Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Xbox, 2005)

This is the best game I've played to date on XBox Live, and I LOVED Halo 2 until the players ruined it with rampant modding and cheating. With up to 24 players in the game at a time, the action in Battlefield 2 is non-stop.

Very different from Halo, Battlefield 2 is much more realistic. In the multiplayer mode, you select first to either be a Friendly (U.S.) troop or an Enemy (China, Russia, etc) troop. You then select from 5 different troop types, or "Kits". There is an Assault troop, a Special Ops troop, a Sniper, an Engineer, or a Support troop. They all have different abilites, use different weapons, and really must be used for what they are intended or you won't make it very long. You can't rush a building with a sniper (no-scopes are hard to come by) and you won't pick an enemy troop from 100 yards with your heavy machine gun.

Each side has it's own unique vehicles as well, and you can drive/fly them all. From Humvees to sand-rail buggies, boats to Abrams tanks and missle-laden helicopters, they are yours for the taking (even snowmobiles). A good helicopter pilot is an ultra-valuable weapon, and you have to know what you're doing because there are lots of guys on the ground just waiting to knock your bird out of the sky.

My biggest complaints with the multiplayer game are two things:

First, as stated by another reviewer, your guys have blue icons over their heads, which is fine and good. But the enemy has a red icon over their head. Now unless they are behind a building, you can see that icon, even if they are hiding. What good is a sniper that crawled for 10 minutes to a great location if they are seen as soon as someone even glances in their general direction. You should have to see enemies by simply seeing them, not because of an icon. It would definitely make it harder, and also more realistic. (On a side note, when you kill someone, the person you killed gets a quick view of the direction the shot came from. Bad news if you're a sniper, because sure as anything they'll be headed right back for you as soon as they respawn. This needs to be taken out of the game too).

My second complaint is that you cannot buddy-up with your friends online as easily as in Halo 2. Once you are in a game together however, you can keep going to the next game with your party-mates as long as you'd like (provided you are of the same or close to same rank as your friend in a ranked game).

You can't create your own game on a map of your choice and limit the number of players either. While this would be a nice feature, it would subject Battlefield 2 to the same cheating and modding that now plagues Halo 2, and so I like it just the way it is (EA hosts all games).

If Battlefield 2 has a shortcoming, it's the single player campaign for me. While the Hot-Swapping feature is cool, I just don't like the very linear gameplay. In a given mission you usually can only do things one way, and you must do it in a short amount of time. You don't have freedom to move through at your own pace, or "explore" the map like you could do to some extent with titles such as Medal of Honor.

All in all, this is a must-have game for multiplayer action, especially if you like war games. I can't wait to see what they look like in 10 years.