Buying this game is more of a gamble than anything else... try to rent it first.
First of all, you may run into many problems when trying to simply install the game and get it running fine. You'll have to start by installing vanilla BF2 off your CDs, which takes way too much time compared to similar games (for example, installing Counter-Strike Source from 4 CDs takes only 7~8 minutes). Once this is done, you'll have to apply various patches, depending on which expansions you have. And let me tell you this : this game's patches are some of the worst I saw yet. If, like me, you only have BattleField 2 (no expansion whatsoever), you'll have only one patch to do. The accursed 1.41 patch (at the time of writing this, though I doubt any more patch will ever get released).
Upon execution of the .exe file, it would either crash my PC or simply close itself. Successfully patching this game took me a whole 3 FREAKING DAYS. And I'm not talking about simply posting a ''omg help me plz im such a noob and don't know *** about PCs plzzzzzz heeeeelp'' topic on any kind of forum. I'm talking about using the Registry Editor in conjunction with Safe Mode. I had to disable my antivirus, firewall, re-install the game off the CDs 7 times in My Documents (to avoid any kind of admin problems) and restart my PC countless times. Thankfully, after many headaches and cussing, I was finally able to find a working combination of settings. We're not supposed to go through all of this only to apply a patch, though, this is ridiculous. Also, good luck if you have expansions. You'll have to apply 4 to 5 patches like this in a seemingly random order and chances are high you'll encounter similar problems, judging from the countless help topics on the BattleField 2 forums.
Once all of this was said and done, I booted up the game, expecting to finally enjoy one of the highest rated FPS in history. How very wrong.
It took two days for EA's server to create and let me log in my account. Secondly, game crashes were very frequent. The graphics were HEAVILY messed up. Huge black circles all over the ground, dynamic shadows from models were too big (Once, I was in a jet at Oman and I saw a huge tank's shadow covering almost the whole map), textures would also be applied on the wrong models (I saw an officer's medal being drawn on buildings in Karkand)... I later discovered it was related to a driver conflict with my graphic card - however, this conflict was happenning because of BattleField 2, and not my GPU. I had to download a fix from NVIDIA in order to patch this.
There's another problem which apparently is even more common than crash to desktops and weird visuals - getting kicked out from servers because of Punkbuster, the game's anti-cheating software. I never got kicked out of a server, not even once. My friends, however, keep getting kicked for no reason (even if they updated the hell out of Punkbuster and disable every kind of firewall and security app). I really can't say anything more than report this additional problem though, as it never happenned to me.
After the game itself would FINALLY run without any kind of glitch, I started enjoying the actual game. And I hapenned to be part of the few players who - nobody still knows why this happens - is having serious problems with this game's hit boxes. Here are some examples of what I've encountered so far :
-10 headshots with ANY kind of sniper would never kill anything
-Trying to knife someone was hopeless
-Any kind of bullets shot by me would simply never reach its target, even if they were tanks
-Same goes for rockets with the Anti-Tank kit
-Almost each time I tried zooming with a assault rifle/sniper, the camera would start going crazy in every directions
-And MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more
I'll also have to add these additional lines from GS user ''mark30001'''s review of the very same game where he says shooting enemies only make dust come out. That's basically what happens everytimes I try to kill anyone. He also points how annoying shooting on bunnyhopping and dolphin diving players is... and that's kinda true, too. It does hurt the game's realism a bit, would you see the U.S. Army training their soldiers in jumping around like idiots in real life? Ah well, it's just a game.
BattleField 2 would totally rock if it wasn't for all of these problems, though. The core gameplay is one of the most complex and thrilling I saw in any FPS to date. You really get the feeling of being on an intense battlefield - hence the name - thanks to the Commander's assets, vehicular carnage, insane teamwork, stat tracking and fast-paced action. The graphics help a lot, too - textures are very crisp, particle effects are very well moderated (no exaggerated explosions), everything has Dynamic Lights, fog is perfect, there's a lot of very well-drawn shadow and the animations are simply the best I saw yet. The only problem concerning graphics is about the clipping distance... you won't notice on foot, but if, for example, you're in a jet, you won't have to fly very high to see how close is the clipping. Continue flying straight up and you'll soon be stuck out of bounds with a rather disorienting skybox.
The sound effects, when turned on High, furthermore expands that feeling of being on a real battlefield. Hear a grenade blow up next to you and all sounds will go away or get distorted. You'll hear pretty much every directions where sounds come from, too, like grenades, gunshots, artillery strikes or a tank slowly passing by. You'll also hear the artillery strikes swooshing down from the sky and blowing up, reducing everything to ashes, no matter where you are on the map. Sound is a very high factor of atmosphere in BattleField 2.
Really, it's such a shame that I couldn't fully enjoy this amazing game. I guess I was just very, very unlucky with this one.
BOTTOM LINE
Pros :
-Incredible graphics, sounds and gameplay completely recreates the feeling of being on a battlefield where every single nook and crannies can hide another enemy.
-Loads of different weapons make for a varied experience every times you play with a different Kit.
-Vehicles with EXCELLENT control.
-Onboard VoiceChat support through microphone makes Squads insanely fun with friends - plan the capture of a base, alert enemy formations approaching, anything you want.
-Very advanced stat tracking makes you coming back for more.
Cons :
-EA support stinks as it always did : after so many patches, they still weren't able to fix most problems who've been around since vanilla.
-Buying this game is more of a gamble : you'll have to be lucky to have it working 100% the way it's meant to be.
-Because of the huge number of people also having problems with the hit boxes, a lot of players decide to simply use only grenades - just be prepared to have them getting off all over a map when you choose an Infantry server (no vehicles), something which gets rather annoying after a while.
I have no choice but to give this game a 4/10 because of all the problems I ran into when trying to simply PLAY it.
If I hadn't run into so many issues, however, I'd probably give it twice more than what I am giving it right now. Gotta love EA, eh?