What you are about to read is a first-hand eyewitness story of an amazing experience that occured to yours truly and his colleague at this years Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) in Los Angeles.



Electronic Arts' Benelux office invited us to a so-called "behind-closed-doors-session" to view ...or rather 'experience' ... a presentation on the status of Battlefield 2.Normally this invitation is for one person only, but seen as both Lord Ciar and I are both passionate Battlefield 1942 fans, we were both allowed access to this exclusive presentation. And what we saw, dear friends, amazed us in a way that can hardly be expressed by words.

E3 has always been an overwhelming experience, with all developers and publishers doing their utmost best to grab your attention and swamp you with the greatness of their game.

Nothing of that at the Battlefield 2 presentation, for they kept true to the KIS-principle (in other words 'Keep It Simple'). We were with four journalists in the small room where Senior Producer Scott Evans spoke calmly on the new features of Battlefield 2.

For all of you gamers out there, waiting for HalfLife 2 or Doom 3 ... keep on hoping, but I can tell you one thing: I was 100% completely flabergasted by what I saw. Stronger even: I sat there in awe -- and people who know me better know that I'm not easily impressionable.

The graphics were of such a quality that I have never seen before on a pc game (and yes, I have seen the HL2 presentation too). The detail on not only the other players but on literally *every* graphic in the game are extensive - never seen before! Of course, we asked what pc-specs they were running the demo on - the answer** was simple: "pretty high end" with a wink.

The sound was of the utmost quality too, but it wasn't finished yet. But boy, since there are tanks in this 'contemporary' Battlefield, an active subwoofer increases the game-experience with giant leaps.

The gameplay has been taken to the next level too, with innovations like 'ragdoll-death' being incorporated on demand by the gaming community (a player that is killed will jerk and twist like a dummy untill he hits the floor). Combine this ragdoll movement with the extreme high graphical detail ... and then imagine being shot and killed by a tankgrenade and propelled skyhigh by the blast. Dizziness garuanteed :)

Dizziness is being included as well, when a grenade explodes too close to you - your vision will be slightly blurred and you will be deaf for some time.

In Battlefield 2 cardboard boxes, wood and sheetmetal won't be bullet-proof. Hiding behind a wooden shed is no longer an option - any decent handgun will be able to shoot straight through it and wound you lethaly.

Another strong innovation is the teamchat function. Instead of typing or using strange keyboard combinations, you can now call up a chat message screen, point at what you want to say to your teammates and click on that message. Easy and faster than mistyping. Your teammates will also be able to see where you are calling from on the small map on their HUDs.

It is hard not to speak in superlatives on Battlefield 2. I have another illustration on how impressed both Lord Ciar and I were: after the presentation was finished, we had both completely forgotten to take notes. So we asked if we could stay for another session....
... and I walked out without notes again. I did not want to miss a single frame!



Battlefield 2 was *without a doubt* THE best game I saw at E3 this year - even though it was behind closed doors and is still at least one year away from being finished. If Fragland gave out awards, Battlfield 2 would get my vote for 'Best game of E3' or 'Most promising game of E3'.




** This answer was given to me by Patrick Söderlund himself (the CEO of Digital Illusions).
Furthermore, he asked me what I would change or incoporate in the game. I just answered that as Battlefield is an online game, they should have a fast netcode (for low pings and no packetloss) and a Linux server-version right from the start ;)

His answers sattisfied me: it's a refurbished netcode which is so 'light', that servers will be able to accomodate up to 100 players simultaneously without serious latency. Next to that he promised that a Linux server version would be released from the releasedate of the game.