"A sad attempt at a WWII shooter, but there is a very bright side!"

Let me say this first and foremost. There are two reasons you should buy this game: One you like online shooters, and two Forgotten Hope. What is Forgotten Hope you say? It is everything Battlefield should have been, and more. It is a 100% free mod that could be boxed and shipped out right now, and no one could recognize that it is just Battlefield 1942 with a bright shiny new coat of paint. If you want more info on it, read my review (if it is posted) or do a Google search for Forgotten Hope. Enough about that though, let me tell you what I think of the plain version of the game.

Graphics:5/10
They are not bad by any means, just extremely flat and bland. What little vegetation exists in this game looks very flat, and looks like three-sided cardboard cutouts. The ground is this dull and unchanging green color for most of the maps, except in the African ones where it's this dull and unchanging tan color. The roads are all either dirt or paved, and they all look the same. Bridges are stone or metal, and they all feature the same designs. The guns are very very plain, and have almost no texture to them at all. Rather they have a very dull metallic sheen or weird yellowish color that are both very fake looking. The vehicles are also very flat. They are for the most part, texture less, and show no signs of damage other than smoke and fire coming out the back. Even the freaking wrecks look dull! All vehicles explode into the EXACT SAME THING EVERY TIME! Jeeps and Kubelwagons turn into the same black mass. All planes no matter what their size (with the exception of the TWO large bombers) turn into cross shaped black wrecks. The tanks are sort of an exception to this, but there aren't many differences. The uniforms are decent looking, but again very very flat and unchanging. You'd think the dev's would mix it up a little by splattering some mud on the allied uniforms on the Omaha Beach map or something like that, but no. Even in the African or Pacific theaters, the Allies and Axis wear the exact same thing.

Sound:0/10
Do you want to hear mortar shells howling menacingly as they rain death on your entrenchment? Well forget it pal. The fact that there are no mortars or entrenchments aside, all shells in this game, be they tank, artillery, or ship make the same pathetically weak high-pitched whistling noise, and the same tinny explosion noise. All the cannons in this game sound like they have a giant suppressor placed on them because all they emit the same weak sounding noise when fired. As for the engines, the only things that sound right are the cars, and even they sound weak. They must have amazing noise insulation on the tanks/artillery, because one could be sitting behind you and you wouldn't notice it. The engines sound like they have been transplanted from a 1991 Geo Metro, pathetic and horribly underpowered. And while this is applicable to the Japanese tanks, the American, Russian, and especially the German tanks all had monster diesel engines that would roar to life when started, not whimper. The ONLY decent sounding vehicles (or anything for that matter) are the fighters and landing craft. These sound okay, but very generic. As for the bombers, forget it. There are only two to begin with, and they both make this awful sounding deep growl that sounds like it would be more suitable on the warships. And speaking of noise on the warships, where is it? If you are driving them, they kind of make this really deep rumbling noise, but it doesn't really sound like much. As for the landing craft and torpedo boats, (which both make the same noise) they are like the fighters, okay sounding, but very generic.
Now I get on to weapons and boy howdy do they sound awful. The No.4 and K98 sound (and look) like they are shooting puffs of smoke/gas, and make some weird plastic-sounding click when you eject the spent round from them. The fixed Brownings and MG 42s both sound like someone dropping nails into a Rubbermaid bin. The DP1928 and the Type99 sound like someone rattling a very small chain. The BAR makes a loud *THUNK* when it fires. The Tommy Gun and Mp18/40 sound like they are shooting airsoft pellets rather than bullets. (and do about the same amount of damage) The Garand makes a noise like something I would've made when I was 6 years old playing cops and robbers, and the Type5 gun EA made up to balance out the teams sounds like they broke a stick, and placed the noise it made on top of the Garand noise. Both pistols sound like BB guns. The Bazooka/Panzerschrek both make the same suppressed explosion noise when fired, and it's awful. And while on the topic of explosions, THEY ARE PATHETIC. Grenades and Explosives both make the same weak *POOMP* noise, and when any vehicles blow up, they make the same plasticky sounding noise.

