Universal acclaim - based on 55 Critics What's this?

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Generally favorable reviews- based on 637 Ratings

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 54 out of 55
  2. Negative: 0 out of 55
  1. With incredible communication tools, top-notch visuals, and a fantastic balance of vehicles and classes, EA has won the battle and the war of online team-based shooters.
  2. Much like the real military, Battlefield 2 is not just a game, it’s a way of life.
  3. It's finely tuned maps and balanced gameplay prove that you CAN improve on perfection. [Sept 2005, p.56]
  4. The available maps are enormous, and the player is overwhelmed by the feel of modern warfare as jets race across the sky, choppers hover overhead, and tanks roll across the roads.
  5. Team play innovations, graphical supremacy and the thundering roar of enemy jets combined with persistent stats all work together to really put you There. There being any one of the varied, immaculately crafted maps, each available in 16, 32 and 64 player sizes.
  6. If first person shooters are your bag, be sure to peel this banana and taste its sweet bounty.
  7. Battlefield 2 is a game that can offer tremendous amounts of online fun, but the effort required to actually get there is almost a turn-off in itself at times.

See all 55 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 35 out of 207
  1. AlexP.
    Nov 1, 2006
    A great game. Requires a lot of teamwork! Those people that are complaining that "fun when it works" or something, stop whining. It's not our fault that you have a bad computer. Be prepared to spend hundreds of hours playing this game! Expand
  2. Doug
    Jun 4, 2005
    Played review copy...can't stop. Amazing game!
  3. DarkoK.
    Aug 2, 2006
    One of the best games EVER.The game is full of action, strategy, planing assoult/defence, dosens tipes of Wehicles and Aircrafts. The first time(few weeks :)p the game is BRUTAL, but once you get to know the tacticks of playing in sqad. Expand
  4. ThomasM.
    Jul 5, 2005
    remote manager needs to be fixed, too easy for cheaters to unlock, otherwise flawless.
  5. LittleBloke
    Aug 10, 2005
    Well, I played the demo and liked it. Brought the full game and love it. It is not stupidly resource heavy. This game runs excellently on my system with high settings on all but lighting. P4C800E-Dlx with 2.8 GHz P4 running @ 3.3 1GB Memory ( Radeon 9800XT, SB Audigy (1) (1024 x 768. There are a few niggles. For example the in game server browser is lame and lacks sensible features, but you can use 'all seeing eye' or other such game browsers. Occasional Irritating deaths when jumping out of a vehicle and getting run over buy it... even when not moving that quickly (especially with boats). I'd like to know what people consider 'bugs'... as I have played this game for many long sessions with no discernable issues.. On the plus side the VOIP and squad teamwork and in-game interface are all good. Just make sure you get a server with a good ping (within your country), playing a game with a low ping below 50 is great fun, and resolves many of the issues of people saying that they can Expand
  6. JustinS.
    Jun 24, 2005
    Really nothing special. The online advancement adds a bit, but other than that things are the same. The physics engine is very limited, there is no major building destruction or object manipulation. Graphics are nice, but too hard on even high end system to use a res above 1024. Worth it if you're comfortable spending $50 for a game you'll play 10 hours and be sick of. Expand
  7. May 11, 2012
    Out of desire to play a Battlefield game before regenerating health plagued the series and simultaneously wanting something that would run well on my laptop, I decided to pick up this old gem. The install process is long and tedious, more so than it really should have been. Messing with options works nicely... except for control configuration. Rather than removing an old keybind when you choose to bind a key to a new function, it just tells you you can't bind it. A bit annoying, but doable... unless you want to bind left shift to anything, of course. No matter what, it tells you it's bound to something in helicopter controls (despite checking multiple times and seeing no such thing), so so much for my preferred crouch key.

    Widescreen support out of the box is non-existent or poor, and the 1.5 patch doesn't do much to fix it. The third party Widescreen Fixer program is practically necessary for a reasonable FOV.

    Another problem one is bound to run into is lack of server choice. This is to be expected in such an old game with many sequels released after it, but at this point it's not worth it at all to get anything more than the base game. Special Forces is completely empty aside from a few "server padding" bots (the sort that are in servers but don't spawn in or play, just sit there to inflate player count), and the other two expansions come free with patch 1.5. The remaining servers lack in variety, with very few non-"24/7 [map]" servers left, and unless you're lucky (unlike me) or have a group of friends to hop into servers with, you're likely to have a frustrating experience due to lack of players willing to go for the objectives and such. On a related note, many of the small number of servers left have rules that can be seen as ridiculous and unreasonable, so watch out for that.

    The balance is definitely lacking in the game as well. Infantry weapon-wise, it seems alright aside from LMGs that aren't the RPK having horrendous accuracy no matter what and grenades being far too "spammy". Air vehicles are wholly unbalanced against anything else, as they have a fairly easy time dodging any anti-air fire and ONE missile fired from an applicable aircraft is enough to destroy even a tank in one hit, without anything capable of doing the same against the air vehicles. Gunner beware, a single machine gun bullet from any aircraft hitting anywhere on a land vehicle seems to be enough to kill you.

    Relating to the last point, the accuracy of some of these pilots and chopper gunners is pretty questionable. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some aircraft aim-hack floating around that bypasses punkbuster seemingly flawlessly.

    Overall, despite how underwhelming my skill (and luck) at the game is and bad experiences all around, I'm likely to reinstall and play it again at some point.

See all 207 User Reviews