The Grog: BATTLEFIELD

Battlefield. Would it be fair to name this series the Cadillac of FPS's?---that's First Person Shooters for all you N00bs out there.

It seems that everyone in the gaming community is anticipating the arrival of the newest Battlefield, aptly named "Battlefield 3". Will it kill Call of Duty?

Looking back at it's rich history I'd place my bet on Battlefield. I grew up playing the series, and I have to say, as much as I like the Call of Duty franchise, Battlefield will always be closer to my heart.

While Call of Duty has often provided a much more in-depth single player campaign, with Battlefield Multiplayer (and single player for that matter), not a single game was alike. The early Battlefields, beginning with the groundbreaking "Battlefield 1942" were all on the PC---Good Lord how I miss the Alienware gaming PC we used to own.

Anywayyy..before I get too nostalgic about the glory days of overall PC gaming (aka before consoles became the medium for video-gaming), I have a quick run down of the series below---and why it was so awesome for me personally.

BATTLEFIELD 1942 (Released in 2002, developed by DICE and Published by EA)

Revolution-f*cking-ary. It was almost as if this game was created with the Blessing of God, sculpted out of the sacred tears of a thousand angels.

Alright maybe I'm exaggerating, but this game revolutionized a new gaming atmosphere and created a wave of copycats. The time-period, the worn-thin WWII era, was not original, but the manner in which it was done was brilliant.

Ah that classic intro theme song!!

THE CONCEPT:

Conquest.

You'd capture and control points on the map which, if you controlled the majority, would reduce the number of enemy reinforcements, or "tickets". Control points were represented by flagpoles which, not surprisingly, would raise your sides flag if you captured said point. Once your team captured a point, you could spawn, or respawn (take your pick), at that point. The game is won when all the tickets on the opposing side's force are diminished. This could either happen through a systematic and manual liquidation (damn that's a scary word) of each soldier on the enemy side, or through holding all of the control points, which would automatically start to knock down the enemy's tickets (you can't fight the enemy if there's no-where to spawn).

Now this sounds fun enough but what's the catch? What makes all of this so fantastic and revolutionary?

Classes, vehicles and an open world.

There were 5 classes in the original: Scout, Assault, Anti-Tank, Medic, and Engineer. This pushed the game dynamic away from individualism and more towards team-work, and the same rules have applied throughout the rest of the series. If you have a team filled with Scouts, which have racked up the stereotype of being individualistic and blue falcon morons, you're team isn't going anywhere.

Games were best when you had a coordinated team, for instance let's say the Scout calls in armored targets with his binoculars, to which your team-mate in a tank or self-propelled artillery would fire upon, or you have plenty of medics to heal teamates/etc. etc. etc.

Vehicles in BF 1942 were much more varied than the later games, you could drive tanks, jeeps, boats (yes, even battleships), submarines, planes, etc. The Expansion pack "Secret Weapons of WWII" even incorporated jetpacks and V2 Rockets.

Now imagine all of this now dumped into a massive map where players can go pretty much everywhere. Where as Call of Duty is limited to CQB and Medium mapping, Battlefield really did provide a "the sky's the limit" quality. This also provided for unique games. The enemy might not take the same route as the last game, or use the same tactics. If you had a load of lolly-gaggers on your side, versus a commando-braniac OPFOR, you could very well see your control points be overrun by Blitzkrieg tactics. Literally, the class/vehicle/open world mapping created a brand new gaming experience.

The graphics and physics were rather primitive, but the experience by itself was priceless, I feel like I could sit down right now and play BF 1942 until dawn.

BATTLEFIELD: VIETNAM (2004, Released by DICE/EA)

I never played BF Vietnam, so I can't really give an in-depth review of it. It's been completely overshadowed by both its predecessor and its successor anyway. As far as I'm aware, the only thing Vietnam brought to the table was new vehicles/weapons/maps. Because I'm lazy, and because I've never played the game, I'll refer you over to the "Battlefield Wiki", which you can access through this link http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Battlefield_Vietnam

BATTLEFIELD 2 (2005 by DICE/EA)

Be still my fluttering heart. No seriously, Battlefield 2 was my baby. This was the game that defined who I was as a young teenager---I even pre-ordered the game and got a T-shirt saying "Spawn camp this" with a huge MEC tank on the back---seen below (the very left of the photo). It was at our end of frosh year ROTC celebration, so don't mind the ridiculous award.

Your damn right I still wear that T-Shirt...

In all seriousness though, this game was the shit. It brought the franchise into the modern era much like Modern Warfare brought Call of Duty up to speed. The exception being that BF2 was much, muchhhh better then COD4. BF2 had 7 class systems: Spec Ops, Assault, Support, Medic, Sniper, Engineer and Anti-Tank, which was split among 3 forces: China's PLA, the United States Marine Corps, and the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition, or MEC. Again-Teamwork comes into play. Spec Ops was given a Carbine with C4, Assault had a grenade launcher attachment, Support had a light machine gun and could resupply ammunition, Medics could both heal and revive dead soldiers, Sniper had claymores, the Engineer was issued a shotgun/anti-vehicle mines and the ability to repair vehicles/blown up bridges, and Anti-Tank had a submachine gun and....wait for it.....an Anti-Tank missile launcher.

