Project Reality Modification for Battlefield 2

Project Reality Modification for Battlefield 2 Review from a famousblueraincoat
Played 20+ hours on PC
Available for PC w/ Battlefield 2
"Playing War"

This game is currently all I can think about playing. PR is the closest thing there is to 'playing guns' there is. Remember when you were a kid and you'd play 'WAR'? Hold sticks like guns, and wear metal pails and pots on your head? Pick someone to be the Drill Sargent and you'd march one another around? Sit in the ditch like it was a foxhole lobbing large rocks at one another across the road to another ditch like a grenade? PR is that, without the grass-stains.

We're all familiar with BF2. PR is just like it, but with the 'reality' factors of accuracy, dexterity, health and tactical deployment scaled up. The accuracy is greatly decreased when standing upright or moving, but if set to prone and stationary, even an iron-sighted rifle can pick off targets from hundreds of meters away. The potential for damage is always apparent. If hit once in the body, you will lose a significant initial percentage of your health, and continue to bleed out unless a medic heals you. Falling or jumping more than a few meters will cause death, and don't even think about jumping out of a moving vehicle. There is no minimap, and you must use your environmental surroundings and your onscreen compass to make sense of where you are, and where you're headed.

These restrictions, although in many ways are not truly 'realistic', as they are still very much game-y, the 'hyper-reality' creates an atmosphere of complete dependence on your teammates and entirely force cooperation. Spawn times are upwards of 30 seconds to a minute, and that's only after you've called out for a medic to revive you to no avail, and you've 'given up'.

Only the squad leader can issue waypoints and target markers which help your navigation or tactical deployment that show on your map. As a member of a squad, You end up naturally falling in line. Taking orders from your leader, covering one another and moving as a team. Often you'll take on the role as a medic, or Anti-tank to support your squad in different ways. It might seem odd, but it's tremendously rewarding to be a cog in the well-oiled killing machine that is your squad.

The Squad Leader is a necessary role, and decides where and when to move, attack, or build up specific assets. The leader is able to set a mobile spawning point for their squad as a 'Rally Point'. If they have access to two asset crates, the SL can build a 'Forward Base' which the entire team (not just your squad) can spawn from, along with Anti-Air weapons, a sandbagged Machine Gun emplacement, foxholes and anti-personnel/vehicle barriers.

Building assets ramps up the complexity of play. If a good commander is present to oversee the every squad and the entire team's activity. If your squad is sent to flank an enemy's firebase, while another squad is sent to patrol for rally-points around the area, it's not hard to start feeling as though you're only one character in a full-scale Real-time Strategy.

This leads to a discussion of the game's engine, and how only this game would allow for such an intense multiplayer experience. The infrastructure that the BF2 engine provides allows this game to be great. The world is large and wide-open which is the main difference between the closed-in-ness of a game like Call Of Duty. Although the models, textures and lighting are nowhere near the higher grade of FEAR 2 or FarCry 2, but the vastness and verticality of BF2 is unparalleled. It's ultimately efficient, and it 'feels' good.

The BF2 engine allows for Voice Over IP as a default function when joined up with a squad. The map overlay allows the SL to issue commands to the squad on the fly. Everyone can contribute within the squad, call out targets or call for a medic or issue/debate orders. The text-based team-chat is used as a kind of squad-to-squad based communication, pointing out enemy movement or calling for reinforcements.

What is most interesting about PR is that it is such an extensive modification of a simple engine. The tactics and teamwork that is possible is heads and shoulders above any current AAA hit. The time instead spent refining gameplay instead of polishing graphical interfaces is used instead to refine the team-based mechanic.

This, however, is its most definite fault. The teamplay is so complex that there are rules you will never know exist until you run in to them. Why can't I set a Fire Base here? Why can't I respawn here? How do I heal myself when I'm a medic? The learning curve for this game is tremendously steep and I urge anyone and everyone considering playing to read the online manual extensively. Even installing it is finicky as you must make sure to have the up to date BF2 patch, and the proper PR core install with all of the map packs.

The only other drawback to PR is the obscenely long time it takes for there to be any action. There are some maps that will be 60 or 80 minutes long where the top kill score is 4. There is an awful lot of defense, covering, sneaking and asset deployment that goes on. There will be times where you wait in anticipation for squad to cross through a map chokepoint, only to be flanked entirely from another direction. This might not sound like fun to you, but I find it exhilarating.

The interesting part of PR is that it's designed for legitimate tactical gameplay. Everyone has a job, and fulfilling those jobs gets you points. Whether it's a combat engineer, medic, APC crewman or helicopter pilot. The ultimate goal ends up being the best squad within the team, not just winning over the opposition. Everyone should download this and give it a try.

This is a game where you can play an Auto Rifleman, laying down a base of fire on a compound crawling with enemies with your deployed machine gun, while a marksman calls out specific contacts as he sees them scurry about for cover. Your team moves toward the opponents while suppressed and takes out the enemy encampment. It happens in this game, and it's a legitimately effect tactic. It's also free. What more do you need to know to give it a try?