BF2 update

Inside Information on BF2 From DocSeal (your favorite person), taken from the UBI forums:

"I hinted at it in my original post ( Challenge Everything) and I've told a few people, but now that I have a clearer picture of what I'm doing I'll make it public. As most of you know, I was in NC the last couple of weeks and I found a nice package of games waiting for me when I got home yesterday. I'm going to be a community leader at EA games for such titles as BF2, Madden 2K6, Tiger Woods 2K6, and possibly C&C Generals and NHL 2K6. The first title I'll be working on is BF2. First impressions: I didn't like BF1942 after playing Far Cry because I couldn't get into the game with the cheesy graphics. BF2 has a complete visual overhaul and is fulla eye candy. I haven't played MP yet, but I will today. The BF2 forums aren't up yet, but when they are you'll be able to catch me on there as EA_DocSEAL."

"As I said I would do...here is my post of initial impressions of BF2 MP:

1) Although many of my first games for PC were flight sims (Stealth Fighter, Falcon 3.0), after many years of not "flying"; I found out that I really suck. Imma hafta buy a joystick to keep up with the "Aces."
2) Although the engine supports 64 players on a server, I was on a 16 man. Full, it ran flawlessly.
3) Hottest feature: Material penetration. Ballastics are the most sophisticated I have seen from a game yet and depending on your weapon it will or will not penetrate wood/cement. Second place: Vehicle adjustments and transformations. The number and types of vehicles that spawn adjust with the amount of players on the server. Also, depending on your player class, you can transform a vehicle into one for your class (playing a medic, I turned many hummers into ambulances.) Third place: Voice over IP. Coordinate attacks with friends and talk trash to foes without TS or Vent. This might not be anything new, but certainly adds something missing from some games.

Conclusion: After you play Far Cry you compare ever other game's graphics to it and admittedly BF2's fall short. They are, however, a DRASTIC improvement from BF1942/Vietnam. Character/vehicle/weapons modelling is done to the extreme...they're simply gorgeous. The grass is done amazing like the old Blizzard cutscenes from Warcraft3. Terrain and vegetation could use some work as well as buildings. I quickly told them that the weapon sounds need a complete overhaul. As for everyone's question about lag...like I said...only a 16 man server...but it was flawless. FPS on my rig were min 60 max 200 avg about 90."

..."Lemme first say that I don't think my comments will sway that many people to either purchase or not purchase the game. There a literally hundreds of thousands of people waiting on the release. I'd be niave to thing that even if I said it was the best game ever created it would convince more to buy it...especially considering the amount of people actually reading this thread.

With that in mind, I'll try to be more specific in my critique. I'll use the Gamespot Rating System that I've trusted for years to help me decide whether or not to buy a game.

Gameplay: 9 - You hardly ever see a 10 here. My beef...some of the ingame menus.

Graphics: 8 - Any game I play now will be compared to Far Cry and this game is about 80% overall when compared to FC. I'd like to see some more landscape and building texture work. Models, vehicles and skins are excellent.

Sound: 7 - This is the major flaw in the game for me right now. The explosions, vehicles sounds, and voice overs are all excellent, but the weapon sounds are horrible. It's like they had two different guys working on sounds and one of them shoulda been fired. I've never heard a M16 rat-tat-tat like it does in this game. I started ripping sounds from other games and the internet to make my own sound mod. I'm using Sony Soundforge to mix/match/edit them and I'll present them for inclusion in the game. If not, I'll be releasing the mod the day the game comes out.

Value: 10 - I can see myself becoming a BF2 addict the way I was a FC addict. Mods/Maps/Expansion packs will keep this game playable for years.

Tilt: 8 - Outstanding game 'cept for those @%&@$!@^* sounds.

Overall: 8.4 = "Great." Those that overlook the weapon sound issue would give that section a 8+. Those judging this game independently, including myself, would give the graphics a 9 or 10. Similar to FC, you can crank the AA and AF up in SP and it's quite amazing. That would put the game into the Gamespot Editor's choice level which I'm sure it will have when it's released."