39. Re: No subject Jul 23, 03:50 Cynips

I haven't bought the game and I'm not sorry I didn't. Interesting how they can treat buying customers though...

48. Re: No subject Jul 23, 11:13 Kevlar

I refused to buy this after the Trauma debacle (despite loving BF1942) and my respect for EA continues to dip after each stupid decision. This expansion pack/patch business just makes me shake my head.

First, were these expansion pack features not planned for use in the original game? Did EA run out of time or did management just decide to try and maximize profit by splitting Battlefield 2 into two parts? The expansion pack and the simple design blunders of the main game seems like a pained attempt to generate a larger community around a title that didn't need its formula changed to begin with.

Not *every* game needs to have RPG character development, especially when that development short-sightedly gives rewards to the uber players or people logged on all the time, thereby making them better, widening the skill gap and worsening the experience for the casual gamer. No intro should have a bullet-time slowdown effect when the server menu doesn't even work with a scroll wheel. Not every game should have some fancy video-background menu when it's not optimized (and makes menu loading, for the first time in history, a spectator event) and the UI has drastically worsened as a result of the lack of attention it's gotten (see "Controls Screen"). How much better are the graphics, really, for this huge dip in performance? How better is this amalgam of new features when considering the steps backward in basic UI design, or straightforward fun or ability to just get into a game and play?

EA seems to have forgotten that they're in the business of making games and that it's that act of making games that drives the business, not the other way around. Make *good* games and the rest will follow. Focus less on forcing us to watch your logo for every title we load and more on actually supporting your fans by creating a clean interface and a speedy and stable product. Battlefield 2 does a lot right - hell, it reminds me of QWTF a little at times - but the things it does wrong boggle the mind at their simplicity.

Call me a troll (troll!) but 2005's games have nothing on 1995's in this respect. Such bonehead omissions make it feel like a huge step backward and that's not even considering the corporate milking going on throughout.

32. Re: No subject Jul 1, 13:05 changingman
Well, this thread has been going along at a fair old clip. Seems like not too many people are happy with their purchase. Here's the thing, though - it's EA. They will launch a box with an IOU inside for the game as long as it's on the shelves at the precise moment to maximise sales.
How they haven't been sued over this shit yet is beyond me.