Battlefield: 1942

THE BAD:
too educational. also, realistic ranges. like, you can't kill someone up-close with a long range weapon. has led to many of my deaths.....

SUMMARY:
battlefield 1942 is a shooter game that lets you be an american soldier fighting in WWII. i suppose you could also be a japanese soldier or a british guy, or even a nazi, but come on. we won, didn't we? kind of risky don't you think. okay, now i'm getting off subject. this game has authentic WWII weaponry and vehicles that you can handle, and real WWII maps based on real battle. like Iwo-jima. (one of my fav's). you can drive anything from gunboat to a 4-ton tank. and blow thier asses off. oh, you can fly planes too. to bombs thier asses. my favorite part of this game is the LAN, or local area networking system, which allows you to play with your friends. that makes it exiting. not thats it's not exiting to begin with. anyway, this game is just as cool as TRIBES II but just not as addictive. i rated this game 4/5 because it's cool but it has problems, like the ranges penalties and that sort of thing. but it has some good qualities, such as realtime facial expressions. yeah.... whatever. play it, you'll like it. unless you're a nazi.

battlefield 1942 is rated T for teen.

THE BAD:
Nothing I can think of

SUMMARY:
This game is probably better than the Medal of Honor series. You have a huge selection of vehicles, jeeps, tanks, bomber planes or torpedo planes, aircraft carriers, battleships, landing craft, and any other vehicle you can think of. But don't expect to have the M1 tank or the Aurora bomber or anything like that.

You can pick between axis or allies in any battle, but you can't pick which army. It all depends on the battle.

Then theres the guns, a BAR (browning assault rifle) or a sniper rifle. And for the axis, theres the MP-40 and a sniper rifle and a few other guns.


BUY THIS GAME, YOU WON'T REGRET IT.

But if you don't like WW2 games, leave it alone.

THE BAD:
Its on computer, not XBox~Stutters sometimes

SUMMARY:
Battlefield 1942 is a war game everyone SHOULD love. Its an addicting war game (Like MoH:Frontline, but WAYYYYY BETTER!!!), that takes the place of a lot of the major wars in the world. You and your opposing army have a set amount of men at your disposal, which ever army loses ALL their men first, loses that war. The only thing i wish is that this game was on XBox so i wouldnt have to buy expensive parts for my computer. Battlefield: 1942 is a MUST BUY game for the PC if the specs fit the discription of your computer. Battlefield should be able to make its own genre, like Survival war series or someting like that, because its so different and in depth.

THE BAD:
It is extremely hard to fly the airplanes, as you can't see very well...

SUMMARY:
Choose from a Scout with a sniper rifle, Medic that can heal, Assault which can mow down infantry, and the Anti-Tank man, who everybody calls for tank support. All of them can get in and drive vehicles just the same. This game is the reason you got/going to get Broadband, DSL, LAN, or Cable! Play anytime with players around the world. Over a thousand servers are ready for the action. The multiplayer alone is worth this game.

THE BAD:
Net issues (hit detection, mem. leak, etc)

SUMMARY:
This is an awesome game. Havent put it down since the demo came out. All the different aspects of this game like multi-person/multi-station vehicles and different weapons of war just make this all out fun. Probably wouldnt want to bother if you have dial up though. Then again, you probably dont have much reason to live if you have dial up.

THE BAD:
Connection problems, steep requirements, horrible single player mode, few online morons

SUMMARY:
Written by Laughing Target for netjak.com

A couple years ago, a game called World War II Online was released. I thought it would be incredibly cool to be able to take part as a single soldier in what has to be the most interesting war in all of human history. To take command of a tank and rush the enemy. To live the life of a soldier pushing forward mere feet per day. To dogfight with the dreaded Luftwaffe over the English Channel. To partake in massive ship battles. Unfortunately, the game turned out rather horrible, mired by a convoluted control scheme and some rather raunchy visuals.

Few other games tried the massive scale war feel, such as Operation Flashpoint, and they all failed, be it because of horrible controls, poor visuals that made it hard to see the enemy, a pay to play service plan, or just plain balance issues.

Enter Battlefield 1942. Promising 35 authentic WWII vehicles and 40 weapons, they promised to shove 64 players into a single server and battle it out over land, sea, and air, and they promised you wouldn't have to pay beyond the software and the control scheme wouldn't stink. Let us see how they fared.

Plane Going Down in Smoke.

Visually, BF1942 is impressive. While not groundbreaking, as individual models are merely functional, faces are good, but overall polygon count is low, but that hardly matters because WWII soldiers didn't have intricate armor as seen in games like Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament. What is impressive, though, is that the game doesn't become absolutely unplayable when all those players are on the screen.

BF1942 creates a brand new visual experience. While most online shooters usually modify the Quake 3 engine (not that it is bad, great engine), EA and Digital Illusions CE (aka DICE) had to do something more for the scale they desired. They needed impressive visuals, but not so much as to choke a powerful system. They needed large and well textured levels. They needed a variety of models that went beyond human models, like Tigers and Shermans, Zeros and Spitfires, Battleships and Carriers. And it all needed to work together. And it did. Everything from an anti-tank soldier carrying a panzerschrek to that machine gun emplacement, everything looks pretty darn good, and authentic. I'm still impressed with the smoke effects, especially from damaged planes.

