EA and DICE get a bachelor's degree in "Making a cheap cash-in."
But that's a rant for another day. Battlefield 2142, the newest game in the Battlefield series of games, is a prime example of this tactic. It doesn't feel like something new, in fact, as a games journalist once said, "it feels more like a mod for Battlefield 2 than a new game." And he couldn't be more right.
Battlefield 2142's premise is simple: In the early 22nd century, the world had suddenly plunged into a new ice age. The surviving armies, the Pan-Asian Coalition and the European Union now fight for the remaining inhabitable land in the world. And that's about it. Its story is as shallow as it can get.
2142 decides to stick to the old Battlefield games premise: Capture outposts, drop the enemy's ticket count down, and the first to reach zero or whoever has the lowest within the time limit wins. This has been Battlefield's draw, what hooks players in. The main problem with this is that it's getting old. A twist in game variety would help the series. And thankfully DICE and EA had the right idea with the new "Titan" game mode.
In "Titan" mode, instead of capturing outposts, you capture silos to launch missiles at an enemy Titan ship to destroy it. Once the shields are down, you can continue capturing silos and destroy it that way, or get onto the Titan, destroy the four reactor consoles inside, then destroy the core. While this is a refreshing change, there are a few problems with it. One big problem is that for some reason, moving titans close to each other causes the game to uncontrollably get laggy, which makes gameplay inside the thing neigh impossible. Titan mode is a cool concept, but Battlefield really, really needs more than two game modes. Hell, they could steal game modes from other games, like that Capture the Flag variant that I once played in Delta Force: Xtreme.
At first I thought the graphics were the worst ever, wondering if I had jumped back into 2002 or something. But then I realized everything was set to "Low". Setting things to Medium made things look significantly better. Like Battlefield 2, the game asks for pretty high system specs to get the game to run well with all the bells and whistles. While I did not attempt to see how it would run on high, I would assume it would look great. 2142 also uses that streaming ad support thing that's become prevalent in many modern games, but it's negligible at best, where you will at most see 2-3 banners throughout the whole game. However, it appears to only have 2-3 ads, because I kept seeing the same ones for Intel processors and a Discovery Channel documentary.
In terms of the levels, most of them take place in snowy areas or dusty areas. The problem with this is that it gets old real fast, especially since there's no other variety in terms of these maps. It would've been nice to see some other locations, because variety is a good thing, developers.
The game relies heavily on voice commands, and it works, but the problem is there's little variety in the speech that players give, so expect to hear the same phrases a million times. In addition, the PAC voice acting sounds flat and lifeless, where they shout off commands and calls for a medic very calmly, not even in a panic. This is a stark contrast to EU's voice acting, which has some vigor in it. The game sounds okay, and the music goes from great (such as the music in the introduction video, a remix of a Battlefield 1942 cue) to average (some load screen music).
Like its predecessors, Battlefield is known for having vehicles in multiplayer. And there are plenty of them in Battlefield 2142. There are cars, tanks, and flying vehicles, and thankfully flying vehicles have been streamlined this time. No longer do you need to have three hands in order to keep a helicopter in the air for more than five seconds. There's also walking mechs, which is a nice touch, given the setting.
One of Battlefield 2's awesome features was the ranking system. You did certain objectives, you got points, you would eventually rise up in ranks, even get awards for doing certain deeds. Eventually rising up ranks would give you unlockable weapons. 2142 keeps this aspect, but since there's only four classes instead of Battlefield 2's seven (or even Battlefield 1942's five), there's a lot of customization. Your Recon class can be a sniper or special ops, however unlocking weapons takes some time and lots of unlocks in order to get to them. The ranking and unlocks are one of the great things about the Battlefield series, as it gives players incentive to keep playing. The only problem is that it tends to lead to a lot of stat padding online so you can unlock a weapon, badge or metal.
Battlefield was always known to be a multiplayer experience, and Battlefield 2142 reflects on that. The singleplayer was obviously put on the backburner once again. For one, you can only do Conquest. You can only have 16 players, and only do a set number of maps. Second off, the bot A.I. is incredibly stupid. Most of them clump together, and only a handful of them do things that actual players do. For instance, one member of the Assault team was playing as the medic, and he always had the medic box open and stood in front of a damaged teammate with it. He never deployed the box, or at least as I saw. I've also seen teammates get stuck and spin around like idiots, even seen a teammate walk a mech into a tree. The A.I. also never really deviates; so expect to be mauled by half the opposing force since they're sticking together.
Really, the singleplayer is an utter joke, don't even play it. Some would suggest it works as training, but since some vehicles and game modes only become available when you're playing with a certain number of players or online, you won't be able to try out certain features, even Titan mode, until you actually play online.
This game doesn't feel like a new game. It feels like it's an incomplete mod, a cheap cash-in. It's not as robust as Battlefield 2 is in terms of variety. It feels like DICE took a step backwards. It's a decent game, but it's not worth the $50 purchase. Wait a year or so down the line, when the next Battlefield game comes out (and there is one coming soon), likely the price will drop like bricks. But hopefully the players won't.
Pros: Titan mode, cool vehicles, ranking system, unlocks.
Cons: Weak singleplayer, little game variety.