Battlefield 1942

"A smooth mix of genres, with huge mod potential..."

I love criticizing overhyped games, I really do. Just look at some of my other reviews. However, Battlefield 1942 is a different story, because unlike games like Warcraft 3, this a SMOOTH, WORKING hybrid of flight simulators, tank/battleship commanders, and first person shooters. However, like any other game, it has flaws. Fortunately, most of these flaws are so minor you'll learn to not even care. Unless, of course, you don't have an absolutely MONSTER of a computer machine required to run this behemoth.

Gameplay: 7/10

Let's clear up the bad first. You won't be able to enjoy this game with your Pentium Pro. I have a Pentium 4, 512MB of DDR Ram, GeForce 4 Ti4400, and over 80GB of Harddrive space and I still get lag in some of the huge naval air battles. A battleship so huge that it takes nearly a minute to navigate from bow to stern, going up against an equally large enemy battleship and an even more massive carrier, which is busy launching bomber planes to glass the deck of your ship... That is going to cause lag. To be fair, EA cut back some of the games features to compensate non-Cray supercomputers. Except on the custom map ''Coral Sea'', only about 2 planes can come off a carrier, and usually there are two or three more on an airfield. You'll also only see only one battleship, one carrier, one submarine, and about three destroyers per side in the biggest naval battle map, ''Midway''. I'd love to see two massive carrier fleets duking it out around an island, but at the most you'll have a teammate beaching the carrier while a single enemy destroyer pounds on the deck of the ship.... And even that can be laggy.

Another bad tomato is a slight lack of unique weapons. If you expect to see an M1 Garand, Springfield, Firefly, or even a measly German U-Boat... Sorry, but you'll be disappointed. The American and British weapons are almost exactly the same, with the exception of different colored tanks, and the British get the famous Spitfire whilst the Americans get a large variety of planes (Corsair, SBD, Mustang, and yes, the B17). The British also borrow the B17 in some missions too... Don't bother getting excited, as people run toward those things when they spawn like ants to a cupcake.

I miss the Garand, but that's not the only gripe. I'm not exactly the biggest WW2 buff, but I'm pretty sure the Japanese did not have StG's as a choice of weapon (Hell, even the Germans rarely got one), nor did the Russians carrier a BAR. A unique selection of weapons and grenades for each of the five armies (Not counting the Italians and French, exclusive to the expansion Battlefield 1942: Road to Rome... Though they only get 1 unique weapon each), would have been beyond perfect. I can't see how it would cause much lag either.

Infantry combat is a little buggy, but recent patches have really made infantry combat an effective role.

Graphics: 9/10

Though you'll need a pretty expansive rig to handle the graphics at their fullest, they are simply unbelievable. Tanks and planes explode and leave burning husks (The plane debris can even kill you if you're not careful and it lands on you), flak explodes in the air, ships tilt and sink, and the helmets can even be knocked off enemy soldiers with a good headshot.

The drawbacks? No blood and no weather effects. Blood can be added with a bloodpatch courtesy of the VERY nice historic skins of Merciless 1942 (Since it's a skin job, you can still play regular Battlefield 1942 with people less fortunate to not have it... It even comes with cool loading screens too). Weather would be nice (And would help hinder the monsters that are the airplanes in this game), but I guess it was removed because of lag problems. Road to Rome has some thunder background sounds, but that's it.

Controls: 10/10

Smooth, customizable, and realistic. Some people say planes can only be flown using the joystick. I fly solely with a keyboard and I've gone 40/3 (K/D) on Coral Sea just by using the fighter planes. Likewise, the realism is awesome and effective (especially in planes) if you learn to use it. Tilting the planes wings can cause it to turn faster, while bombs don't go straight down when you release them (They can also hit you if you foolishly do a quick descent moments after you release the bomb). Tank and ship shells don't fly straight, but instead fall toward the ground eventually. You'll have to learn to arc your shots if you want to be effective.

Sound: 10/10

No ingame music (Though catchy main menu and loading screen music which really fits the WW2 scene), but the sound is flawless and smooth. BEWARE, however, as the new 1.3 and even 1.31 can cause some sound problems (1.31 slightly fixed it, but I still get sound problems when the map switches to a new map).

Each army has radio commands, all of them in a different language (Exception would be Americans and British, though they have different accents and dialects) but at the same time they all have the same basic commands (ie, ''Roger that!'', ''Requesting anti-tank support!'', ''Enemy submarine spotted!'') which you will eventually memorize. Even if you don't speak Russian, you'll eventually be able to tell if they are calling for APC support without looking at the ingame text column (Which is in turn written in English or whatever language you bought the game in). If you don't like the different languages, you can set them all to English Dialogue (Makes all voices the same as the American forces). This takes out all the fun though.

Explosions, flak, tank treads, the drone of propeller planes, and even jeep motors... All of the sounds are crisp and real. If you don't like the sounds, you can download customizable ones.

Multiplayer: 10/10

Since this game IS a multiplayer game (It does come with a single player mode, but SP is not nearly as exciting as pitting up against human players who can ACTUALLY FLY PLANES in most cases), you'll find the multiplayer mode exciting and action packed. Beware, you'll lose sleep.

Customization: 10/10

Want blood? Download a blood patch. Want camouflage on tiger tanks? Download a skin. Different sounds or loading screens? Download a mod. An entirely new game? Download a full conversion. This game has it all. If you want to play regular Battlefield 1942 with the German soldiers dressed in clown suits, you can. Though skins DO allow for cheating in the original, it's nothing that serious as spiked models won't save you from an enemy platoon or tank.

The total conversions, such as the hit Desert Combat mod (Based on modern warfare, such as the Gulf War and Iraqi Freedom), still in it's alpha stage and already attracting a fanbase rivaling most Half-Life mods. Other nice looking ones, like Eve of Destruction (Indochina and Vietnam), and Trench Rats (WW1) are in the works. If you are looking for more then just WW2, Battlefield 1942 is STILL your game with all the nice customs available.

Overall: 8/10

If you like World War 2, FPS, Simulators, or mods, then this game is for you. Don't expect much historical accuracy as you are run over by a Japanese kubelwagon, but the overall fun of this game FAR drowns out all the flaws. You won't just enjoy this game, you'll experience it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/03, Updated 04/14/03