The new parachutes also work well. They're nothing like the ridiculous reusable and ubiquitous parachutes in the Battlefield series. In Escalation, you have to take a parachute in your inventory slot, which will preclude bringing along any sort of heavy weapon. Parachutes are good for only one use and they'll automatically deploy after you've fallen a certain distance. If anything, parachutes require so much coordination and are of such limited use that they're relatively rare.

Then there are the motorcycles, which have single-handedly managed to sabotage Joint Operations' gameplay more than any heavy tank, parachute, or sniper nerf. Motorcycles are the fastest vehicles available, and they're liberally scattered around the new maps. Now there's no incentive for impatient players to use helicopters, jeeps, or APCs for transportation. Why wait when you can just hop on a motorcycle and take off? This means many players enter battle singly and just as often roar on past with the sound of an engine that could be heard from one side of the Malacca Straights to the other.

The result is often less teamwork in battles that look ridiculous and sound like a motocross track on Saturday night. Joint Operations has done a wonderful job of presenting moderately realistic tableaus of modern warfare. It's an immersive and convincing game in which you can't help but think of real situations like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. But now you can't help but think of a Steve McQueen riding his little motorcycle to Switzerland in The Great Escape. Only now there are hundreds of him. You have to wonder what the thinking was, but I suspect it involved someone who's been watching too many Chuck Norris movies.

Heavy metal.

The Klaatu That You Do

Many of the new maps have a lot of character and they break up the gameplay in some new and interesting ways. However, some of them feel like they weren't ready for primetime. Sulawa Spaceport and Klaatu Mines have large open areas, lots of detail, and some new particle effects, but they seem to bog down online regardless of bandwidth. Hopefully NovaLogic can sort this out since they're potentially great maps when the framerates don't gum up. Also great are the Klong River Slums, a tight cluster of disordered buildings; the waterfall and temple battle around Kota Jiwa Ruins; and the industrial ruins in the Belisan Wastelands.

But the fact of the matter is that Joint Operations is still an excellent game without Escalation. The best expansion packs make you feel like you could never go back to playing the plain ol' vanilla pre-expansion game. But that's not the case with Escalation, which isn't bad, but neither is it a must-have. Once I got back onto Black Rock Beach or the Palu Cut Rice Paddies, I didn't really miss the tanks, the new ammo types, the parachutes or, natch, the motorcycles. In fact, one of the worst things you can say about an expansion pack is true of Escalation: it feels optional.