Battlefield 2 was released earlier in 2005, a sequel to Battlefield 1942, which improved upon its predecessor and offered us huge maps supporting up to 64 players online - all on the same map. It also gave us vehicles, aircraft and loads of weapons to play around with. Overall, Battlefield 2 successfully created the chaotic atmosphere of, like its title suggests, a battlefield. However, it did have one very major flaw… no singleplayer campaign. It did give us singleplayer instant battles, which were basically the same as competitive multiplayer - but instead of going up against 63 other human players, the maps supported only you and 15 bots.
Well, if you hoped that Special Forces would add some sort of singleplayer missions to complete, then you will be disappointed once you play it, because there's still no noteworthy singleplayer option in this game. But, this expansion does add some cool features to the multiplayer! To start off with, instead of playing as the Middle Eastern Coalition (MEC), US and EU militaries and the People's Liberation Army of China - the player is given six new, unconventional forces to play as: the US Navy SEALs, British SAS, Russian Spetsnaz, MEC Special Forces, Insurgents and Russian Rebels. Unfortunately, there are no new infantry classes available, so each of these still offers the same seven classes that the original BF2 did.
Instead of focusing on completely chaotic shootouts between vehicles and infantry, Special Forces focuses more on just infantry-centric gameplay. This means that there are fewer vehicles for each map and some maps offer no armoured cars or tanks. Jets have been completely removed. Sounds kind of bad, doesn't it? Well it isn't as bad as it sounds. Thanks to this, those who travel on-foot get things like tear gas, grappling hooks, zip lines and gas masks - all of these can alter gameplay. Also, some of the new maps are set in the night, so when playing those; you can use night vision goggles. In addition, eight more small arms are made available.
So is the expansion pack Battlefield 2: Special Forces worth your money?
The Good:
+ More of the same, exciting Battlefield 2 gameplay
+ Infantry gets some cool, new toys to play with
+ Some new weapons and vehicles, as well as maps
+ Six new forces to play as with new rewards to earn
+ No jets means more balanced battles, but less fun
The Bad:
- No jets means more balanced battles, but less fun
- Still no story or singleplayer campaign available
- Very minor slowdowns, but even on the newest hardware
- None of the new stuff is revolutionary or even close to it
- Everything is still unoriginal and not very innovative
Is it worth your money? That depends. If you loved Battlefield 2 but played the hell outta it, the Special Forces expansion is certainly good enough to bring you back to it and give you more hours of slightly less-explosive fun - but it still is very entertaining, and that's what really counts. On the other hand, if you didn't like Battlefield 2 at all, then nothing here is so different from it that would cause you to change your mind and you should probably stay away from it. In the end, it's a good expansion (not filled to the brim with content), but enough for me to recommend it to all fans of the series and genre.
OVERALL RATING – 7.5/10 (Good)
NEW GS RATING – 7/10