E3 2004: Battlefield: Modern Combat Hands-On

One of the PC's best-selling franchises makes the leap to Xbox and PS2 with an early build of an all new, console specific Battlefield spinoff.

For the past couple of years, EA and DICE have established the Battlefield franchise as some of the most popular online titles for the PC platform. With two full games and two expansions under their belt, they've gone to work on breaking Battlefield from its historical war mold (World War II and Vietnam) to a console spinoff that engrosses players in modern warfare.

The console version of Battlefield retains the pick up and play controls of its PC brethren, as to promote the idea that even novices can get into the game without going through a tedious tutorial. The control scheme is similar to the console version of another popular PC port, Rainbow Six 3, which not only makes it easy to manage your cache of weapons, but allows you to navigate as accurately as possible through levels without the use of a mouse. The ability to enter almost any vehicle is also passed on to this console adaptation and for the most part, the system works flawlessly.

Obviously, the biggest difference beyond controls are the visuals, which are very different from the PC specific Battlefield games. Utilizing a new engine, environments and vehicles actually seem improved over the PC series, in addition to some great lighting effects and detailed textures. More importantly, the game is fairly smooth, which is something to be said when noting the game as of the E3 demonstration was roughly 10% complete.

The game is not without its flaws, most noticeably being the visual clarity is not nearly as sharp as the PC iterations of the series even at native TV resolution. Draw distance also seems to be a problem, and since the radar system is not as user-friendly as it should be, recognizing enemies in the distance can be difficult.

Both the PS2 and Xbox versions were playable on the show floor, demonstrating the multiplayer mode and promoting the new Microsoft and EA pact which should finally see a Battlefield game on Xbox Live. The objectives are similar to all previous Battlefield releases, but the gameplay and level design have been tweaked as neither console can possibly support the maximum amount of 64 players that the PC series allows. What you get is a smaller, urban warfare set of maps that draw from the strengths of each respective console.

Even at E3 though, there was a horrendous amount of lag, sometimes stalling the game for up five seconds while players either respawned or joined the game. But with such an early build, there is plenty of time clean the netcode up.

With Modern Combat looking promising, PS2 and Xbox owners also have bragging rights as the game is indeed a console exclusive. PC purists on the other hand should not frown as EA confirmed that although Modern Combat won't be on a Windows desktop anytime soon, the consolation prize is that DICE is hard at work on Battlefield 2.

Will Federman
Staff Writer, Kikizo.com