Like Battlefield 2, Special Forces adds new content to an existing game, and succeeds in it.
Special Forces is, naturally, an expansion pack for the immensely popular Battlefield 2. Released five months after the original game, Special Forces adds a few new wrinkles to the Battlefield 2 formula, and takes a slightly different approach to Battlefield. It's supposed to be, in theory, a more tactical experience of the game. It adds a few new maps, weapons, and vehicles among other little quirks.
Instead of the three factions in Battlefield 2 (The USMC, the Middle Eastern Coalition and the People's Liberation Army of China), there are six new factions in this expansion: The US Navy Seals, the MEC Special Forces, British SAS, Spetsnaz, Rebels and Insurgents. While you can tell some of the teams are friendly (SAS, Navy Seals) and which are hostile (Rebels, Insurgents, MEC SF), the Spetsnaz is apparently bipolar in their approach. In two maps, Surge and Mass Destruction, they're stopping attacks from Rebels. Yet in another map, Ghost Town, they're charging against the SAS. It's a bit baffling. While there are only eight maps in this particular expansion, they're all pretty varied. Like how there are maps at night. Yes. Three of the eight Special Forces' maps ("Night Flight", "Leviathan" and "Devil's Perch") take place in a nighttime setting. I personally wish that they had made more of the maps that way, but three out of eight ain't bad. Because of the fact that it's a breath of fresh air as opposed to seeing the same old dusty maps all the time.
The seven familiar Battlefield 2 classes each have new tools to work with. For instance, the Sniper and Special Forces now get a crossbow that they can use to make a makeshift zip line. Assault and Anti-tank now get a grappling hook, which is great for getting up into high places. Assault players also get flashbang grenades, which come in handy in some places, and Support gets a tear gas grenade launcher. All classes also get nightvision goggles (which can only be used in the aforementioned night maps) and a gas mask to circumvent tear gas. There are also a plentiful number of new weapons in the game, for most of the classes, which makes playing a little bit different. And if you have any unlocks from Battlefield 2, they carry over here.
Speaking of unlocks, Special Forces has an additional unlock for each class (bumping up the unlocks to two per class), but there's a catch: You must unlock the Battlefield 2 unlock before you can unlock the Special Forces unlock. For instance, you can't unlock the F2000 for the Assault class in Special Forces if you haven't unlocked the G3 for the Assault class in Battlefield 2 first. In addition, you'll get extra unlocking opportunities when playing Special Forces on an existing Battlefield 2 account. Plus, if that wasn't good enough, you can take your Special Forces unlocks to the main Battlefield 2 game. And since this is an expansion, there are new badges and ribbons to acquire here, which brings incentive to play this expansion over and over again.
In terms of new vehicles, there are single-man vehicles such as a jet ski and an ATV, to cars with machine gun emplacements like a pickup truck and a "Desert Raider", this four-person capacity car with three machine gun emplacements. It looks silly, but is fun as hell to drive with three machine guns shooting up the place. However, while Special Forces sounds like an exceptional expansion, it's hampered by things that were in Battlefield 2 that bring the whole expansion down: Weak single player, same derivative Conquest mode, ungodly long load times, game slowdown and freezing. It may seem like this may not be a big deal, but for a person who owns a computer that definitely exceeds minimum requirements, this is inexcusable.
The voice acting in the game is okay. While some of the factions just recycle voice clips from Battlefield 2, the new voices are decent and hold some form of vigor in delivery. Although it has the same problems as Battlefield 2 in which there's only 2-3 types of the same speech, so repetition sets in real quick. Other than that, the game features little new sound or music.
Special Forces is a good expansion pack. New factions, new maps, new vehicles, and new unlocks. Oddly enough, there are not many players who play this expansion. If you own Battlefield 2, it doesn't hurt to get Special Forces only because it adds enough new features to maybe warrant an occasional return play.
Pros: New maps, factions, vehicles and unlocks, maps at night.
Cons: Problems in Battlefield 2 creep up in this expansion (slowdowns, long load times), No new game play modes.