Battlefield 2: Special Forces Expansion Pack - PC Review

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The content of this release, while not top notch, does add some life to the already popular BF2 game. The sum total of the release adds new soldier classes, maps and vehicles. It does not (as many had hoped) patch a multitude of bugs in the original game. Many of the vehicles while fun at first really turn out to be nothing more than a novelty as they are not as effective as most vehicles included in the original game. Also, a blessing to some and a disappointment for others, there are no airplanes in this game. Still many die hard fans of the game won't be without this (or any other expansion pack), but the casual player can easily do without.

One tactic that EA has employed to try to keep you from doing without is that Special Forces owners are able to play on the original BF2 servers using the new goodies in the expansion pack. Many feel that this gives an unfair advantage as Special Forces players who are able to blind others with flash bangs and use other new tactics. It is a questionable marketing ploy as people who have paid for the original game must now decide if they must purchase the expansion to remain competitive. This has been a point of contention in the BF2 community and has been a constant complaint on many internet forums.

Beyond the marketing of this product, the real problems surround the complete swarm of bug reports and problem installations. Reports of computers that ran the original fine but now only get 15 frames per second are not uncommon. Also after install, a 280 megabyte patch must be downloaded (4 hours from EA with a broadband connection). This patch then decompresses to an unheard of 3 gigabytes. Many people have reported of problems with the install of this patch as the decompression doesn't always work properly leaving the user with even bigger problems than the game not running. All these problems smell of a product that was rushed out the door for the Christmas season. Quite a disappointment as the title really had unlimited potential.

Summary: A bit of new life to an already popular game but not worth the problems that many have had. You may find it worth a look... if you can get it too run.

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Believe it or not, Special Forces is in worse shape than Battlefield 2 was when it was released.

EA and Dice have been slow to address showstopping bugs in the original game, and against my better judgement, I decided to give SF a shot thinking that maybe some problems would have been addressed.

Nope.

Many people are experiencing a lot of difficulty just INSTALLING the game, let alone playing it. If you are able to get the game installed (and I eventually was), you're likely to find yourself up against a host of other problems including severe frame-rate drops and performance issues, even if the original game ran well performanse-wise (which mine did).

It would be nice if companies like EA and Dice were held more accountable for shoddy product they release to their fans, especially considering that the majority of their fanbase consists of financially-strapped college and high-school students.

This is awful.

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Same as my review for the original -a few new tools to use in the default kits. When I rate it a 4 as fun, I'm thinking it *would* be fun if I could actually make use of the entire game... because what you can access is pretty fun.

Also you end up downloading a 250MB (!) patch that you have to reinstall after installing the SF expansion pack. That's just uncalled for. Even with DSL every server I got made it creep along at 25 KPS, and I feel sorry for people who have dialup. If they do have dialup, they aren't going to likely be playing multiplayer either, which means, don't waste your time.

What I said about the original:

I admit it's enjoyable to play, but it's really frustrating knowing you can't access all the features of the game in singleplayer. You get half a game for the full price. I have played online, and i just don't care for it much because of the numerous problems with servers booting you off for who knows what For example, forgetting to stop in the middle of the 'heat of battle' and apologize for teamkills, or missing the little message that tells you how to forgive someone for teamkilling you. I got booted for too many teamkills when I hadn't killed any teammates. There also don't seem to be that many newbie servers where you can go to learn the mp rules and practice.

I just don't have the time for figuring out all the ins and outs of multiplayer at this point in my life. I might consider a LAN party at some point, but for now singleplayer is my main option.

You're also limited to the smaller maps in singleplayer, and smaller numbers of bots. There are tweaks you can do (if you know what you're doing) to increase the number of bots, and possibly the size of the maps, but as I understand it the bots won't know what to do with the expanded maps. In the expanded territory, it doesn't add to the number of control points or special equipment/vehicles etc. in those areas either, it just give you more room to run around alone. Yippee. So far no one has come up with a mod that allows you to access all the features of the game as single player.

You also can't unlock new weapons kits unless you play online on ranked servers and earn them, ANDn the endless hours of play needed to earn them seems a bit ludicrous to me! it seems to be made for people who have no other life, don't go to school or work and never eat or sleep.

I would like to be able to access the whole game as a single player at home, even if none of that stuff works on multiplayer unless I earn it on ranked servers.

This seems to be a common complaint on most of the forums I've researched, and with all the modders out there you'd think they'd have come up with a mod that addresses these things by now, if it wasn't that difficult to do. I'm about ready to start looking into it myself, but as a full time mom with three kids and two dogs and a part time job besides that, it just isn't that feasible.

Another problem is the realism. Why is it that a shot to the head doesn't drop anyone? I can't imagine that putting a 3 round burst of 5.56mm , or a single 7.62mm round into someone's skull from any distance, would allow them to continue on their merry way and turn around and shoot you dead (with the first shot, no less) from 75 yards with an mp5. It's a darn good things those medics can cure any injury with those shock paddles, if only they can get to you.

One thing about the AI that annoys me is that all the bots clump together. I realize pathfinding is the most difficult part of all to program for. But man, clumping together is the best way to get killed. I tend to sneak around and flank, but even if I tell the bots to follow me, they may comply for about two seconds and then go back to what they were doing. I think the Tom Clancy games handled this kind of teamwork AI far better, and without needing the high system specs that BF2 and BF2:SF require. I have enjoyed all of the Clancy games far more, with the exception of Splinter Cell too simple and easy.

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This game is deeply disappointing. While gameplay itself has been good, the quality of DICE's game menus and selection screens for multiplayer makes it almost unplayable. The GUI of this part of the game is completely counter-intuitive, appears to have been an afterthought, and does more to prevent players from joining games than it does to actually support them.

As an example the game often fails to load simply when you boot it up, sitting uselessly at the "Connecting To Account Server" screen during initial log in. Bear in mind, you're not logging into multiplayer here... the game needs to connect to the server so that you can even play it on your own machine against the computer, and often fails to do so!

Once in, finding a game can be impossible, or at least infuriating. The game often loads completely (takes forever), begins comparing data with the server, and breaks with no error message, returning you to the game selection screen. This process will not be unfamiliar to those of you who formerly owned Commodore Vic-20s with the Cassette Tape storage system.

DICE should be ashamed at the inattention to detail and overall poor quality of this software.

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Ok, first off I sympathize with everyone who has problems getting this game to run correctly. I had my own strange problem where I installed SF after I already had patch 1.3 installed and SF would not run. So, I had to guess at re-installing the 1.3 patch. EA's qualtity control is very poor, everyone knows it, so we'll leave it at that. Anyway, after re-installing the 1.3 patch I was able to play for about 4 or 5 hours without any problems. Hopefully thats a good sign that SF is getting more stable, but lets' face it, BF2 in general still gets lockup and crashes to desktop randomly, so I'm not holding my breath. One tip to help with crashes, disable EAX sound in your BF2 audio options, it seems to help.

I'd rather focus on the game experience itself in my review, which is pretty positive. SF definately has a different look and feel to it than BF2, which is good. The changed models, weapons, maps and vehicles are a well done, and battling indoors is a nice change from all the outdoor scenes in BF2. New attack helis are sweet, and 4-wheeler really zips around. There is alot of cover in the maps, so you can sneak around and hide and get close to flags and take out enemies more covertly. This makes for a different style of gameplay than normal BF2. I'll admit, it was not worth the original $30 price tag, but now that it's down to $15 it's a decent buy. Overall, I really like SF.