"No game can be perfect, but this comes close."

Battlefield 1942. Being a World War 2 lover, I was quite interested in this game. Since the Single player Demo, I have been continuously playing this game. From the classic Wake Island over and over, to the recent release, It has been worth the wait, but in some ways it is disappointing.

GAME MODES: 10/10

CONQUEST
This is the most played type of game in Battlefield. Essentially, you need to bring your enemies ''tickets'' to zero. ''Tickets'' are like a giant pool of lives for an entire team. So you and your teammates all share from 200-2000 lives. In bigger games, tickets are usually higher, but servers meant for pros usually have 100-200 for an ENTIRE team, and when even just 1 person dies, it leaves a huge dent in your Tickets that could either win or lose a battle.

The way to make your enemy lose tickets is simple. You can either take over all or half of the flags, depending on the level, or the old fashion kill. Flags are spread about levels, and after standing next to them for a certain amount of time, they convert to your teams flag, and the only way the other team can get the flag back is by fighting for it and converting it back.

CO-OP
Its essentially humans vs Bots, in a conquest type style. This is one of the more laggier types of games, but teamwork is usually more used in this type of game, because everyone is on one team. The bad thing? You better have a godly computer to even attempt this mode.

DEATHMATCH/DM
As the name suggests, its an all out deathmatch. This, in my opinion, is the most useless addition to the game. Sure, it quenches the thirst for good ol' FFA, but that is easily attainable in a Conquest game, and conquest is much more fun.

SINGLE PLAYER: 0/10
Ugh. There is a reason for this score. The reason? It is close to unplayable on lower end machines, and to even get a decent botmatch going, you need an incredible PC. I have a quite high end PC, and it still kills my framerate with a decent amount of bots. I put everything to ultra-low quality, and tried to make a botmatch with many Bots, and it still completely killed my PC. When you can get the right amount of bots to stop lag, it still is horrible. The AI has potential, but it is horrible. I have seen bots collide mid-air with planes, drive boats DIRECTLY into each other, drive Jeeps off cliffs (Definitely the most amusing thing I have ever seen) and drive tanks into walls. When walking around, they normally are pretty stupid. They either go prone over and over, crouch a lot, jump around aimlessly, or shoot each other. I have yet to see good bots on your own team.

The enemy team, on the other hand, seems to have a tad bit more luck. Their tanks somehow drive straight, their planes don’t crash into the ground, and their sniper aim is top-notch. It's sometimes hard to move when you can barely walk anywhere before an enemy sniper nails you directly. It's funny, usually in games the enemy is smarter than you, but when the enemy is MUCH more smarter than bots that can't do anything, it seems a little unbalanced.

Campaign mode has almost no story backing it, or atmosphere. Before starting a mission, you get a VERY brief description, usually not related about the mission at all, then you are treated to a long load time before starting a horribly lagged, unfair botmatch.

MULTI PLAYER: 9/10

The Multi player in this game is great, simply put. But any great game isn't without its flaws.

For one, the Netcode in this game has to be worked with a bit, or people have to read the Dedicated Server notes. I see people running 64 player servers, but after 32 people have filled it, it starts to lag A LOT. EA needs to fix this by changing their netcode around so lower end computers can handle the load better. I don’t run a server myself, but I see old Pentium 3's running 64 player servers, and it lags everyone like no tomorrow. Also, to get a decent connection to a server, you are going to need a Cable/DSL connection in order to play. A 56k is THE absolute minimum to play, and they can only connect to 1-8 player servers before they lag. Other things that lag people is the fact that some people running servers are stupid, and only put 128Kilobit outgoing speed, and that is NOWHERE close enough to fast enough for 8-64 players.

