http://www.battlefield1942.com
Developer: Digital Illusions http://www.dice.se/
Distributor: Electronic Arts http://www.eagames.com.au/

I’ll come right out and say it. Battlefield 1942 is without doubt the game of the year. Stacked up against some pretty serious opposition, the spiritual successor to the often underrated Codename Eagle beats everything else hands down in the single aspect that catapults a game to stardom, fun.

The game puts the player in the boots of a soldier during WW2 in a series of battlefields from Arnhem through to Midway via Kursk and Tobruk.

All up there are 16 maps set in four regions - the Pacific, Western Front, Eastern Front and Middle East. Players can choose any of five classes of soldier and operate vehicles ranging from jeeps, tanks, aircraft and even naval ships to capture specific map objectives.

Rather than using the time-honoured capture-the-flag approach, each map has several victory locations that must be captured and then held by a player’s team.

Each team also has a number of tickets that are reduced by deaths, loss of victory locations and friendly fire incidents.

In most maps the first team to lose all tickets also loses the game. This makes for an interesting twist on the standard multi-player fare and requires more thought than the normal battlefield blaze technique.

All vehicles behave similarly - a Tiger tank performs just as well as Japanese Type 97 or a Sherman, meaning there is no uber-weapon on the battlefield - once again not historically correct but lots of fun.

Players can fly and fight P51s through to B17s (and load them up with gunners) and similar aircraft for each nation during the game, creating that nerve-wracking feeling of being bombed from above.

The flight models are anything but realistic and flight control is probably the hardest part to learn in the game (use your joystick, don’t pay attention to the manual).

Battlefield 1942 may not be historically correct, it may be “gamey” in its approach but it is the most fun I have had online in a long time. Unfortunately it is this element of fun however that may be the downfall for some players.

Despite a reasonably competent series of AI bots, the game is all about multi-player and for those wanting a good experience, that means a broadband connection to the net or LAN parties. It can be played in single-player but the game really shines against live opponents when teams use voice communications to coordinate an assault or defence.

The real feature that keeps players online until well into the mornings is the ability to jointly crew vehicles and aircraft or hop in a half-track or landing barge for a speedy ride to the front lines.

Jumping online and joining any game can be frustrating at times as repeated requests for pick-ups or support are ignored but if you play with a good team the cooperative aspect of play will almost ensure success. For those of you living-in and playing on LANs, this is the CounterStrike killer.

COMPETITION

With thanks to the guys at Electronic Arts Australia, The Gamesman has a copy of Battlefield 1942 to give away. Entries should be e-mailed to ADFgamesmen@telstra.com with the name of the game you would like to win in the subject line. Please only one entry per person, subsequent entries will be discarded. Please include your full name and mailing address in the e-mail or your entry won’t be accepted. Congratulations to our recent PS2 feature winners: Cpl Peter Hooper, 1 Psych Unit, UFC Throwdown; Stephen Belan, RAAF Base Williamtown, Thrustmaster Desert Eagle; Sgt Jane Harvey, JMCC Lidcombe Barracks, Medal of Honor: Frontline; LACW Sandra Read, DSD Orderly Room, Conflict Desert Storm; AB Michael Eslick, HMAS Creswell, Sunny Garcia Surfing; Les Thurgood, Mt Macedon, Deus Ex. Watch for more cross-platform features in the future.

For those at home, there are several dedicated Australian servers giving good pings so even 56k modem owners should be able to enjoy it, broadband owners will get the most from the Internet experience.

The publisher recommends a PIII800 (or AMD equivalent) or faster, 256MB RAM, 64MB 3D card, 1.2 GB HDD space and a Windows XP/2000/ME/98 OS.