| Product: |
Battlefield 1942 (PC) |
| Date: |
18.02.03 (561 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Read Review, -, -
Disadvantages: -, -, -
I've known about Battlefield 1942 for sometime and the first time I got my hands on the demo it didn't work. The reason for this being my old graphics card couldn't cope. The game required a graphics card that could cope with hardware textures or something. Also because Battlefield 1942 is mainly a multiplayer game (played via LAN or on the 1000's of free internet servers) it wouldn't have been much of a experience playing on my 56k modem.
But recently I bought a brand-spankingly new graphics card (a Radeon9500 Pro if you must know) and decided to give Pipex ADSL broadband ago. I now had the ingredients to play Battlefield 1942 online against 63 other people and let me tell you: "It's Amazing". In fact it's better than that, Electronic Arts have well and truly outdone themselves. Really!
It's so much better than Medal of Honour (a very good online game).
While Battlefield 1942 does have single player game, it is in multiplayer where things get really good. In the multiplayer level I played there was a tropical island with five bases defended by the Americans. The surrounding sea contained Japanese battleships, including an absolutely massive aircraft carrier with a collection of Japanese aircraft (all available to fly to the player). You even control the Battleship itself! (Although I got struck on a sand bank and it kind of made it easy for the Americans to hit the ship with there long range canons).
To play you must choose a side, either USA or Japanese (in this particular level) and a spawn point (somewhere to start). If you choose USA then you can choose one of the five bases as your spawn point. If you chose Japan the you can choose one of three spawn points onboard their aircraft carrier at sea or one of two spawn points on their smaller battleship.
Each side starts with a number of tickets, e.g. 200 tickets each. While a side is holding at least one of the American bas
es their tickets cannot go down. But of course at the start America have all five bases so the number of Japanese tickets begins the fall as soon as the game starts. This means the Japan side need to attack and over take the American bases as soon as possible to stop their tickets from falling. In turn America must defend their bases and also attack the battleships via canons and anti-ship rocket launchers. Also at one of the bases there is a airfield where you can jump into a plane and attack the Janpanese Battleships or bases that Japan have taken over. Learning to Fly is one of the most challenging experiences in the game, but in turn probably the most rewarding. Those players who have mastered flying can perform stunts, work with team-mates in other planes to perform massive aerial attacks and can time dropping bombs just right to hit their target. Not only can you get in a fly a plane but on planes with a gunner seat another player can get in with you.
In the battle I played in (I was on the American side) we managed to actually sink the Japanese aircraft carrier through a series of aerial attacks.
Dotted around the island and at the bases are tanks and army style open top landrovers. These allow for land based battles and getting to locations quickly. The landrover vechicals are so quick the first time I drove one I ended up driving down a hill and into the sea (it was ok, you can swim).
A grid map is available in the top right hand corner providing you with your current location and grid reference. This means you can tell other team-mates that you've spotted the enermy at your location and the grid reference is displayed to the other team-mates automatically.
Communication is an essential part to playing the game. You can chat by typing and it'll appear on screen, but also there is a excellent radio communication panel at the top of the screen which lets you select preset sayings, e.g. roger, enermy tank spott
ed etc.
Many vechicals allow more than one player in, e.g. in one tank/armoured vechical one player can drive, one can man a machine gun on top while another can man the canon. In another you only can steer the tank and operate the canon. Team-work, tactics and planning really do pay off in this game. It's not just about running in a shooting eveything. Although if that takes your fancy then go ahead. Simply charge into the bases and clearing out the huts one by one. But watch out for the watch towers, hiding snipers, tanks and other ground troops. Running in will probably get you killed.
Amazingly you can control the Japanese Battleships. If you really want to be the captain of the Japanese aircraft carrier, go ahead!
In fact there are about six places on the Japanese aircraft carrier that can be manned. There are two towers will anti-aircraft guns. Two even larger anti-aircraft gunners. And massive ship canons that can be fired at the coast or directly at the bases. Amazing.
The smaller Japenese Battleship even had small D-Day style beach landing boats suspended at the sides. You can jump in those boats and it will fall into the sea and you can control the boat with many more players onboard. You can even have another player manning a machine gun to the right of the cabin. In the game I played a was controlling one on these beach landing boats taking two other players across and landing onto the beach. As the other players charged up the beach to secure a base I could hear a large American canon go off in the distance, followed by the sound of the rocket rapidly approuching and then....and then....you know the rest....(restart game please)
It's easy to see why Battlefield 1942 has one of the largest online multiplayer followings. The number of options is amazing, you can be and control everyhting. Be a medic, a sniper, a pilot, a battleship captain, control massive canons, control tanks, army vechicals.
...It is just amazing.
Graphically the game looks good, but even if the game looked fairly standard with playability like this you wouldn't care.
People with a good internet connection should try Battlefield 1942 at least once.
I played the demo and a few hours later I was parting with hard earning cash to buy the full game. Never before has a demo of a game made me have to have a game. It's that good.
As to the subject matter of the game, it is only a game and shouldn't be taken seriously at all. It's just abit of fun.
Price = £25 (£5 off) @ Amazon.co.uk
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