"A bland, uninspired FPS"

Let me start by saying that I didn't buy this game- my brother did. But, about a week ago, I wanted a new PC game to play, and decided I might as well try out Battlefield 1942. After all, I'd heard glowing reviews on many websites (and even in the newspaper one time) and the box had a big fancy "game of the year" sticker on the front. But, after playing this game, I can only warn you- stay away.

Gameplay- 6/10

The concepts in BF1942 are great. You can choose from several different types of soldiers, each with different weapons and specialties. Using this soldier, you can commandeer any number of vehicles on the front- jeeps, airplanes, tanks, and more. Most vehicles are relatively easy to control, and there are many different things to do in each vehicle- steer, gun, etc. When working by your lonesome, you can use your weapons to wreak many different kinds of damage upon your enemies. However, it's not the ideas that make me dislike the gameplay; it's the AI. First off, enemy AI is dirt poor. Absolutely terrible. It is easy to walk up next to a soldier and shoot him, in plain sight, without getting so much as a scratch. On many occasions, it seemed like the enemy was totally unaware that I existed. I remember one time on the Omaha Beach level when I hid behind a tree and shot enemy soldier after enemy soldier until I had racked up somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 kills. After such a rampage of butchery, you'd think that the third reich would be interested in killing me. Far from it, in fact. All of the enemy soldiers preferred to shoot at some guy at the bottom of the hill who was representing almost zero threat to them at all. Finally I decided to run out into the middle of the crowd and shoot as many of them as I could. I actually managed to kill 3 more of them before an allied tank accidentally ran me over. Oops. Also, when killed, you respawn- but not immediately. You have to wait around for 20-odd seconds, doing NOTHING, until you are regenerated. This doesn't sound like it's that bad, but it gets really annoying really fast. Being able to do anything you want in any vehicle anywhere doesn't matter much if the enemy is about as smart as a broken 486DX. I could tell you more, but I must get on with the rest of the review.

Controls- 7/10

The same old WSAD control scheme that is used for almost every single other FPS in existence. WSAD works fine; otherwise it would have died out a long time ago. I give controls a 7/10 because-
1. Airplanes are very difficult to fly and even more difficult to shoot things with

and

2. It's hard to remember the keys for obscure actions like “open craft door” and “deploy parachute”.

Okay controls, but I've seen better.

Sound- 1/10

The sound in battlefield 1942 is probably the worst part of the entire game. There is a total of one (yes, 1) song, and that's the menu song that loops endlessly while you load levels and change options. It's a boring song, too. Sound effects are bland and unrealistic. Guns hardly sound like guns, and explosions sound weak. It's like the explosion is apologizing for existing. Basically, things just don't sound like they sound in real life. Instead of the hellish roar of battle, we are presented with boring “clicks” and “pops”, and expected to believe that this is what World War II sounded like. There's no music to distract you from the terrible sound effects, either. Yeah, I know there wasn't music on the front lines, but it would help the terrible sound in this game tremendously. You'd be better off getting your CD player and popping in “Regis Philbin Sings!” then listening to this game.

Graphics- 5/10

In and of themselves, the graphics in BF1942 are okay. However, when compared to other games of the time, they just don't stand out. Environments (with one exception that I'll get to later) are poorly done. The ruined cities feel like someone took a blank field and copied the same 5 ruined houses over and over again. The desert levels are very unexciting- everything looks exactly the same. The island levels, though, are very well done. The trees are nice to look at, and it feels like you're on an island. Nothing eye-popping or revolutionary, though- the graphics serve their purpose, and nothing more.

Story- 1/10

Just like most other FPS shooters, BF1942 is weak in the storyline department. Sure, it's WWII, but there are no interesting characters, plot lines, or anything during the course of play. You're just supposed to shoot stuff.

Multiplayer- 1/10

I know lots of people will want to bite my head off for disliking the multiplayer. “After all”, you might say, “the multiplayer is where this game really shines!” Sadly, this just isn't true at all. Playing the game online hardly feels different from playing it single player, apart from the fact that the enemies are smarter. You'd think in multiplayer games, you could chat with your allies, to coordinate attacks and such? Well, to the best of my knowledge, there is NO way to chat with your allies. No text messaging is in the game- you must use canned messages like “go, go, go” and “roger”. Needless to say, communication is limited. You basically just run around and shoot enemy stuff randomly. Plus, it lags badly, even on cable. A first person shooter is hard to play online when you press “Fire” and then have to wait a while before you actually shoot. After playing, I couldn't quit fast enough. One would have to be obsessed with this game to have a good experience in multiplayer, and even then, I don't see why it would be enjoyable.

Fun- 2/10

Battlefield 1942 is not fun, at all- unless, of course, if you think mindlessly shooting enemies who are too dumb to defend themselves is fun. There is nothing that stands out about this game, not even the multiplayer. Trust me, the multiplayer is as bad as the rest of the game- meaning it's terrible. The only time I even had fun playing this game was when I used an engineer to fill an entire allied spawn point up with TNT, surrounded it with mines, and then detonated the TNT. I think my score was like –30 or something, it was awesome.

OVERALL- 3/10

The lowdown- Battlefield 1942 is a bland, uninspired FPS that does little to stand out from the crowd of fun, interesting first person shooters that are available today. The sound is terrible, the graphics are merely okay, and multiplayer- supposedly the game's best element- is an unexciting waste of time.

Buy or rent?

Buy…. any game other than this one. There are so many other better games out there that I am hard pressed to understand why anyone would want to play it at all. It's like thinking “Zork” is better than “Final Fantasy 7”. Avoid this game as if it were the plague. Only rent it if you are a WWII FPS fan who just wants to shoot a bunch of stuff and not have fun doing it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/05