Aside from the lag, the community online is nice. Most of the time, if you need a pickup to the battlefield, someone will come by in a jeep and take you to the battle. If your driving around in a tank, someone will want to be your tail-gunner and help you kick enemy ass. Some of the problems include planes and Team Killers. A lot of people absolutely LOVE planes, and don’t care about anything else. A lot of times, if they are the last person alive on the team, and all flags are taken, he will fly around and bomb people without caring about his teams needs. A lot of times, people don’t understand the power of planes when used in unison with a tail-gunner. With 1 pass, I can destroy a ship IF I'm lucky and I have a tail-gunner. Torpedo planes, one of the things people never use right, kill Ships fast. Let out 2 torpedoes, then fire away with normal shots. A lot of times, nobody knows the potential of vehicles. Soon though, it will all work out.

LEVEL DESIGN: 9/10

The levels in this game are DEFINITLY not Lower-end computer friendly. A lot of the levels are HUGE, and a lot of detail is put into all of them. Many of the historic battles are included In this game, such as Omaha Beach, Stalingrad, the Battle of the Bulge, and many other levels are in this game. The problem is, most of the time, the levels are tipped in ones favor, or people don't play the levels right. One level, called ''Midway'', was DEFINITLY meant to be a Naval level, yet I see people waiting around for torpedo planes, and then never use them.
Controls: 10/10
You cannot go wrong with WSAD and the mouse. NEVER. If you feel the need to go astray, you can fully customize all controls to your liking. For all vehicles, the controls are all very easy to learn, and need no changing if you can adapt to it. If you've never used the WSAD system before, you can easily learn from this, and many other FPS games.

VEHICLE DESIGN: 10/10

TANKS
All of the tanks have something special about them. Either they have no Gunner on top, or different vehicle style, or a stronger shell, each one of them is very fun to pilot. A lot of people complain that infantry easily kill tanks, but its only because of the grenades, and how much damage they inflict if evasive action is not taken. One of the major imbalances though, is a lot of the tanks can't climb up 3/4 of the hills. If a tank is stuck in a crevice, leave it there. Its not going to move.

APC/JEEPS/TRANSPORTATION
There isn’t anything extremely special other than the fact that these are the core of a good team. If you put a team on an APC, and then drop it in an enemy base, it is extremely effective as an entire brigade of units empty onto the battlefield. Though, the problem is, NOBODY DOES THIS. I never see a team utilize an APC.

NAVAL
My personal favorite. All Naval ships are fun to pilot, especially the submarine. The fun of seeing an enemy destroyer go down from 1 simple sub is an incredible site. The Artillery on some of the ships is amazing also. On Omaha beach, it’s a race to see who can pilot the ship, for the sole fact that its so fun to bomb the snipers along the cliff. Hell, whenever you are allowed to bomb with a destroyer, its an amazing experience.

PLANES
VERY fun to pilot, but people are obsessed with them. Many often wait for a plane, and nothing else. Also, people don't take advantage of their raw power. If you kamikaze a plane into a ship, but parachute out, you can cause tremendous damage.

INFANTRY: 7/10

Again, a part of the game many don't exactly understand. Firing in entire round bursts is suicide. Short bursts is what rule this game. When firing an entire burst, often people don’t aim, a lot like people in Quake and Unreal. Short bursts allow you aim better, and kill faster. Anti Tank units are meant for anti-tank, but don’t have much again normal infantry. Explosions from the bazooka don't seem to do splash damage from my experience, and you need to hit the target pinpoint. Sniping is also flawed, since you NEED to be prone, and hit EXACTLY on the target, and even then it sometimes misses.

MUSIC: 4/10
All I've heard is menu music, and loading music, and quite frankly, it's ANNOYING after the 100th time. Also, in the game itself there is no music, so the mood isn't quite set right.

SOUND: 10/10

It works. The vehicles sound realistic, bullets sound realistic, and you can also hear your footsteps, which makes the game feel more real. I see nothing wrong with it.

GRAPHICS: 10/10

The graphics in this game are superb. Everything is insanely detailed in this game. I can't really say much more, because how the game looks for you depends heavily on the machine. All I can really say is that this game looks awesome, no matter what.

OVERALL: 10/10

This is a great game for anyone to buy. After EA toys with the netcode and improves lag, this game will be one for the ages. Definitely buy this game if you need a First Person Shooter to play until new games come out.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/02, Updated 07/01/03