MEDIC!

Again, BF1942 doesn't create any groundbreaking sounds, but manages to create a sound system that allows a TON of really well done sounds. Sounds are all tossed into create yet another authentic feel. Tank shells blow around you, automatic rifle fire whizzes by, planes buzz you as the whir of a jeep engine flies by, carrying two soldiers to their doom. Killin an enemy close up usually causes them to emit a curse as they fall to their deaths. Planes hitting the ground sounds grittingly real.

Variety Galore

Variety is the name of the game in BF1942. You can go into battle as one of 5 different units: assault, scout/sniper, anti-tank, medic, and engineer. Each has their own advantage and disadvantage and each is needed for a successful team. You can also hop into one of 35 different vehicles, ranging from shore shattering battleships, stealthy submarines, heavy bombers, fighter-bombers, heavy and light tanks, or even a jeep or troop transport (both land and sea varieties). Everything has a function, and if you can grab an open one, whatever you want to drive around in can be done.

Superb Online Excitement.

Multiplayer is the name of the game. It is so well set up that no matter how good you are at shooters, if you have a poor plan of attack, you will usually die. Quake players, jumping won't help you here, its really hard to do so carrying 150 lbs of equipment. Anyway, games usually consist of 32-64 players, all out for blood. So, you really have to keep it slow and methodical, lest you accidentally go too far into enemy territory, and thus get slaughtered. You have to hang out in groups to survive as solo players who do their own thing, even those in the formidable Tiger tank will get their backsides handed to them. War is chaos, and BF1942 does an absolutely excellent job portraying that.

Great Controls

So, I was first thinking, with all these different vehicles and classes, won't controls be a bit convoluted? Lo and behold, EA created a very easy to use method. Each transportation type (foot, ground, air, sea) all have their own separate controls. Might get confusing? Not really. (I bet you aren't reading this part - just testing) EA managed to get it set up so using the typical movement keys (a,w,d,s) will be all you need to get your chosen vehicle to move. Take the tank for example, W and S move forward and backward, while A and D turn you (while moving) or pivot (while still). Vehicles also have a realistic stop distance, so don't expect to go steaming your destroyer full tilt toward shore and expect to stop or turn on a dime. The only problem is getting used to the flight part, as bombing and the very fact of staying in the air is difficult at first as your plane is VERY sensitive.

Mighty Physics

The physics in this game is incredible. They came just shy of implementing realistic bullet physics, but everything else is incredibly real. Shoot ahead of your target in the tank while moving as it will follow your speed. You cannot just aim directly at your enemy with the bazooka like rocket launchers in other shooters as these rockets ARE affected by gravity. Don' drive that jeep too fast over the hill, you might just flip it. Tanks rock when they fire the shells, forcing you to wait for the bounce to stop before firing again, or simply attempt to compensate on the fly. So many details, so impressive.

Some Lag

BF1942 is a prime example of how dial-up services are obsolete. Connection take a bit of time, even on a speedy server. While in game, if your opponent is even remotely on a bad connection, he will bounce around like no tomorrow, and when in a slow moving vehicle, that means certain death. Connecting to a server takes a while, too, as loading the map is a bit slow, and spends too much time reading the CD when it could have just been loaded to the HD. Mostly, the games really are smooth, but when you get those occasional dial-up people that brave to venture into a shooter, you might have some trouble with their teleporting selves.

Steep System Requirements

The minimum requirements state 500 MHz and a T&L card. The T&L card is really true, but that 500 MHz is an understatement. My 2 GHz monstrosity gets chocked up every now and again, and people trying to play it on 500 MHz have to turn every cool visual feature off for it to run, then they still get slowdowns with many people on screen at once. I wouldn't even suggest TRYING the game if your rig is under 800 MHz and don't have at least a GeForce 2. My GeForce 4, the TI variety, gets a hiccup now and again (usually at the beginning).

Single Player? Don't Make Me Laugh

EA decided to include 16 single player campaign modes. 8 ally, 8 axis. The AI is so horrible it is not even funny. Trying to watch them fly makes me sick as they fly around in perfect lines, getting shot down by AA with ease. You will personally take up the brunt of the fight as you wait for your idiot AI to decide to move the tank forward a few more feet then stop again.

Few Online Morons

BF1942 requires teamwork to win, but sometimes you will end up on that server where your teammates don't want to work together. Instead, they will hang around the airfield and wait for a plane to spawn. So, while you are trying to capture command points alone in your tank, and two others are flying around, the other 12 players are hanging around the airfield waiting for one of the players in the air to get shot down. It takes a bit of coaxing occasionally to get them moving, like blowing up unused planes that happen to spawn.

Misc. Cool Thing

BF1942 has the coolest opening cinematic ever. EVER!

Bottom Line

Battlefield 1942 is easily the best online game to date. Sporting 40 weapons and 35 vehicles on servers that reach up to 64 players of pure chaos, there is no lack of excitement. Excellent controls, decent visuals and sounds add to the mix. Apart from the rare dial-up player and the steep system requirements, Battlefield 1942 is a near flawless game. If you can play it, get it, drop everything else. Consoles are dead. Battlefield 1942 is a contender for Game of the Year.