Gameplay:4/10
The game's best feature, (which is pathetic) is its core gameplay. And if I were reviewing only its core gameplay, I would give it a big ol' 9 and call it a day; but wait; I'm forgetting all the crap they threw on top. The whole capture the spawns to drain enemy tickets thing is a great idea that has already been ripped off several times at this point, but EA/Dice were either the first to implement it, or the first to implement it well. Throw some nice vehicular combat in, and you've got a recipe for success, right? RIGHT? Yes, of course you are, but EA decided to throw some "secret ingredients" into the mix; and by that I mean stuff they thought might work well but didn't. Let's take the shooting for example. You can pick a BAR and go Rambo with it and rack up a decent number of kills before being sniped or blasted to pieces by a tank. Problem is, the BAR was a support weapon, and was incredibly inaccurate unless it had its tripod deployed or its user prone. The whole game tosses every scrap of reality and chucks it out a tenth story window. LMG's like the Type99 and DP are used like assault rifles. SMG's like the Thompson or Mp40 are amazingly accurate, horribly weak, given to "medics", and have almost NO range to them. Rifles are thrown to the wayside despite being the primarily used weapons of the war, and both they and the Bazookas are perfectly accurate. GRENADES DAMAGE TANKS!! Many famous/key weapons aren't in the game like the Russian PPSh and Mosin Nagant, the German Panzerfaust, FG42, and Gwher43. The Japanese Arisaka, which was one of the ONLY weapons they used in the war. (the Type5 doesn't exist) The American M1A1 Carbine isn't in there, there are no rifle grenades, and the British don't have the Sten Mk.IV or the Bren LMG. I could go on and on and on and on and on about the guns, but I want to point out the worst offense in this game. One of its biggest selling points is its vehicular combat, so you'd expect it to be chock full of tanks and APCs and jeeps and the like right? Guess what? You're wrong, very very very wrong. The Americans/British get TWO kinds of tanks, one artillery tank, an APC, and a jeep for ground assault, that's IT. The Germans get the exact same freaking number! As for the "side" races, that is the Japanese and Russians, the Japs get the Ch-ha as their only tank, and everything else is German. The Russians get two of their own tanks and the Katyusha rocket truck, and everything else is American/British. The number of corners cut from EVERYTHING in this game is just pathetic.

Maps:0/10
Yes, I'm giving these horrible maps their own section, because gameplay is too overcrammed with what it's lacking. Omaha Beach in this game is unbelievably bad. It's a narrow channel with two little bunkers and hill leading up to some tiny little disorganized German camp. If anything it looks more like Gold Beach if you ask me. Then there's Stalingrad. It's famous for the massive charge the Russians made in it when they ran up the hills surrounding it and blasted their way into Red Square. In this game, you are placed in a nondescript square trainyard/port thing and told to duke it out with the Germans over control over a couple of bombed out apartment buildings. Oh and I can't forget Kursk, the biggest tank battle the history of modern warfare can I? No I can't, but EA sure can! It takes place in a tiny little bit of woods with maybe two or three tanks spawning at a time. And since EA loves twisting history and added fake stuff, this game's pathetic selection wouldn't be complete without a few made up battles. Operation Battleaxe set in some tiny basin with British and German bases at either end, and basically it's a bloodbath. Operation Aberdeen is set in some huge expanse of desert that is way way too big, and it's basically a war of attrition because not much fighting takes place. I'm once again going to stop here, because I've covered all the bad points, and this review has gone on long enough.

Buy or not?
Most definitely buy this game. Not for the base game itself, but rather for the amazingly good Forgotten Hope mod that was made for it.

On an end note, I want to make an interesting comparison. Regular Battlefield 1942 takes up about 2GB of space of your hard drive. Forgotten Hope takes up 2.1GB with the latest installs and patches. 2GB vs. 4.1GB, (FH files+regular files it requires) you do the math folks.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/05