'When in Rome...' ponders Bennett Ring,'... you need a bigger, stronger weapon.'
Battlefield 1942 is an amazing, addictive, and adrenaline-filled game. The huge black bags under the eyes of all the Atomic staff writers should be proof enough of how life destroying this game has become since the 1.2 and 1.3 patches were released. These patches have totally fixed the troublesome netcode of the original release. In fact, I’d risk my future career as a reviewer by saying that it could well be the finest game of last year, at least for those into online first person shooters. Road to Rome is the recent expansion pack from EA and Dice for this groundbreaking multiplayer game, and it takes our virtual WWII troops into two new areas, to tear Jerry and his naughty comrades a new one: Italy and Sicily.
Considering the expansion pack has been released a mere couple of months after the original game, it’s obvious that BF1942 is doing well. However, just how much new content can the developers create in such a short time without an endless supply of crystal meth? It appears, sadly, not too much.
The two new environments of Italy and Sicily are very different to those seen in the original game. For starters, they tend to be much hillier than the original, and are littered liberally with cover, such as semi-demolished homes, shrubs, walls and boulders.
They also have fixed anti-tank guns, which are an absolute blast to use. A couple of shots from one of these is more than enough to turn that hulking iron tank behemoth into a useless pile of melting nuts and bolts with some squished-up meat in the middle.
The map makers at Dice have figured out how to make the maps even more enjoyable this time around. You’ll never face another barren and unpopulated area again -- an annoyingly frequent occurrence in many of the original maps. The maps are appreciably smaller though, and as a result you won’t be far from the bullets and blood. A couple of the maps stand out as exceptionally brilliant -- Monte Cassino has the Allies storming a very narrow path up a mountain to take over the ruins of an Axis-occupied monastery.
Standing in their way are seven or eight Axis anti-tank and machine gun nests, requiring masterful teamwork for the Allies to succeed. The other stand-out map, Battle for Salerno, has both sides with two spawn points on opposite sides of a large hill, and two capture points on top of the hill.
The nifty part is that the capture points can’t be spawned from, leading to large waves of soldiers all attacking at the same time from the lower points -- very cool. Another map, Operation Husky, isn’t too bad, playing quite similarly to the Omaha Beach level from the original. Things are a bit more spaced-out, making the Allies task slightly easier.
Unfortunately, sea battles are non-existent in the new levels, which is a shame considering how cool the boats are, as the new patches have fixed their warping problems. In fact, there is only one map that features a large boat, with no opposing sea vessels for those who like to do it in the water. Thankfully, most of the maps seem to have more tanks, which is very welcome.
While these new maps are very nice, there’s a massive problem with them. There simply aren’t enough. Six new maps, and that’s it. Considering UT2003 players were just given six new maps by the developers free in the DE pack, it’s nothing short of a travesty that gamers are forced to pay $50 for the same amount of BF1942 maps. Now you know why EA hasn’t released a map editor for BF1942. . .
Helping to balance out this severe shortage of new maps is a stack of new vehicles and unit models. Two versatile aircraft, the Mosquito and BF-110, offer a fresh experience for pilots, dropping a cluster of three bombs, while still remaining quite maneuverable.
Actually, they might be a little too powerful, with a couple of decent pilots being able to dominate the entire map thanks to these zippy little bombers.
Four new armoured vehicles are also introduced, and these also differ substantially from those in the original. The two new big-arsed tanks no longer have 360-degree rotating turrets, making them very vulnerable from the side and rear, while the other two are specialised vehicles. One is designed for anti-infantry attacks, the other as a mobile artillery piece, and both are a joy to deal death from.
The infantry have also had an overhaul, with the Allies being the Free French Forces and the Axis being Italian. Not only do they look different to the usual troops, they also have really funny accents that make for a good for a laugh. We’re sure one of the Italian phrases is ‘Hey-a, it’s-a Mario!’ And finally, a couple of new machine guns round out the new stuff.
Battlefield 1942 junkies are going to purchase this expansion pack and mainline it directly into the part of the brain that controls gaming responses, regardless of what we say, and they’re bound to have a good time doing so. We would have liked at least ten new maps and several more vehicles before we could comfortably recommend this expansion pack.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012