Besides a new revamped class system/graphics/physics (oh and you could sprint now too), there was also a new CoC (or chain of command) structure that greatly enhanced coordinated gameplay. You could now join squads, which were overseen by a Squad Leader, who was over seen by a Commander. By pressing and holding "Q" on the keyboard, you could spot enemies which would then be placed on all of your teammate's HUD (head's up display) map. Squad Leader's had a different set up than other infantrymen, and you can see the images below.

In-game regular "commo rose"

Examples of differences between Squad Leader/Regular

Each team had only one commander, who could access a live satellite feed on which to place artillery, vehicles, UAV scans, and supplies. The commander could also give private commands to each squad on which control point to attack next. Over time as a commander you'd learn tricks of the trade; dropping a supply box into a mob of enemies and then placing an artillery strike on top of it, or scanning the entire map for the other sides commander and sending a squad to kill him. Some Commander gameplay can be seen below.

Once again, a huge emphasis was placed on team work. If you chose the Spec Op or Sniper class you'd more than likely be lone-wolfing it, but that had its place in gameplay as well. Probably my best gaming moment was when I swam all the way out to the USMC Aircraft carrier as a Spec Op and placed C4 on a blackhawk helicopter. I was spotted, and sprinted to the end of the boat, hitting the C4 remote as I jumped off. The helicopter was full, and there were about 5 guys chasing me, so I got about 9 kills.

...you kind of had to be there...but it was EPIC.

BF2 spewed out 3 expansion packs (2 of which I've played). Special Forces, Euro Force, and Armored Fury. Special Forces provided new tools like Night Vision, Ziplines and Grappling hooks, and pitted Navy SEALs vs. Insurgents, Spetsnaz vs. Rebels, British SAS vs. Spetsnaz, and SEALs vs. MEC Special Forces. Euro Force incorporated mainly new vehicles/weapons and maps, with some kind of EU faction vs. both the Chinese and MEC. Armored Fury, the only expansion pack of BF2 I didn't play, brought the fight to US soil and pitted the USMC up against both the MEC and PLA (how the MEC got onto American soil is another question in itself).

Maps in general ranged from being only 16 player to a medium 32 player and then the maximum 64 player, the map expanding each time. Single player (which was against dumb AI bots) was at an annoying minimum 16. Below are examples of how each map looked.

16 Player "Gulf of Oman" Map

32 Player "Gulf of Oman" Map

64 Player "Gulf of Oman" Map

All in all---it was an awesome game to grow up with.

BATTLEFIELD 2142 (2006 DICE/EA)

The follow up to the Battlefield series was somewhat bizzare but still an interesting turn in the series. It proved to not be as popular as the modern gameplay however, and quickly fizzled out. I've really forgotten everything about this game as a result of its incapability to RTFU over BF2, so If you want to learn anything particularly valuable I'd suggest hitting up a more professional online review. I will give the game props for a new game mode in which control points were changed into missile silos and the objective of the game was to destroy the enemies "Titan", aka a gigantic spawn point floating above the map---think "Air Battleship". A tutorial below (courtesy of Youtube) details Titan gameplay

Personally I found the gameplay a bit confusing due to its futuristic nature, and as a result it wasn't as fulfilling as its predecessor, despite the Titans, Battle Mechs, and other gear of future war.

You'll get a basic premise of what you need to know with the intro below.

BATTLEFIELD BAD COMPANY (2008 DICE/EA)

I'm just going to be brutally simple on this one. I didn't play BFBC so I cant vouch for it. I can tell you however that it brought the Battlefield Series to the powerhouse consoles which were replacing the PC as the gaming medium, and that it was the first Battlefield to incorporate a story into its single-player campaign.

Also, fully destructible environments are a total FTW.

BATTLEFIELD BAD COMPANY 2 (2010 DICE/EA)

Now this.....this I can vouch for. This is a damn good game. I cant go so far as to say it beats out BF2, but this game is definitely marked down as "excellente" in my book. Can you shoot people through walls in Call of Duty?

Yes.

Can you punch a gaping hole in that same wall and then collapse the entire building?

That's left up to Battlefield users/why the game is so great. Besides the destruction, there aren't a lot of dynamic changes to gameplay in BFBC2. A much more vast collection of gameplay modes are available, my favorite being Rush....look it up online.

One of my big riffs with BF2 was hits not being counted when I sniped, and BFBC2 seems to have fixed that issue x1000. They've even incorporated bullet drop over longer distances with the recon class, and gives an added bonus of points for "marksman headshots" aka headshots where you place your crosshairs higher over your target to account for bullet drop.

Can you say "Hooah"?

BATTLEFIELD 3 (.....all you need to know is it's not out yet)

This will be the newest installment in the series, and I have to say, with such a rich history behind it, I'm more than confident that it will not only kill Call of Duty, but also T-Bag it immediately afterwards. Just look at the 12 minute long trailer EA released.