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Battlefield 2142 MP Beta Impressions August 31, 2006 |
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Summary: The Battlefield 2142 multiplayer beta is out and we've got some spicy new impressions and screenshots of the game available. JCal gives a solid three-page run-through of the game, including the new Titan game mode!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 3 ) |
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Now Digital Illusions is preparing to release their fourth stand alone game in the series and in some ways it’s their most risky venture yet. Battlefield 2142 is set, as the title implies, over 100 years in the future where the world is caught up in a new ice age. The game itself has two separate factions, the Pan Asian Coalition and the European Union, fighting it out to gain control of this cold new world in Europe and North African locations. As with previous Battlefield games the plot doesn’t really matter much; it merely provides a way for the game designers to come up with some cool new weapons and vehicles, as well as a new gameplay mode that they couldn’t do in the first three games in the series.
EA is currently running a multiplayer beta test of Battlefield 2142 for a small group of testers (a public demo is expected to be released in September). FiringSquad got a chance to play the beta version for the past few days and got permission from EA to write up our impressions. Before we start, our experiences with the multiplayer beta made it clear that it really is a beta client. We have had times when we lost connections or had desktop crashes or couldn’t even load the game at all. That’s to be expected of a game that is not complete yet; we just wanted to make it clear that we are giving our impressions of the game as it stands right now and not making a full judgment.
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The map itself, Verdun, is an interesting way to go in terms of looks. In many ways it resembles a map from Battlefield 1942 because of its art style, with ruined European style villages and a rural location. While the game is definitely not a WWII map (the ice glaze, the snowflakes and futuristic looking structures give it away) but it doesn’t look like a map that should be set over 100 years from now.
| Weapons | Page:: ( 2 / 3 ) |
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Battlefield 2 introduced players to persistent stat tracking that allowed them to be “promoted”; the more and better they played online, the more rewards they received. Battlefield 2142 adds to that feature with 40 unlockable weapons and items. Like the previous game in the series, this gives Battlefield 2142 more of an RPG feeling, since you will be able to load your character with a customized loadout rather than be stuck with whatever your class forces you to take. The game also continues the series’ extensive use of vehicles. You have small and fast jeeps that can’t take a lot of damage to hover and track tanks that are slower moving but use more firepower, and APCs that can take on several people at once. Air vehicles include varieties of VTOL craft that are either small and fast or large troop carrying craft. Our experience with the air vehicles in the beta was actually quite fun and easy, something that has been rather tricky in previous games in the series. Our favorite vehicle is the previously mentioned two legged battlewalker just because we like mech vehicles in general. We were reminded somewhat of games in the Tribes series with some of the new vehicles but while the Tribes games were shiny and slick sci-fi games, Battlefield 2142 has much more of a gritty feel.
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| Conclusion | Page:: ( 3 / 3 ) |
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Graphically the game looks pretty similar to Battlefield 2, with comparable polygon counts, so people who have the last game should have no problem running Battlefield 2142 on their PCs. There are some interesting new effects, such as the previously mentioned EMP, which causes your vision to break up like a bad TV picture. One new item can give players a temporary cloak effect and the various shield effects in the Titan are well done. There were some graphical glitches in the games we played, which is not unexpected in a beta, but overall the game is looking quite solid. The game’s user interface allows you to check out all the stats you could think of following a match for all the players who really want to see how they perform in matches.
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The multiplayer beta was supporting 32 players at a time (the final game will have support for up to 64 players). At the moment, it’s still way too early to give a final verdict on how the full game will turn out, but we do know that when we managed to join some matches we had fun using the new weapons and playing both offensively and defensively trying to protect our team’s Titan. We would have liked to played in a map that better reflected the game’s futuristic setting and of course we had to deal with all of the glitches that are always present in a beta version. However, we do like the way the game manages to both reduce the amount of character classes while at the same time opening up the player to really customize their loadout anyway they choose. We hope to perhaps get a chance to play on more maps before the final version of Battlefield 2142 is released later this fall.
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