Battlefield 1943

[ZK-MAT]

Anyone else into this? I got it this week (1200 points, about $20) and are quite enjoying it.

Impressions:

I'm a BF42 gamer from way back and was heavily into the organised clan scene. I knew the maps like the back of my hand and we even spent hours in TS practising and going through tactics so on the night it *should* go like clockwork. You know the thing, defence squads, attack squads, covering fire and plans A, B, C and so on.

This new version is also by EA games, so the actions and maps are the same, but things have been simplified quite a bit. Once again, like BF1942 there can be a fair amount of ground to cover, which I quite like.

There's only three classes to choose, it's easier to find enemies on the battlefield and it's harder to 'squad up' on a map of your choice. There's quite a bit of spray and pray, but patience and tactically firing is rewarded.

The maps are like when we had modded original BF maps on Forgotten Hope and XWW2, things are very familiar (especially the terrain) but the buildings are different, it seems surreal, like you've been there before yet you don't really know where things are. It's a real deja vu feeling.

The colouring is quite wrong. Very vivid and bright, bright blue sea, bright green grass and bright orange fire. Quite cartoony.

The environment is destructive though. Trees, fences, buildings, machinery. If it could be blown up it can be, and will continue to destruct over time. This means that a building can burn to the ground, and offer various degrees of shelter.

I am still getting used to the console control systems but are getting better, and enjoying games more as a result. Can't beat the mouse and keyboard though.

Planes. Yep, they are there. The old favourites, Corsairs, SBDs, Zeros etc. Simplistic controls but there's no comparison with simming control surfaces or reactions. The ones who get awesome on planes in this game would fail miserably even getting a plane in IL2 off the ground.

Summary. It could be said I have painted a bleak picture of the game, but to be honest, it's designed as a fun game, and you will have fun playing this, once you get over the "brightness" of it all (I loved the XWW2 mod maps that had mist and were dark and gloomy, to me that's war, not fighting on bright sunny days in a cartoon paradise).

I am unsure it will have the longetivity of BF1942, but for $20 it's a nice filler when you just want to kill things with a bunch of semi organised team mates. Also, being on XBox Live it's a fair bet that if you are killed by someone in circumstances that you think are dodgy, you can be assured that it's because they are better than you, not using anything to give them an unfair advantage.

Give it a crack. 1500 gamer points are at The Warehouse for $25. Although it's download only it's a third of the price of a new game, there's a trial version available, which simply unlocks when you have MS Points so you don't have to download it twice, it's about 600 megs.

My XBox gamer tag is Splattyzee if you want to add me.

[leow5263]

yup, ive been following this for ages before the realese, got it first day it came out, im also useing xbox 360 my gamertag is jim523

[AlisterC]

Glad to see you got it Matt, I've been playing for a few days myself. Some kond of gold sargeant rank so far I'll add you as well jim523, my gamer tag is A1pha Charlie (used to be flyguy76 - sorry Matt!)
Hope to see you guys online sometime. I hope to play this afternoon - I'm loving the Coral Sea map!

[ZK-MAT]

LOL Alister, I wondered who A1pha Charlie was and have accepted Jim's add. I went on last night and was pummelled. Bit depressing really lol.

[AlisterC]

Yeah, it takes a bit of getting used to. My first few attempts were pretty depressing as well. Last night however I started to excel at Coral Sea (depending on if my team were outnumbered or if my team were cr@p lol)
It's tough though. Even a tank can explode a shell near a soldier and not kill him. Yet the soldier shoots back twice with a bazooka and the tank dies. Odd to say the least at times.

[leow5263]

lol yeah, prob with these games you get into a game with Cr@p team mates

[pilot.masman]

thats when you find yourself a good clan with its own server and your fine mate

[leow5263]

QUOTE (pilot.masman @ Jul 18 2009, 07:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

thats when you find yourself a good clan with its own server and your fine mate

cant, only DICE gets the servers