Battlefield Retrospective: Play4Free

The Story:
basically this is BF2, same setting only in a quick launch free 2 play model.

The Gameplay:
As I said earlier its basically BF2, with F2P mechanics, so not as good

The Graphics:
Basically they are just BF2 graphics reduced and refined to play on any PC commercially available, not really good.

The Community:
I didnt play this for very long, but it was basically the same as heroes, hackers and whiners abound.

Overall:
As you can tell I am not very interested in this game, its basically a crappy BF2 with a F2P cash shop which drags it down even more, It gets the rating 2/8 it only gets a rating higher then heroes as heroes had a interesting concept going but crapped out on it at the last second, whereas this was never going to be good. I never had any hope for it and it met my expectations. 

Battlefield Retrospective: Bad Company 2

The Story:
Hey a single player story! The story follows the 4 soldiers from beta or bad company, I would say the story but again to be honest I havent played it in a long time, and I remember finding the game's progression ok and the story fine but found the distinct lack of Bad Company style humor that was a major part of the original game on the console made this story feel not as good, besides again this is a multiplayer game so thats what you should be focusing on.

 The Gameplay:
The slight difference between the earlier games then this is 3 things: quick knife and quick grenade keys, bullet drop, and no airplanes.
The quick knife and quick grenade keys are quite a good thing to see, as the knife and grenades up until this point were not often used and now it can be accessed in a instant makes them useful.
Bullet drop, this is something that wasn't in the previous games but now sniping is more of a skill to compensate for drop and leading which originally just had the leading to deal with which wasn't even too difficult.
Yeah because this was more so a console game released for both PC and consoles there aren't any jets, which is saddening and I feel leaves a hole in the experience but the game is still very entertaining with the helicopters, not to mention the awesomely fun UAV.


The Graphics:
This was the first game to use the new frostbite engine platform on the PC (bad company 1 used the previous version for the consoles) which allowed to dynamic environment destruction, before this game, if you wanted to get somewhere and building was in your way, you had to walk around, with the frostbite engine it was simply a matter of firing a explosive off at the wall, making a hole in it for easy access, this made the game really fun as when you needed to get through  a area you could blow a  hole literally through the building your in, not to mention bring down a building on someone if you hit it right, and not to mention this game looked great for the time, it still looks decent even by todays standards.

The Community:
As Near as I can tell there is still a community going on this game, when I was last on it was a balanced community of people, some who were annoying, some who were friendly and fun to play with, if this is still the case the community is decent.

Overall:
Overall I really liked the game and it was good until Battlefield 3 came out, its overall rating I'd give it a 6/8 a good game worth playing.

Battlefield Restrospective: Heroes

The Story:
There isn't any story, its just a world war 2 themed cartoony third person shooter thats about it.

The Gameplay:
Unlike the previous games this one is a third person shooter, and outside of vehicle use like previous games its very different, the main factor of this is its a quick launch Free to play game using a cash shop to allowing them to pay for the game servers and such, and to be honest I haven't played this in a long time and the reason for why will be explained in community, but last time I checked the cash shop is an average cash shop with both items that are buy-able with in game cash or with real cash and several that are only purchasable with real cash that provide special bonuses, which makes the game naturally too unbalanced which makes the game irritating to play as of a solid hard coded gap between paying and non paying players.

The Graphics:
The game is designed for low grade PCs allowing people which the most basic computer can play it. it resembles the cartoon aesthetic of TF2, its not bad looking as its design allows for significantly lower graphics to look quite good, so its a good looking game that's very low requirements.


The Community:
*sigh*... this games community has a big issue, and that's hackers(for those who don't know what hackers are, its people using programs to cheat, in this case using "wallhacks" which allows them to see where other players are when they shouldn't be able to, and "aimbots" which automatically aim their crosshairs on enemies with dead on accuracy for all shots) they plague this game, which also doesn't help those who are very skilled  at the game, which many players then claim they are hackers and harass them, or just outright quit mid-match, long story short as a result of hackers the community is irritating and difficult to get along with.

Overall:
This is simply a sad game, its got a cash shop which essentially is developer allowed cheating, not to mention that because of the game's lackluster (perhaps even nonexistent) anti-cheat system allows for hackers to drag the game down even further, as a result this game is getting the rating 1/8, Its fun looking but gameplay is lackluster and the community sucks not worth your time.

the next game is a sequel to the console game Battlefield: Bad Company, which is disqualified from this list because it wasn't released on the PC, I will do a short mention on it but its not getting rated on this list.

