A lot has been said lately about how amazing the Call of Duty series is. I won’t deny that, on a technical level, the series is amazing. However, when it comes to fun, there is another series that I feel trumps Call of Duty in almost every way. The Battlefield games offer so much more then Call of Duty while maintaining the same realistic military feel. I will preface my comparison by saying I have played Battlefield 1942(PC), Battlefield 2 (Xbox, Xbox 360), Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 4 (both on Xbox 360). For the purposes of this piece however I will be focusing on Battlefield 2 (Xbox, Xbox 360) and Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360). I want to stress that when I’m talking about Battlefield 2 I’m referring to the Xbox and 360 versions of that game. I’ve spent massive amounts of time with both versions of the game and they are nearly identical. From what I understand they are nothing like the PC version which I have not played.

Single Player

I remember the first time I played Call of Duty 4’s single player campaign. It was Christmas night, I had just gotten back to my apartment from my parents house where I had received that game as a present. I loaded it up and started the campaign on veteran figuring it would be a lot like CoD2 veteran. At first I was actually disappointed, the first few levels were a breeze. I thought that they had given up on difficult gameplay and instead focused on making the scripted events look pretty. I couldn’t have been more wrong. While everything does look very pretty, the difficulty ramped up quickly after the third level. I quickly found myself cursing the never ending enemy respawns and 1 hit kills when I was lying down behind a hill three miles from any enemy. I know I exaggerate but suffice to say, the game gets frustrating and just thinking about it gets my Irish temper heated. Let’s compare that with the nearly as difficult 360 version of Battlefield 2.



This is the one area where the Xbox and 360 versions of Battlefield 2 differ. Although the levels are the same and the hot swapping feature was made easier, the single player campaign is significantly more difficult on the 360 version. While I never beat either version’s single player game, I got much further on the original Xbox. However, I still go back and play the 360 campaign all the time, mostly because I really feel like I have a shot at progressing because of the Hot Swap feature. For those that don’t know, hot swapping is a feature that allows the player to switch to any member of his squad at the push of a button. This allows you to approach the level in a different way every single time. Unlike Call of Duty, where if you have a hallway to go down, there is pretty much a right and wrong way to do it. Overall this makes Battlefield much more fun to play, even if it’s less realistic then Call of Duty.

Multiplayer

This is another area where Battlefield shines over Call of Duty because it isn’t trying to be as realistic. If you get into a discussion about Battlefield multiplayer vs. Call of Duty multiplayer you have to mention the health system. Most people understand that in Call of Duty it’s more or less one shot one kill and if you don’t die, what little health you have left will return to you. In Battlefield however you have a health bar that takes quite a few shots to drain and can only be refilled by Support soldiers or at med crates. So which one is actually more realistic? Sure it makes more sense that a human takes 2 bullets and goes down rather than 30. However, how many humans do you know can get shot and automatically heal? This is why I like the Battlefield health system more than the Call of Duty one. It inspires team work and co-operative play, something that most sessions of Call of Duty lack.



Another reason why I prefer the Battlefield games is the balance. Everybody picks from the same classes and the same guns. It’s a lot like Team Fortress in that certain classes are better for certain situations and only mastery of all classes will make you a master of the game. Compare this to Call of Duty where in order to get the best guns you have to play your life away to increase the silly little number next to your name. You can say that the beginning guns in that game are as good as the endgame guns all you want, but you’re wrong. It’s not just the guns either, throw the perks in there and it’s very hard for new players to get into the game. This all could have been fixed with a simple match making system but alas, no such thing exists. It is for this reason that I feel bad for newbie Call of Duty players and I feel that anybody going through Prestige mode is bat-shit crazy.



One more thing I have to mention is the maps in each game. The maps in Call of Duty are very well designed; I have a lot of fun on them, especially the tanker ship level. As good as they are however; they don’t hold a candle to the map design in Battlefield. All the maps in Battlefield are positively huge. If you play a lot of conquest mode you will notice that the maps were built around this one style of gameplay which greatly benefits the overall experience. On each maps there are strategies as to which control points are best to have. If you’re not going for all of them, which can be difficult, it is obviously best to focus on only a handful of them and knowing the ins and outs of every map is essential in deciding which points to go for.



The last reason I think Battlefield is more fun than Call of Duty is each games use of helicopters. Who doesn’t love getting a 7 kill streak in Call of Duty 4? Getting that automatic helicopter to rain death upon your enemies sure is satisfying isn’t it? Hell no! Not if you’ve played Battlefield 2 it’s not. Flying a helicopter in that game is so much fun it should be illegal. It feels just like a real helicopter and the guns spit fire at your opponents with very little to no mercy. In fact, all the vehicles in Battlefield kick ass. I love that when I get sick of running and gunning I can go hop in a jeep or a tank or a helicopter and just blow stuff up. Now that I think about it, this is probably the number one reason I like Battlefield more then Call of Duty.



All of these things add up for me to make the Battlefield series really stand out when I
want to get my fix of modern combat. I still love Call of Duty 4 but I feel like some of the praise heaped upon it is un-due. This post was mostly inspired by me being stuck on “No Fighting in the War Room” on CoD4 and the recent launch of the Battlefield: Bad Company beta.

I’d actually like to take a second and say that I am worried for Bad Company, if only because they are lifting certain elements from Call of Duty 4. Namely, the unlockable weapon system. Judging by the power of a couple of the early guns I’ve unlocked, this game will need a match making system just as bad as Call of Duty 4 does. The rest of the beta is phenomenal though. The destructible environments are just right, not too destructible but enough so that you can use it in a tactical sense. The new, less serious style of the game is funny and classy all at the same time. I love the menu music; check out this video if you haven’t heard it (starts at 1:45).



So if you enjoy Call of Duty, which I know a lot of you do, but haven’t given Battlefield a shot, you really should. There are still a lot of people playing on the 360 servers and we can always use more. Plus, you can pick up the game on the cheap as it’s been out for awhile now.