[geRV]

[quote=geRV][quote="dr nein":9f747]Maybe already covered, but gervy baby, have you heard anything about if a SDK will be included with it? Or at least if it's easy to mod or not?[/quote]

[url="http://www.eagames.com/official/battlefield/battlefield2/us/editorial.jsp?src=communityupdate_020405"]http://www.eagames.com/official/battlef ... ate_020405[/url][/quote:9f747]

And heres a post of opinions from a guy that was at an ea lan event and got to play it.

[quote:9f747]I was lucky enough to be invited to the Melbourne BF2 preview on Wednesday. So when we made our way into the Victory Room to see what the game was all about, it was loaded and ready to go. The very first thing I saw was the spawn interface. It looks a lot like BF42, but with a nice graphical touch. I then proceeded to spawn as sniper and head into combat.

Infantry Comments:
The infantry in the game was very surprising to me; it was well balanced and "felt better" than both BF42 and BFV. I noticed that the point of view seems to be from the head, or at least higher than what we have experienced in BF42 and BFV. It was a nice height from the ground. The infantry combat, overall, felt as intense as playing any other game on the market with countless more features.

I enjoyed my time playing as a sniper. It has a very nice looking camo suit which actually makes you hard to see. It works! Many people have been asking about how many hits it takes to kill an enemy. I tested this as best I could. 1 shot in the head, and 2 to the chest with a sniper rifle. The sights do not rock even while standing up, however it is not overpowering. You will find yourself waiting for that perfect shot.

Anti-Tank was another class I played for a long time. The curser guided missiles will not rip a tank apart in one hit, but are very accurate. A concern of mine was that they would be overpowering - this is not the case. I found them only useful at a range of up to 125 meters or so which detracted from their lethal capacity. The MP5 works really well with this kit - no longer will you see someone aiming at your feet with a rocket launcher to blow you up. It does not pack much of a punch but had a high rate of fire. It suits the class. I did not play the other classes much as I spent most of my time hunting tanks or just marvelling at the wonderful graphics.

Graphics:
They were the very first thing I noticed, and mentioned multiple times to the people around me. They reminded me a lot of Half Life 2. We were playing with medium quality settings so we did not get to see the full capacity of the graphics engine. However, even at this quality they were awesome. I found my self detached looking at the magnificent scenery for minutes at a time. The pixel quality and texturing was simply amazing. Not to mention the player models - they looked almost real.

Map Design:
Another thing I was extremely impressed with was the map design. Gone are the baron fields of BF42. Every single part of the map is dealt with in the highest of detail. I find the comment that suits the design best was said by AEF Rommel: "It feels as though the maps were built as real settings and then the flags put on them." For example, Kubra Dam was built with the dam as the focus of the map. The flags were then put on the multiple vertical layers. Down at the bottom of the dam, I found myself constantly looking up to see if some rogue sniper was watching me. This comment leads me to the physics.

Physics:
As it turned out, a sniper was watching me at one stage. Fortunately I was a sniper too. Therefore we started shooting at each other. Before I knew it, I see him falling hundreds of meters. As it turns out, an assault hit him in the back. With a thud, he hit railing below him and bounced off like a real body. Nor it is look over-the-top and exaggerated. I watched this whole event through my scope.

Not only were the infantry physics great, but the vehicles were too. When something was blown up, a tank did not fly for miles, or stop in its tracks. It moved in the direction it was going, but not too far. About what you'd except a real tank to.

Commander Mode:
I am in love. I did not expect much from Commander Mode but found myself as the commander for a good 2/3 of the time, and whenever I was not - attempting to start a mutiny. If you commander is pretty poor at his job, or a tard, you can simply vote him off the position. A team with a good commander will gain a great advantage in the battlefield. The coordination aspect was exceptional. Scrolling through the map, spotting tanks and sending a radio message with a right click, calling artillery barrages, performing radar scans, deploying UAV drones and dropping supplies to your team (or even on an unsuspecting enemy player) were the features I found myself in awe over.
The Radar Scan is a line which scans the map, left to right, in the space of around 5 seconds placing little red blips on the map at enemy locations. Special forces troops are not spotted by the scan. I then place a UAV drone over the most concentrated a close enemy force for my team to see. If they are stationary, I call in an artillery barrage and annihilate them. I timed around 8 seconds from click to impact with the barrage - which gives the enemy a chance to move and makes it difficult to get on target. It is not deadly accurate either - so don't expect just because you are aiming at a tank it will kill it. I could write all night about the commander mode and its wonderful benefits, but I need to cut this a little shorter .

Aircraft:
Well, you may not have guessed it, but I'm a flyboy. I did not fly for much during my time there, because we did not have joysticks. However, for the time that I did fly, I fell in love with the JSF 35 (VTOL). The vertical take off took time, and did not feel as, at lack of a better word "floaty" as in DC or PoE. Then the separate weapon modes. I flew around with air-air on and occasionally changed to drop a bomb or two.

However, there were two things I was most impressed with. Flares and the feel of the aircraft. Flares add a whole new ball game to flying. No longer are missiles "fire and forget" as the enemy pilot may have countermeasures still left. Most of the time, if the flares are dropped at the right moment, a heat seeking missile will lock on to them. There is a catch though. I noticed that if the pilot had afterburners on, the extra heat signature would attract the missile past flares.

The feel of the aircraft will be my next point. I am a flight sim fan too - and found my skills transferring even using a mouse to fly. It felt like it was supposed to. It was hard to tell, however, only using a mouse, but after a while I got the hang of it and had some pretty intense dogfights. The jets are sensitive, as are the choppers, but they are not "instant move". It will take a while for the aircraft to correct itself.

A couple "Extras".
Smoke:
The detail of smoke, and the advantages it possesses, are just a great addition to the game play.
Sounds:
The chatter of metal plating hitting the ground or flapping against the back of your vehicle is overwhelming. It just sounds real. From the moment you start up, footsteps, the roar of vehicle engines or the power up of a jet is at incredible quality.

Ok it is time for me to finish up. I would like to thank the AEF Propaganda Corps for getting me into this experience I will never forget, and EA for allowing AEF to participate all over Australia. Both the EA and AEF guys were friendly and good blokes. EA were prepared to answer any questions we had.

The final note is about the demo. EA stated that it would be released on the 10th of June. [/quote:9f747]