Overview

Explode

That’s the term that best describes the apperance Battlefield 1942. The game had a relatively low profile for a very long time. Attempts to bring it to public light succeeded, but it didn’t seem to stand out from the rest. Certainly, it was no Doom III. Then EA released two demos, covering the single- and multiplayer parts of the game. The singleplayer demo sent shockwaves through the gaming community, waking gamers to this incoming title. If the first demo was a shockwave, the second, multiplayer demo was the Big One. “Coincidentally” appearing during QuakeCon, it unleashed tsunami, not waves, in the industry. Suddenly, everyone was paying attention.

When so many people pay attention, they inevitably scrutinize a product down to the last detail. Even though the demos were labelled beta products not for preview by the press, gamers were merciless. The release date was close and the demos were buggy, underperforming and most importantly, works of art. This wasn’t Daikatana-bashing, where ripping into the game was for sport. This was sincere concern that a great game would crash and burn due to bugs and a poor launch (deja Tribes 2!)

Guadalcanal, the most overplayed map ever

Looks nice though

Tank duel

What is it?

Battlefield 1942 could be called a real-life Tribes. Five classes: the scout, the engineer, the assault, the medic and the anti-tank. Sixteen maps, covering every major front in the war – the Pacific, North African, Western and Russian arenas. Twenty weapons: Axis and Allied. Vehicles galore: tanks (from some puny Japanese lightweight to the fearsome Tiger), through jeeps, half-tracks, self-propelled artillery, fighters and bombers, to submarines, carriers, battleships and destroyers. In short, everything you need for a World War, brought to your desktop.

The game plays on servers that are typically running between 20 and 32 players at a time. Most of the time the game is Conquest, where each side starts with a set amount of tickets. Tickets are used up every time someone dies or they may countdown if the enemy has possession of too many control points. There are Capture the Flag, Co-op and Team Deathmatch modes for added variety though it is rare to see any but Conquest and the occasional CTF servers.

I was in a Tiger, he thought I was allied

Still the same Tiger

Look at the stupid ticket count