You didn't get the SAS abseiling in a tank down the front of the Iranian Embassy back in the counter-terrorist day. The Special Forces are essentially the ultimate infantry in the modern general's arsenal. That said, in this pack closer attention on infantry makes more sense given the game's subtitle. I think maybe the 3D card is on the blink
While it's still a fascinating game, extrapolate this and you end up with a very different thing from what originally enchanted us about Battlefield 1942. While new choppers are available, on most maps they dominate less. On average, the maps are more intense, focused and urban with less wide-open terrain to wander. Sure, the vehicles could often dominate the game - we've all being strafed to death by a helicopter or eight - but the focus on what was interesting had moved.Īnd, in a roundabout way, we reach Battlefield 2: Special Forces, which continues the trend. In short, it had become a game about small-group teamwork rather than craziness on wheels or beneath rotorblades. A commander setting these waypoints for the teams - usually of infantry - to pull together. But in terms of actually making a difference to how the game played, it was the commander and squad organisations that rejuvenated it forming a squad of men, and operating under tight co-ordination. And sure, the vehicles remained in the sequel, with some of the largest physical elements removed (Aircraft Carriers, for example) and some control issues changed. Previously, they knew what they existed for - Battlefield was the game about the vehicles.
With a few months' hindsight it's actually best noted for how it changed design direction. Then Battlefield 2, which pushed things forward again. doesn't fit well into this theory, but if we move swiftly on no-one will notice. Then Battlefield: Vietnam, which added helicopters, and. Aircraft, tanks, trucks and foot soldiers all seamlessly integrated into a whole. Sure, being a soldier was fine, but the core mechanic was that anything you saw, you could hop into and take control. It was going to be the online shooter that was about the vehicles. Seeing what had captured the fan's imagination, Battlefield 1942 understood exactly what it was going to do. Terrorists at playing parks are constantly harassed.Ĭodename Eagle was, effectively, Battlefield 0 and its multiplayer the grounding for Battlefield 1942. What's the game? Codename Eagle? That thing with the rubbishy first level from last year? Pull the other one. Tight cuts of vehicular stunts and craziness? Hell, I could go for this. While the idea of fan communities making their own videos to show off their games is really commonplace now, one of the first I actively remember raising my eyebrows at was for Codename Eagle. In fact, showing themselves to be a really devoted fanbase, they got a little radical. It had integrated vehicles into a multiplayer environment beautifully, and they were having crazy fun on their own servers going mad by skidding trucks around and similar. The developers still loved it, and the fans had realised that Codename Eagle's multiplayer achieved something that no other game had really managed at the time. Except for the two important groups of people - the developers and the fans. (For anyone other than marriage councillors anyway.)īattlefield's origins lie in the relatively obscure first-person shooter Codename Eagle, which was released, received lukewarm-to-terrible reviews and then proceeded to be forgotten by everyone in the entire world. Though unlike the doomed relationship, not necessarily in a bad way. Just as contented lovers silently transform into hate-filled animals, their bristling manner toward each other somehow eluding the cursory detection skills of an outsider, Battlefield's priorities have started to shift and change.
I won't be asking questions later.īattlefield 2: Special Forces is a little different while remaining exactly the same. Everyone else: leave your pencil alone and don't take notes. Press page down a couple of times if you want to skip the history lesson. Time for a diversion until we get to the review? Oh, I think so.