Project Reality: A Battlefield 2 Modification

With all the recent hype and rise in popularity of first person shooters such as Call of Duty, Battlefield 3 and Gears of War 3, it may come as a surprise that there has yet to be released a successful shooter which focuses solely on realism. To experienced gamers, most mainstream titles barely even provide a challenge and their online section can quickly become monotonous.

That is why I want to bring to your attention to Project Reality, a free modification the popular shooter Battlefield 2 which I believe amply fills the realism void. This mod was originally released by Black Sand Studios in 2005, with an all-out emphasis on immersing the player in a well-constructed, 64 player combat environment. Since its release, Project Reality has grown extensively and has been the winner of several awards.

The game comprises primarily of two game modes; Advance and Secure (AAS) which is based on the original Battlefield 2 formula whereby two teams fight to retake control points and Insurgency in which coalition forces must attempt to destroy insurgent weapons caches. The game features both real-to-life and fictitious scenarios, so you could be the American Marines fighting the Taliban in Korengal Valley, or the Israeli Defence Forces fighting Hamas on Gaza Beach.

Each of the maps is also enormous in scale, totalling up to 4km in area. To accompany these maps, every vehicle and weapon has been heavily designed to resemble their realistic counterparts. Weapons feature recoil, bullet drop and are powerful enough to kill their targets with almost one shot whilst vehicles and aircraft such as the A10 fighter jet require that targets are lazed to allow accurate bombing runs.

One of the biggest differences to Battlefield 2 is the ability to construct bases throughout the map. Using supply crates from logistic trucks, forward outposts (FOB’s) can be constructed to allow team members to spawn in to certain areas. In addition, surrounding these bases a variety of defences can be built such as foxholes, mortars, 50-calibre machine guns and razor wire. Due to the removal of the ability to spawn on a control point or a squad leader, such defences are vital to the team’s success.

Another alteration to the game design is the change in classes, which now include rifleman, specialist, officer and medic. A limited amount of specialist kits are also available for coalition forces on request such as marksman, sniper, heavy anti-tank and grenadier. On the other hand insurgency forces are equipped with older weapons such as AK-47s and Lee Enfields, although explosives such as IEDs, grenade traps and mines help to provide game balance. This system means that it is vital that each team player uses the class which they are best at to support their squad mates.

With the game featuring an intense amount of technical elements, the majority of players take the game seriously which further adds to the immersion and realism. This is further aided by Mumble, which allows interaction within squads as well as within the team as a whole. This means that if you require assistance from a mortar team or need to call in a transport, this can be requested and another squad will come to your aid.

The game is therefore dependent on teamwork and without such cohesion, it would cease to be playable. Taking the game for what it is, aside from a few minor bugs here and there, there is little I would change. However, if I had to make a criticism it would be that whilst the game’s reliance on teamwork makes it stand out from the vast majority of other shooters that I have played, a lack of teamwork can make gameplay tedious and slow-paced. Fortunately, such instances only happen very rarely and you can easily change over to another one of the game’s 200 servers.

In all honestly, this review barely even scratches the surface of what Project Reality has to offer players. The sheer scale of the game with its 13 factions and abundance of maps provides enough content to keep you hooked for hours. However, it is worth mentioning that this isn’t Call of Duty, so if you are looking to boast about how much indiscriminate killing you have done, then go and play that. Conversely, if you are starting to become tired of the standard shooter formula and are up some more challenging and tactical gameplay, then Project Reality could well be the game for you.