January 20, 2006

Tips for Battlefield 2 : Special Forces

I'm writing this tips for Battlefield 2 : Special Forces for all the knuckle heads out there that are still trying to play Special Forces as though it was regular BF2. Special Forces is not and will never be like regular BF2 and therefore you need to adjust your current way of thinking.

1. Squads! Squads! Squads! Joining a squad is key to success in any Special Forces game. Special Forces is grounded in the work of squads! This is a good tip for regular BF2, but is magnified 10x in the Special Forces expansion.

1a. While in a squad spawn on the squad leader! Most of the time they are setting up for a flag cap and its easier to sneak one person in than 5. Spawn and cap... makes for a great surprise.

1b. A squads success relies heavily on its combination of classes. A good rule of thumb is to always have a medic and two anti tanks. Anti tanks are always needed... a single tank will always win a stand off against a squad that has no AT. Even if you have Spec Ops you need to assume you will not have the jump on a tank. Resupply doesn't hurt, but you also need to have some decent firepower and until EA fixes the supply weapons accuracy they are not more important than a Spec Ops or Assault.

2. They added grapling hooks, zip lines, gas, and flash bangs in for a reason!

2a. Grappling hooks and zip-lines. The Special Forces maps are full of buildings and obstacles that can be bypassed. This makes it harder to defend flags, but in the end it makes the game 100% better because there isn't finite choke points to bottleneck at.

If you see your squad leader tossing up a rope be kind enough to follow. Chances are he is looking to get high to a) clear out any enemies below and b) get high enough for a zip line into the flag.

2b. Zip lines. As with grappling hooks they are keys to Special Forces. I guarantee a good squad will always be zipping into flags and you would be very amazed at how quickly the flags get capped. The key to the zip line is to deploy it and use it right away. If you hesitate at all you're never going to make it down.

2c. Flash bangs and gas. These two items can allow a squad to go into a packed spawn and remove every target before they have a chance to react. Employ with a zip-line and you can zip line into a flag covered by gas.

Flash bangs are useful, but don't get happy with them. They are tricky to throw and usually the effect is not enough to throw someones aim off that much.

Update: 29 Nov, 2009 - Edited post, corrected spelling, and applied labels.