro

The entire intro for the PS2 and Xbox versions were recorded using only 8 players (Barrie Tingle, Alan Dale, Mati Rehman, Richard Kansley, Barry Wallis, Dominic Pitcher, Colin Pratt, Johan Östman) and was not taken from a multiplayer game as it claims to be.

Due to re-recording of some scenes, it contains a few inconsistent scenes:

  • When the MEC Engineer shoots at the DPV there is no vehicle when the rocket hits. This originally started as a sniper shooting the land mine seen in the previous scene. However Sniper shots didn't have the same dramatic impact as a rocket.
  • The MEC Engineer on the tower changes to a US Sniper as he jumps off the tower.

Online servers

The Xbox online servers were shut down on 15 April 2010.

The Xbox 360 online servers were shut down on 11 August 2011.

The PlayStation 2 online servers (which were hosted on GameSpy) were scheduled to shut down on 30 June 2014, like for other Electronic Arts titles in the wake of GameSpy's total closure.

Release delay

Although first developed as a multiplayer-only game and slated for a Fall 2004 release, Electronic Arts delayed the game a full year to add a singleplayer mode in response to consumer feedback.

Information also contributed by Sciere.

Analytics

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Baza.

Xbox 360 added by Kabushi. Xbox One added by Eufemiano Bullanga.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Sciere, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, Plok.

Game added November 7, 2005. Last modified March 3, 2024.