Zippy And Bungleīut will zip lines change the dynamic of the base game in a major way? Probably not too much, although it does provide a hefty boon for the busy sniper on the go. Simply fire your new crossbow weapon at the surface of your choice and a handy-dandy super-fun slide appears, ready to take you to the lower level location of your dreams. Everyone else will have to get their rope-sliding kicks down the gym like everyone else. That is, snipers and special forces classes have them. Next to parachutes, zip lines are perhaps the finest innovation ever to hit the world of shooters and Special Forces has them in spades. When Special Forces was first revealed to us, it was the thought of sliding from rooftop to rooftop that had us most excited. Then, of course, there are the zip lines. I'm sure it'll all be operational on the night, though. That said, the code wasn't working too well at the time of writing as lifts designed to take you to the top of a rocket pad or a cliff-side control centre would just shoot off into the heavens leaving you at ground level, staring up at the rapidly disappearing platform like something out of a Road Runner cartoon. These no longer feel like generic war zones but real working locations with actual reasons for your squads to be there (again, in keeping with the special forces nature of the pack).

Environmental triggers (lift switches and the like) add a touch more interaction and vertically to things, showing how tiny little touches can make a lot of difference to otherwise static map environments, adding a sense of purpose to them. The main difference between these and traditional BF2 maps is the sense of focus each has. These maps all conform to the usual BF2 parameters - plenty of chokepoints, siege areas and widespread flag bases to capture. Russian Spetsnaz, Navy SEALs, the good old SAS and three variations of insurgent groups fight across a chemical weapons factory, an east European rocket pad and a darkened airbase, all bristling with new vehicles to play with. We were given access to three of the planned eight maps, specially designed for the titular forces to battle across.

Hence less than half a year later: the Special Forces expansion pack. But then EA is no ordinary publisher and Battlefield is no ordinary franchise. When It launched, Battlefield 2 proved to be both the most excitingly enjoyable online squad shooter ever devised from a gaming standpoint, and the most frustrating from a technical standpoint Problems with particular brands of graphics cards, a hog on your system hardware, an online ranking system prone to hackable abuse - any ordinary publisher would have thrown in the towel long ago and started again.