Battlefield 2: Modern Combat review

The game gets points for not taking place in World War II, and for some added replay through rewards and extensive stat-tracking. Earn medals for everything from sniping five fools with a single clip to jumping 25 feet in your Jeep. End-of-level scoring can raise your rank, and will make you want to go back and improve your score. As an added bonus, there are a slew of challenges to both give you something else to do and hone your skills in various aspects of Battlefield's play.

With single-player, expectations were low, so it's not tough to impress us. Online, on the other hand, is this series' bread and butter, so Modern Combat has an uphill climb. Fortunately, it makes it most of the way up said hill. It was important to emulate the PC version's massive carnage, and allowing for 24 players to shoot it out is a great start. There are only two match types, Conquest and CTF, but the list of maps is a mile long. On Xbox, even more locations are available for free download.

Even with so many humans in one environment, online play is extremely smooth. A similar ranking system to the PC is in place; like the stats and rewards offline, this is designed to keep you playing. The problem is, Modern Combat is a case of too little, too late. Star Wars Battlefront, Brothers in Arms and Halo 2 beat this game to the punch, and offer an experience as good if not better. The things that differentiated Battlefield back in the day are now old hat.