Battlefield 1943

If you're not familiar with the Battlefield series here's a short run-down - Battlefield is considered by many to be the greatest series in online multiplayer first person shooters. The most popular titles in the series - Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 (the first and third) still get a good deal of playtime today, and were popular in their time thanks to massive player caps on servers, emphasis on vehicle warfare and the sheer scope of what the titles attempted. It was also notorious for what I like to call Battlefield moments.

Barely two minutes into my first ever round of Battlefield 1943 I experienced what I would call a battlefield moment. After spending some time on an AA gun I gun down a plane, swing around to find my next target when what should I see flying overhead but another Zero. Oh, and it's on fire. Oh, and it's falling out of the sky. Straight at me. Less than five minutes into playing BF1943 for the first time and I'd already narrowly avoided being crushed by a fiery ball of flame - a completely unscripted, dynamic event.

Of course, telling you that doesn't really explain the Battlefield 1943 experience properly - not to the full extent. The truth is yes - I'd spent only five minutes actually playing Battlefield 1943, but in reality I'd been sitting on my couch for well over half an hour at this point attempting to get into a game. And the reason I was sitting in an Anti-Air emplacement is because the ping I was getting to the US server was so horrendous that it felt only logical that I should use a weapon where leading the enemy is the focus anyway.

My first gameplay experience with Battlefield 1943 inspired my housemate to buy the game immediately. He walked in after getting home from work, stood in the lounge room yapping away about his day and then suddenly this happened. He never witnessed the half hour of pure frustration I sat through trying to actually play a game - just the get the hell out of here awesomeness of what went down at that moment in time.

And admittedly, since then I've had numerous other Battlefield moments. Like on Guadalcanal when I'm riding shotgun in a Jeep - we take off to capture one of the central spawn points and a sniper kills our driver just before he needs to take a very sharp corner or have us drive off a cliff. Or the moment on Wake Island when both sides are holding just a sliver of health left, either side could lose any second and a bombing run from our team turns the Airfield spawn point into a firestorm as half the Imperial Japanese Navy bears down on me capping the point - we win literally seconds later.

But none of this can eclipse the amount of frustration I experienced sitting on my couch not playing the game. The launch of this game was abysmal, and it truly inhibited my overall experience. What's worse is that the problems are ongoing - I still have issues joining games with people on my friends list, still can't seem to get onto a local server more than 50% of the time and when I do get into a game I still suffer random drop-outs. For no reason.



Still, the game has oodles of potential. You can see the game reaching for greatness constantly - the maps will be familiar to anyone who played Battlefield 1942, but with the twist of destructible environments. Rocket launchers, tanks and bombs from the planes (and the planes themselves) all do significant damage to buildings - hiding in a house will only keep you safe for so long now, especially when a tank is nearby. Walls in the previous titles afforded you basic indefinite cover from the scarier enemies - now walls afford you a line of site advantage while you run away. Fast.

The sound effects are put on show as well as bullets snap and whiz overhead, planes and tanks roar past and the Bay-esque number of explosions - planes explode, shaped charges explode, rockets and grenades explode, bombs explode, tanks explode - are phenomenal. The game's atmosphere expands phenomenally with the attention to detail added to surround and stereo sound - you'll want 5.1 for this game alone.

The class choices - while not as varied as we'd like - are fantastic for what they are. They're a simple and basic way for people to jump into the game. You can either be an assault guy (machine gun, bazooka, grenades and a wrench) a scout (sniper rifle, det packs and a friggin' sword) or a rifleman (semi-auto rifle, rifle grenades and bayonet). Some might feel they've dumbed down the game - to a degree this is true, but there's still plenty of strategy left in the title.

The other feature - the vehicles - translates well to the Xbox 360. The plane, tank, boat and jeep all handle exactly as you'd expect - though my Xbox 360 doesn't have a button on the side of it to increase the movement speed of a tank turret like my mouse does. What I'd really like to see is perhaps some extra transport options - even a gunner seat in the plane would open things up immensely. Then it could also ferry players directly into the thick of things.

Battlefield 1943 definitely has something for all shooter fans. Old school BF1943 will appreciate the map choices and the new ability to destroy what was once cover. New players will come to appreciate some of the best map designs ever all while immediately finding themselves able to compete against veterans. BF1943 is definitely worth a purchase by anyone - once they fix the fairly iffy matchmaking the game will be awesome. Also - I know it's not Pacific Theatre, but I want to see BF1942's Berlin!