I managed to get almost 4 hours of play in tonight so thought I would share my first impressions.

I was a bit worried when Human Shield referred to Kashan when making a comparison. However, the maps are small enough ala POE and regular BF2 where it did not take long to get anywhere even on foot. I was also pleased to see the AAS type system which focused the action on key flags (not on all of the maps but most of them).

Being able to recognize the enemy, as in PR, was one of the toughest things to deal with. By the end of the session it was getting easier however. It would be nice if you could spot normally as in all of the other BF2 variants. I'm not sure why they made it so tough. Even with binoculars the majority of the time it didn't want to work.

Tank play was fun although the lethality of all the weapons means you need to be more careful. Ideally, as in real life, you want infantry paving the way ahead of you in order to take care of the AT guns and AT rifle infantry. Barring that, strength in numbers seemed to do the trick. You get enough firepower focused on a part of the map and the rest takes care of itself.

One of the biggest differences between POE and PR is the spawn times and depending on which game you prefer most, I suspect everyone will have different opinions. FH2's spawn times, at least with the server settings from tonight, were more similar to POE and personally I'd prefer to have them work more like PR. Having the weapons more lethal is good and encourages squads to take a more cautious approach and use better tactics. However, those fast spawn times and small flag radii means you need to rush at some point and the enemy will know exactly where you are. Although I suppose this is balanced somewhat by the fact that you can't place rally points and after you learn the maps you'll know where everyone is spawning in. Still, PR's respawn system makes enemy deaths more significant and I like that.

The infantry kits I thought were very good although it'll take practice with the rifles to get good at them at distance. Of course it was also a bummer with them in CQB since anyone with an SMG has an overwhelming advantage. Overall the weapons really gave me a feeling of the WW II era and were consistent with my past experiences in World War II Online. I never did play the original FH so I can't compare to that in any way. I'd also finish off here by saying that the smoke grenades are excellent. A nice middle ground between PR and POE here between how fast they go off, area of coverage, and how long they last.

Overall I had fun although at this point I don't see it replacing PR as my game of choice although that may change once I get some more play time and when PR releases 0.7. In any case, its a win win for everyone because its always nice to have choices and games that provide a different change of pace.

Bernout