"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it." (George Orwell)
Battlefield 1942 is unsurprisingly set in the middle of World War II and the fighting takes place in four main theatres of war - East and West Europe, Africa and the Pacific. Depending on where the battle takes place the player can choose to play as a soldier from one of the following four nations - America, Britain, Russia or Japan. Once you have decided upon your nation you then have to decide what type of soldier you wish to play as. There are five different types of soldier to choose from - Scout, Assault, Anti-Tank, Medic or Engineer. Soldiers carry different equipment depending on their jobs. So while the Assault soldier carries a machine gun and extra ammo, the Engineer carries a rifle, mines and a spanner (for fixing vehicles) amongst other things. The game has two different modes of play, which are Single player and Multi-player.
In Single player mode the player is pitted against AI opponents in either a Campaign, which is a series of battles one after the other or an Instant battle where the player can choose their own map and define their own parameters of play. There are many different maps to choose from (Omaha Beach, Stalingrad, and Berlin to name a few) and each comes with its own array of vehicles for you to take control of. The vehicles range from Panzer tanks to smaller military jeeps and even planes. Whilst on foot the controls are fairly easy to use and are fully customisable to make things even easier. The vehicle controls can be tricky at times especially the planes but with a little practice they too are fairly straight forward. When I first started playing the Single player mode it was quite fun but once you get used to the controls it becomes a bit easy. The AI skills of your opponents leave a lot to be desired as you easily pick them off while they stand dumbfounded at your trickery. I thought increasing the AI difficulty level might rectify this but there was little change in their skills and I again had a head count of forty in little under five minutes. The Single player campaign is ok to play through once but I doubt whether any pleasure could be derived from playing it again. This is where the Multi-player mode really comes into its own. Multi-play mode also has several different game types from Conquest, where the object is to reduce your opponents ticket count (lives) to zero to Capture the flag games where the object (surprisingly enough) is to capture your opponents flag.
With my recent acquisition of broadband I eagerly put Battlefield 1942 into my CD drive and couldn't wait to pit my wits against other sentient beings rather then my somewhat "battle challenged" AI friends. I can honestly say that I was not disappointed, and I was immediately surprised by the addictive nature of this game online. As soon as started playing against other human beings the game transformed in front of my eyes. Instead of racking up a huge body count I found myself ducking and weaving in and out of buildings just to stay alive for more than a few seconds. After a few hours of playing however, I was starting to get a little frustrated. My opponents had just killed me for about the millionth time and I had only registered nine kills in reply. Rather then give up I persevered with the game and found myself becoming more and more adept. Playing against other people is just so much different than playing the AI bots that it takes some time to get used to. Another great aspect of online play is the camaraderie that I experienced with strangers from everywhere around the world. There is no other game that would have me up at 4am chatting to some guy from Holland whilst simultaneously trying to blow his head off with my sniper rifle.
I have now had this game for 2 weeks and I have to say it is the best online game I have ever played. To truly enjoy this game you have to have a broadband connection, as the game is very hard to play with a 56k connection. I tried playing the game at a friend’s house with a 56k connection and the game tends to stutter a lot making accurate aiming nearly impossible. The game also requires fairly high specifications so check these before you buy. The specs on the back of the case suggest 128MB of RAM but I would say that 256MB is basic necessity whilst 512MB is ample. I will have to warn you though that this game can seriously eat up time and I often find myself still playing at 4am in the morning when I should be in bed. But hey that could just be me, I have an addictive personality according to my friends but what do they know, I’m off for another coffee.
Specifications
Operating System - Windows 98/2000/ME/XP Processor - 500 MHz Memory - 128MB RAM (I recommend at least 256MB) Hard Drive - 1.2 GB CD/DVD - 4 Speed Graphics - 32MB PCI/AGP (With Direct 3D support and Hardware Transform and Lighting)
More details
Addictiveness
Very hard to stop playing
Originality
Good
Value for money
Excellent value
Longevity/Expected Longevity
ongoing
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