Battlefield Restrospective: 2142

As the tenth Doctor would say "Allons-y!"

I don't actually have 2142, I played the demo to death but sadly I haven't bought it, and to be honest its a old game with apparently no real community, like Battlefield Vietnam it didnt get the response it deserved, I'm giving it a 3/8, which may seem surprising but  trust me, the 2 below it are deserving of their spots.

sorry for the short review, but basically I cant say anything about it cause I never really played it, if one assumes it like its demo it was a great game but until I buy it and play it I cant really review it. but again it gets its place about the worst solely for the atrocities the other 2 have, which are because of their free to play nature..

Battlefield Retrospecitve: Battlefield 2

ONWARD!;

 The Story:
Again not much of a story but a setting, to best explain I snatched the blurb off of Wikipedia:

The story takes place in the early 21st century during a fictional world war between various power blocs: China, the European Union (playable as of the 1.50 patch), the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition (MEC), Russia (playable only in the Special Forces expansion) and the United States. In-game, the European Union and the United States fight China and the MEC. It is known that in the game's story, the EU and the US are allies^[6] and the EU has negotiated a peace deal with Russia^[7] but it is unknown if China and the MEC are allies. The game takes place in different fronts, as the Middle East and China are being invaded by US and EU forces, and the United States is being invaded by Chinese and MEC forces.

I never really caught on the story within the game, it was really just battlefield in modern times, and it did its job, many of the maps are well designed and fun to play on.

 The Gameplay:
Like the previous game its the same mechanics with a few alterations, primarily being more weapon customization and the addition of squads and commanders, the squad mechanic would stay in but sadly the Commander feature has been absent since this iteration.
The squad mechanic is pretty simple, you can make or join a squad, this will tell you specifically where your fellow squad mates are, let you spawn on the squad leader, and allows the squad lead to specify objectives for the squad to do, whether you do them or not is up to you however.
The commander feature is essentially, well a commander, he give orders to the squads and general army to follow, and can use various features to  aid their team in combat, like drop a UAV drone in a region to see whose there, drop ammo, vehicle or a artillery strike on specified spots, either of his choosing or of the squad leaders request, it was actually a very good and useful system that sadly hasn't seen a return since.
 otherwise the game is very close to previous games except for the jets which have a instant "I WIN" missile lock on, that you have to have the most perfect timing and evasion skills to evade, basically jets aren't nearly as fun in this game as in previous or later games.

The Graphics:
The game has improved graphics over the previous games, but otherwise not much noticeable, it looks like battlefield in terms of the graphics, just slightly better then the previous games.

The Community:
as far as I last checked it still had a decent community and nothing really worth noting, outside of the average random trolls you'll encounter.

Overall:
Now there are many people who will swear by BF2, I frankly dont care so much for it, I'd play it over Battlefield Vietnam just because of the slight refinements in gameplay and the signifgently larger and active community.
As with previous games I'm rating it against the other games, I'd put it a good 5/8, worth playing but there are 3 more I'd play over it.

Battlefield Retrospective: Battlefield Vietnam

To continue on the battlefield series the next in the series:

The Story:
Like the last game in the series it has no real story but a setting; The Vietnam War.
The game has little information except for loading screen blurbs explaining what significance the map has in relation to the setting, the major parts that make this seem fitting to the setting are the character customizations and the ability to play music over the radio (and unless you have loaded your own music into the game, it plays era appropriate music) all in all it feels befitting of its setting.

The Gameplay:
In essence its the same game as BF:1942, its a large scale all aspect battle game, the major changes comes from the additions to the game, most of which eventually were incorporated into later games, most notably the load out options, see the game has several classes that serve specific functions for the team, and in this game you get 2 options per class allowing for higher flexibility, this feature gets expanded on in each subsequent game in the series, though sadly the character customization was missing for the next 2 major releases on the PC (the only platform I'm reviewing these on) but made a return, the one feature of this game which has only been seen in a lackluster DLC for Bad Company 2 since this iteration is the radios, allowing you to blare music across the battlefield, its amazingly satisfying to strafe the battlefield in an attack helicopter while playing ride of the Valkyries.

