EA and DICE pulled together and got it done. Battlefield 2: Special Forces is a sparkling expansion to this year’s smash online action game. There are eight new maps, and six new factions which is three more then Battlefield 2 was shipped with. The new factions are needed to justify the scenarios. But one of the disadvantages of having only six factions and only eight maps is that the factions only appear once or twice throughout the game.

Even though we're dealing with Special Forces in this expansion, each faction is broken down into the same classes as the conventional factions in Battlefield 2. So each faction has a Special Forces class armed with a carbine and plastic explosives, a support class that carries a light machine gun and can drop ammo packs, an antitank class that carries a submachine gun and a tank-killing weapon and so on. There is a the new RPG, there are a slew of new weapons to round out the arsenals, though for the most part these simply feel like cousins of existing Battlefield 2 weapons. For example, there's a new British assault rifle that has a grenade launcher attached, and a new SEAL carbine with a scope, and they operate just like the weapons in Battlefield 2. The major additions to the game are new toys that you get to play with that you didn't have access to before. These include the grappling hook, zip line, and flashbang and tear-gas grenades.

The grappling hook and zip line provide a whole new level of mobility to infantry, and now you can haul yourself up to a previously inaccessible rooftop or perhaps bypass a heavily defended stairwell by climbing up the side. Since you carry either a hook or a zip line, you'll need to work together with your team if you really want to exploit these new capabilities. These new items are balanced well so they're useful without being overpowered. For example, climbing up the rope is a slow process, so you're completely exposed to anyone passing by who wants to take a few free shots at you. Meanwhile, zipping down the line can also leave you a sitting duck if you're not careful. The new grenade types are a bit too much, though, and they're already being overused in matches. For example, you can carry up to four flashbang grenades, and they're being tossed left and right in some matches. As you'd expect, these can temporarily blind you and make you pretty helpless. Then there are the tear-gas grenades that make your vision swim like you're in a drug-induced daze. Tear gas can easily be countered by a gas mask, which limits your stamina due to the difficulty of breathing through it, but the thick, yellowish clouds are still useful for providing concealment, and because of that, thick, yellowish clouds appear in any contested area now.

With the heavy focus on infantry, the role of squads and teamwork is more important than ever, as an organized squad can easily overwhelm a handful of defenders, and an organized team can be absolutely unstoppable. With that said, the same issues regarding teamwork that appeared in Battlefield 2 are present in the expansion. Mainly, you're going to have to look for a good dedicated server that features teamwork, because the vast majority of servers are a big free-for-all where players join and run around uncoordinated the entire time. Once again, the built-in voice communication in Special Forces is a nice touch, but only if people use it. Another big issue with the expansion is that as good as some of the levels are, the sheer amount of action and number of players packed into confined levels have a pretty detrimental effect on the frame rate. On a system that played Battlefield 2 well, we constantly encountered significant drops in frame rate, especially when there were lots of effects or players on the screen at once. And the expansion itself is a resource hog, much more than the original game. The already long times from Battlefield 2 drag on for much longer than before, as well as the data verification stage after loading ends.

Yet Special Forces is plagued with bigger issues. There are a slew of issues that are hampering players from even installing the expansion. For instance, there's a required pre-installation patch that requires 3GB of free hard drive space in order to install, and this is affecting some players out there. We encountered a different error that prevented us from installing the patch on one machine, even though we had tons of free hard drive space. An even bigger issue involves EA's new digital distribution service--there's a CD key issue preventing some users from playing the game (EA has acknowledged this issue and is looking to fix it). But even if you manage to install the patch and then install the expansion successfully, you must install a second 280MB patch to get the game up to date. All of this makes this feel like a product that was rushed out for the holidays.

The pity is that while these technical issues will probably be addressed, they mar what is otherwise an excellent expansion to one of the year's best action games. Special Forces delivers more of the intense urban combat that fans of Battlefield 2 love, and there are a lot of cool moments in the game, from the way you parachute into one level, to the intense and desperate firefights that can erupt for control of a flag. If you love Battlefield 2, then the expansion is a no-brainer. But there's plenty in here for newcomers to appreciate, as well. Just wait a while for EA to settle out all the issues first.