The battle has come to consoles!
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is a First Person Shooter and a spin-off of Battlefield 2 developed by DICE for the Playstation 2 and Xbox released in Octuber 2005 and later for the Xbox 360 in April 2006.
Similar to its PC counterpart, the story is set 20 Minutes into the Future in a war between NATO and the PRC in the Eastern European/Central Asian country of Kazakhstan after peace negotiations between both factions are interrupted by an unknown assailant.
Unlike its PC counterpart, the gameplay is way more streamlined and arcade-y and has a full-fledged singleplayer campaign with an unique "hotswap" mechanic that allows the player to move from to soldier to soldier with press of a buttom.
Its multiplayer mode allowed 24 players to duke it out with a variety of vehicles such as light transports, tanks and helicopters, and was one of the most online-featured console games of its time with the implementation of Clans, Leaderboards and unlocks. However, its Xbox and Xbox 360 servers were closed in 2009 and its PS2 servers followed in 2014.
Its commercial success led to the development of the Battlefield: Bad Company duology, a sort of Spiritual Successor released in 2008 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
Be Careful, there are tropes on your radar.
- Adapted Out: There's no Russian or Middle Eastern Coalition faction in the campaign. However, the MEC does appear in some multiplayer maps set in the Middle East.
- Artificial Stupidity: The campaign AI suffers from unpolished pathfinding, can't decide on targets when multiple enemies are around and constantly fires at walls and buildings. Thank goodness for shifting.
- Art Shift: Due to the limitations of the Playstation 2 and Xbox, the artstyle is slightly more cartoony with more exaggerated visual effects (explosions, muzzle flashes, tracers, etc). Averted in the Xbox 360 version where the artstyle is more in line with Battlefield 2142.
- Big Bad: The Burning Flag, the paramilitary faction responsible for the conflict between NATO and the PRC in the region. They are led by Commander 31.
- Blown Across the Room: The physics of the original Playstation and Xbox versions led to bodies being flung abnormally far when shot.
- Body Surf: The game's main gimmick is taking control different soldiers through different positions by aiming at them and pressing a button.
- Bloodless Carnage: Due to its "T" rating, only smoke appears when people get shot.
- Composite Character: After the PC Battlefield 2's seven classes, Modern Combat cut them down slightly by merging four of those classes into two composites: Assault gained Medic's medical supplies and Engineer took over Anti-Tank's heavier explosives.
- Crippling Overspecialization: All the classes and vehicles suffer from this as each has a function and preferred gameplay style but outside of their function and approach they are left vulnerable or even useless.
- Demoted to Extra: The MEC was not only relegated to a multiplayer-only faction but only a few maps feature them with the majority being between either the US or the European Union fighting the PRC.
- Faction-Specific Endings: For the final two missions, you get to choose which side to play as, thus letting you decide which side wins.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: Both NATO and the PRC are portrayed as extremely prideful and stubborn, but not overly malicious or cruel - pragmatic maybe, but not evil.
- Hero Must Survive: Normally averted due to the hotswap mechanic, which means that no single unit is more important than the others, but one mission puts your starting character in a recon helicopter that must survive the level. The helicopter is also unarmed, meaning you have to swap to other units to take out enemies.
- Improperly Placed Firearms: There are some anomalous picks for the faction-specific weaponry. The PRC Engineer has the RMB-93 (a Russian reverse-cycle pump-action shotgun; only used by Russian security companies, with variants available for purchase by Russian, Belarusian, Moldovan, and Canadian civilians), the EU Sniper has the SVU (a bullpup DMR of Russian origin; primarily used by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with some models imported to Saleh-era Yemen), the US Engineer has the SPAS-12 (Italian dual-mode shotgun; no branch of the US military has issued it), and the US Sniper has the Barrett M95 (not used by the US military; the M107 is issued, instead).
- Let's You and Him Fight: Though NATO and the PRC spend the game at each other's throats, neither was ultimately responsible for instigating or continuing the conflict; the Burning Flag was responsible for setting up and continuing it. This only comes to light after one side has already been eliminated.
- Loners Are Freaks: The PS2 and Xbox versions discourage adopting an "I Work Alone" mindset, as minimizing Hotswapping makes ranking up slower and can make missions harder (not helping matters is the spotty friendly AI). The mission performance even makes note of this with the Style section, as the "Loner" rank grants zero stars.
- Playing Both Sides: The Burning Flag, who caused the conflict between NATO and China in order to weaken them. First, they destroy a building full of civilian negotiators, killing all inside. Next, they plant NATO ordnance on an unarmed civilian vessel, tricking the Chinese into destroying it. Finally, they hijack and rig a cargo train with explosives bound for a village. Only after one faction defeats the other do they reveal themselves as the instigators.
- Redshirt Army: The Hotswap mechanic means there isn't a main Player Character for the game; only the commanding officer of each side even gets a name.
- Ruritania: Zigzagged. Kazakhstan is a real country, of course, but the actual portrayal of it is as a generic war-torn Eastern European country.
- Western Terrorists: The Burning Flag, a paramilitary army composed of Russian and European mercenaries.
- We Hardly Knew You: The Burning Flag appears out of nowhere after the defeat of either NATO or the PRC and are only fought in the last mission.
- Zerg Rush: The standard tactic the AI uses in the campaign.