Speaking of the most major and from this point on consistent added feature is the Helicopters, which thankfully operate very smoothly and are very fun to handle given enough time to learn their quirks.
The airplanes in the game are now all jets which sadly ruins the fun of the airplanes, because until battlefield 2 the maps were too tiny to fly jets in and often times you had to be very quick to properly bank around back to the airfield before the game killed you for being out of bounds.

The Graphics:
They are basically the same as Battlefield 1942, if the game had significant graphical improvements it was really hard to notice, but never the less they are still good old graphics that aren't too hard on the eyes.

The Community:
 There really isn't any. as of this moment I don't know if the master server needed to play the game over the internet without a direct ip is even still up, if so there will probably be a few servers with some true die hard fans of the game but sadly, this game is more or less dead.

Overall:
This game is a great improvement in many ways over battlefield 1942 but also lacked the response 1942 had, one major killer for me in this game is the jets which are contained to maps too tiny to effectively use them on, and with the lackluster community at the moment, this game is a diamond in the rough, but sadly not worth the time to play without having a specific group of friends willing to play it with you.
Overall Rating is based relative to the other games in its series its a 4/8 I like playing it but its not really worth your time

Battlefield Retrospective: Battlefield 1942

I decided to put my Assassin's Creed retrospective on hold as I havent played assassin's creed 2 in awhile and frankly am a bit to busy to replay it wholesale, so instead im going to do a review of the Battlefield series, which thankfully is a multiplayer game, meaning it takes far shorter to get the whole game picture then a game with a lengthy single player aspect, so lets start off with the first in the series; Battlefield 1942

Battlefield 1942 was one of the first MP(multiplayer) FPS(First Person Shooter) to feature essentially all aspect warfare, you could fight in the air, on the sea, or on the ground in a variety of vehicles, and laid the groundwork that would help many a future FPS improve themselves, and is easily one of the great classic MP FPSs.

The Story:
There isn't any... because its a Multiplayer game it has settings not story, and the setting is World War II, the various theaters of war of WWII are the primary setting for all the different maps featured, there is a small info blurb for each map when playing single player campaign (which is merely playing the multiplayer with AI as opposed to players) but not much more outside of that.

The Gameplay:
This is a old first person shooter and in the infantry segments it shows as it feels slower and less accurate then modern games, but to be honest one doesn't play battlefield for the infantry combat, this game is all about its vehicles and it has a lot of them, airplanes, tanks, troop transports, jeeps,and numerous navel vehicles including aircraft carriers.

To start the ground vehicles, they are pretty simple to describe, the jeeps are unarmed fast moving vehicle, troop transports are slower but can protect, heal, and rearm soldiers and often have anti-infantry weapons mounted on it, Tanks are well, tanks, and are often only taken down by other tanks or quite a lot of bazooka fire.

Aircraft are in my opinion  the best vehicles, which if you have played aircraft in games more recently its very different, the planes are slow propeller planes and can be hard to handle compared to most other aircraft in games, but once you learn the tricks of flying them they are amazing fun, not to mention they have dumb drop bombs, meaning you have to learn the proper timing to drop them on your target for maximum damage, and there is nothing more satisfying to see you get a ton of hits after a successful bombing run.

the final type of vehicle is navel, such as cruisers, submarines, destroyers, and aircraft carriers, yes your carrier getting bombed by the enemy? hop in and drive it away to protect it, navel combat is interesting and sometimes exciting, slow and deliberate seeing you just sunk their battleship is amazingly satisfying.
All in all the gameplay is dated but very unique and interesting.


The Graphics:
The Graphics are dated, very dated, not bad and back in its day it was amazing top of the line graphics, its not so old its hard to get past to play the game, but you'll notice its age.

The Community:
As this is a multiplayer game it has a community  you'd be playing with them, its main server got shut down awhile ago but it recently became free on origin to play for its ten year anniversary, as a result its community is very big now and until EA decides to remove it from Origin (which considering their average practices that seems very likely to happen) it will probably have a decent community as its a very low computer requirements you'll see those with low power PCs playing it as its a great game.

Overall:
As with my Assassin's Creed retrospective I'm going to review it based off of the other games in the series so it'll get a 1-8 (1 being worst, 8 being the best) ranking to compare it. and its only my opinion and trust me you'll find many differing opinions on this regard, I rate it 7/8 its a great old classic game and with its FREE rerelease on origin it now has a renewed community and its awesome, the only game I feel is better over it is battlefield 3, which we will eventually get to.

Rating:7/8