It's a different world for first-person shooters these days. The latest entries in the genre are about more than just dashing about and blasting everything from a first-person perspective. So to make a really distinctive game, you need things like great multiplayer and drivable vehicles, especially in the wake of Battlefield 1942, from developer Digital Illusions and publisher EA Games. The 2002 game took online gaming by storm, and its 2004 follow-up, Battlefield Vietnam, refined the series even further. The teams responsible for those two games are now gearing up for the next game in the series, Battlefield 2, which will take place not during World War II or the Vietnam War, but in a near-future conflict in the Middle East and Manchuria. And we finally got our hands on an early alpha version of the game.

Get ready for multiplayer mayhem with tanks, gunboats, attack helicopters, jeeps, and APCs--all on the same map.

The next game will make plenty of changes to the standard Battlefield formula. Like in the previous games, matches will take place between two opposing teams--in this instance, US Army troops pitted against either Chinese insurgents or a fictitious mercenary faction known as the Middle Eastern Coalition. But this time around, each side will have a whopping seven playable classes, including special forces, sniper, assault, support, engineer, antitank, and medic.

As it turns out, Battlefield 2 will not have stationary supply boxes in preset locations on the map (in the previous games, you could often find ammo boxes and health-supply crates at checkpoints and in houses, and automatically resupply just by standing near them). Instead, in Battlefield 2, medics will have medic packs they can use to directly heal nearby teammates, or toss on the ground to be picked up, much like the medics in Return to Castle Wolfenstein's multiplayer. In addition, the all-new support class carries ammo packs that function similarly--support players can hand ammo directly to nearby teammates or scatter additional ammo on the ground. Apparently, the new game will also attempt to be more accessible to new players by means of helpful audio cues that sound whenever you start playing the game, switch weapons, or use a new vehicle.

And Battlefield 2 will place even more emphasis on infantry operations with a variety of improvements, including the much-needed ability to sprint for limited periods of time (crucial for dodging incoming artillery or getting to the next waypoint when you don't have a vehicle). The game will also have a greater variety of weapons and an integrated stat-tracking system that will be tied in with a persistent online profile you'll keep (though players who really don't want to be held to rankings can turn them off on their servers). You'll actually be able to increase your ranking not only by being a good shot, but also by being a highly effective medic or engineer. By increasing your rank in a specific skill, you may gain access to new weapons and items and appear as a higher-ranked officer online. Also, you'll actually have your rank marked above your character's head with a set of chevrons that can be seen from a distance by your teammates.

The new game will put even more emphasis on team play. Fortunately, there will be lots of systems in place to reward skillful teams.

In addition, Battlefield 2 will attempt to more strongly emphasize team play with many new options, including an enhanced quick-chat system that brings up a context-sensitive radial menu when you press the Q key, along with plug-and-play support for voice-over-IP chat. The new game will also have in-game "squads"--groups of players that, when joined, show your teammates' names in green hovering above their heads, show your buddies as green blips off in the distance, and display the location of your team's leader on the minimap in the upper right corner of the screen. Squad leaders can press the T key to give orders to their teammates, like calling for ammo or medics, and they can also drop colored smoke canisters on the ground to point out the direction their squads should follow. A highly intriguing development for squads that makes being a skillful leader worthwhile is the new ability for any squad leader in a vehicle to essentially become a mobile spawn point--all your squadmates, when killed, have the option of rejoining the game in your vehicle. You can join a squad from the standard map screen (which allows you to choose where you'll spawn next, and which class you'll play as), but players who are serious about their squads can actually password-protect them.