 | |||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Battlefield 2142 Preview October 16, 2006 John JCal Callaham |
|
 |
|
| |
Summary: JCal writes up his early impressions of Battlefield 2142. Full review coming soon, as soon as real servers and people are online.
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 3 ) |
If you have been reading FiringSquad for the past couple of months you know that we have done interviews about the game, given our impressions of the multiplayer beta and also written some extensive articles on how the multiplayer beta ran on various video and PC processor set-ups. So we won’t bore you with an extensive look at the game’s various features. To quickly sum up, Battlefield 2142 takes place nearly 150 years in the future where a new ice age has occurred and the super powers of the time are battling it out with slightly futuristic weapons. The storyline is just an excuse to come up with the looks of the maps and the various weapons, vehicles and items that Battlefield 2142 possesses.
[image]
| <% print_image("01"); %> | <% print_image("02"); %> | <% print_image("03"); %> |
While the Battlefield series has emphasized multiplayer online play over single player play, it takes even more precedence in Battlefield 2142. That’s because of the new online Titan mode that been added to the new game. While Conquest mode is still a part of the game its only support for five of the 10 maps in the full game. Conquest is also the only mode that supports the game’s offline bots. That means only five maps are available for single player play. Titan mode is multiplayer only, so you can’t get any offline “training” for it out of the box. You have to play it online from the start. Of course, some enterprising mod author is sure to work on a third party mod for Titan mode at some point. We played Conquest mode against the bots and, well, they pretty much act like they have for the previous games in the series; that is to say, they run around like headless chickens somewhat in the direction of the objective. The game also allows players to fight against AI bots in Conquest co-op mode.
[image]
| <% print_image("04"); %> | <% print_image("05"); %> | <% print_image("06"); %> |
The new Titan mode supports 64 players online and in our time playing the game online it was about as fun as our experience playing the multiplayer beta, but without all of the crashes to desktop bugs and long loading times. In other words the retail version of Battlefield 2142 is a lot more stable and a lot more playable than its early appearance (as it should be). Titan, as we mentioned, before, is an interesting mix of Conquest mode in previous games combined with UT 2004’s Assault mode as team capture missile silo points that fire rockets up to the massive Titan battle stations that float above. Once the Titan’s shields go down after a number of missiles strikes, its up to team members to get in the air to board the Titan, knock out four power stations inside and finally destroy the Titan’s reactor to end the round.
[image]
| <% print_image("07"); %> | <% print_image("08"); %> | <% print_image("09"); %> |
| Maps and gameplay | Page:: ( 2 / 3 ) |
The two biggest differences between Battlefield 2142 and previous games in the series is the streamlining of character classes and the bigger use of unlockable content in the game. Only four character classes are in the game (recon, assault, engineer and support) but the game’s use of persistant stats and unlockable content really makes the “classes” portion of the game more open ended than previous games in the series. The more you achieve in multiplayer matches, the higher the rank you get and the more content is available for you to get access to more weapons along with the ability to change your own abilities (for example, you can inject yourself with stimulants that will allow players to spring farther or take less time to regenerate their spring ability).
[image]
| <% print_image("10"); %> | <% print_image("11"); %> | <% print_image("12"); %> |
The stats system is sure to be one of the most popular parts of the game, at least so far as comparing your acheievements to others. In addition to the many, many ranks you can achieve in the game, Battlefield 2142 will set players see how well they did in each round of play. The server will tell you what weapon is your favorite and how many kills you got, what vehicle did you drive the most. These stats and many more will be at your disposal. For the ultra serious Battlefield 2142 player (the one who wants to maybe take their skills on the road to win real money in matches) there should be plenty to look at in the game.
[image]
| <% print_image("13"); %> | <% print_image("14"); %> | <% print_image("15"); %> |
So what were our favorites in our playing of the retail version this weekend. We have to admit having playing mostly with the assault class with its standard assault rifle, but we did play a bit as the engineer class and loved firing off its anti-vehicle rocket launcher. We found that the air gunships in the game were a lot easier to control that previous aircraft in the Battlefield series and of course the mech like battlewalkers are a lot of fun to drive, though the walker’s legs are vulnerable, even if you drop a few feet down into an incline. The support class can be a lot of fun to play as well; setting up defensive turrets and being able to sniff enemies behind cover can be plenty useful in an attack.
[image]
| <% print_image("16"); %> | <% print_image("17"); %> | <% print_image("18"); %> |
There’s a lot about the game that we haven’t played around with yet which is part of the reason why this is a first impressions article rather than a full review. The other part is that while we have played the game online on EA’s official server, the game itself hasn’t shipped to stores yet, which means we haven’t played on servers with real Battlefield players rather than press and EA folks. That’s why we are waiting a few days before giving our final judgment. All we will say at this moment is that based on our limited time with the full game we found it to be a lot of fun. Be sure to look for our full review of the game in the very near future.
| Gallery | Page:: ( 3 / 3 ) |