I’m not really sure what inspired it but I decided to install a couple of old favorites I hadn’t played in a while, you know, just to have them around. One of those games was Battlefield 2. Being a big fan of Desert Combat for Battlefield 1942 I decided to try a few total conversion mods out after screwing around in single player for a while. There weren’t many mods out when I last played Battlefield 2 with any level of seriousness although there were several in production that seemed likely to end up as vaporware. Wow, does BF2 have a great modding scene! There must be a dozen or so high quality, major mods out there nowadays. I only grabbed a few for starters: Project Reality, which I didn’t try because of not having a single player patch for yet and, given how hardcore it sounds, I didn’t want to jump right into online play. Point of Existence 2, the sequel to an old BF1942 mod, Allied Intent Xtreme, a total conversion seemingly focused on single player, and Forgotten Hope 2, another BF1942 mod sequel.
I can’t really say I put a ton of time into any of the mods. Forgotten Hope seemed too hardcore to jump right into and seemed to be designed to work a lot better online than with bots but it definitely oozes quality. Of PoE2 and AIX I think I enjoyed PoE2’s less “out there” approach a bit more but I definitely had fun with AIX and will revisit it a lot more in the future. In any case I’m highly impressed and intend to grab even more of these suckers. If only they weren’t so huge. Now, if only I had a copy of Battlefield 2142 so I should try out this awesome looking Star Wars mod, First Strike! I’m honestly thinking of picking it up just to play that one!
One thing I did notice was that the bots seemed to behave a lot more intelligently in these mods than they do in the normal Battlefield single player – using their vehicles better, making better runs for objectives, etc. I have only a vague idea of what is involved in adding bots to maps in Battlefield 2 so I don’t know the exact reason for this but regardless this seems like the way to play Battlefield 2 offline.
Since it’s been a while since I’ve posted many good screenshots here’s several from a quick single player game of Point of Existence 2. Enjoy!
“Trying to get him before he gets me!”
“Locked on!”
“Off with their heads!”
“Rolling down the highway of death.”
“A teammate’s handy work but still cool.”
“This doesn’t look good.”
“Tank engagement.”
“On his tail.”