Battlefield 1943 Review-Times-Two (Xbox 360)

It’s baaack. The classic series has returned to its roots, with developer DICE digging up the old-school hit that was Battlefield 1942, dusting it off, giving it a fresh coat of paint, and kicking it out the door. While not much has changed gameplay-wise since the olden-days, it has been streamlined and honed to a needle-point, providing one of the most exciting, if not innovative, experiences available for download.

DICE, the developers responsible for the excellent (and under-appreciated) Battlefield: Bad Company, have taken the series back to the basics. Gone are the health-injectors and gold-rush modes of Bad Company. In their place is the tried-and-true territory gameplay that the battlefield series has always done so well. The game may have had a rough-start, plagued by server and connection issues. However, once these were ironed out, I was finally able to dive into the game and experience what is an excellent take on the series. The game has three maps, and although they are re-treads of maps from BF 1942, they have been refined to work with the slimmed down class-selection and player count.

Visually, the game looks great, running as it does on the Frostbite Engine. There have been some improvements since Bad Company, in that buildings may now be leveled to their foundations, rather than simply have their walls blown apart. The particle effects look good, and the explosions carry weight and fit well with the visual style of the game. What is most impressive, however, is the sense of hectic battle that the game elicits. This is achieved in by excellent use of a spawn-system that, on default, will drop you as near to the battle as possible. This keeps the battles focused, and makes one forget that the player-count has actually diminished.
The sight of plans flying about above as tanks roll across the dusty roads and riflemen dart in and out of cover is exhilarating. This sense of excitement is heightened when one realizes that it is players controlling everything, from the planes and tanks, to the bombing runs and flak-cannons. Couple this experience with tight shooter controls and constant, intense action, and you have an exhilarating thrill ride that is more of the same, but streamlined and honed so well that it ALMOST makes you  forget that it does absolutely nothing new.

Sometimes more of the same can be good, and in this case it is, but it’s still hard to shake the feeling that we’ve done this all before. This feeling pervades the entire game, and slightly dulls the excitement of the experience. Still, for 15 dollars, you can’t go wrong with BF1943.

Sebastian: Score – 4/5

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Battlefield 1943 is my first real experience with the series. However, I had played 1942 a little bit about 5 years back, so I knew what I was getting into when I jumped into 1943.

The experience can be distilled into one word, FUN.  It offers so many different play styles from flying planes to driving tanks or just good old grunt soldier combat.  The game excels with its laid back style, as you don’t have to be a serious player to enjoy 1943. Just get in there, hop in a tank and blow some stuff up. Part of what makes this so great is the destruction engine, which allows you to bust through a single wall or level an entire building. The game also looks fantastic and is very impressive for a 15-dollar downloadable game. It is, however, multiplayer only and there are only 3 maps at the moment, although more maps are on the way with one only recently unlocked by the community by reaching 43 million kills. That’s right kids, a FREE map! There are two game types. The main one is basically a “territories” variant. Capture 5 points on the map in order to defeat the opponent. The longer you hold those points the more your enemies slider goes down, sort of like tug of war. Once you enemy’s slider goes to zero the game is over and you load directly into a new map with the same party. The other game-type is “Air-Superiority” mode, which is a purely airbourne dog-fighting map.
There are 3 classes of soldiers to choose from.  First is a rifleman who uses a Rifle with a detatchable bayonet, and has rifle-grenades for eliminating foot-soldiers and small vehicles such as jeeps. Second is a machine gunner that is equipped with an SMG, a bazooka, and a wrench for repairing vehicles and beating enemies down. Finally, there is a Sniper with a Sniper-Rifle and a knife/samurai sword, as well as a pistol. Each of these classes feels very different and of course requires their own strategy.

There are some drawbacks though. The matchmaking is still a bit quirky and is sometimes unreliable. On the plus side, it is constantly being updated so at least DICE and EA are actually supporting the game.  Also the planes are a little hard to get used to, but when you do get a grip on them they become powerful weapons.

In the end this game is a great value at 15 dollars. When the matchmaking is completely fixed it should be interesting to see where the community takes this game. If you’re am FPS fan, or are simply interested in WWII, this game is a must buy. I’ll see you guys on the battlefield.

Rich: Score – 4/5

Overall Score:

Tags: 1943 360 Battlefield DICE Multiplayer Play Resume WWII xbox