Battlefield 1943 is an upgraded console edition of the PC classic Battlefield 1942. DICE is the publisher of this game and it is currently available for download on both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live… Now that the formalities are out of the way let me note a few things. If you haven’t played this game you might be thinking, ah man another WW2 game. Indeed this is influence by the dreaded WW2 genre, but don’t let that fool you. In fact, this is going to be the shortest review in the Koalition’s history. Not because Battlefield 1943 is a bad game, but because of how good and easy it is to pick up the sticks and get down to business.
Important things to note about Battlefield 1943 are the maps. In total there are currently four maps in the game for you to battle on. The maps seem kind of huge, but the distance between each base is more than adequate enough for mayhem and chaos to take place around every corner. There are a total of five bases on each map and up to a total of 24 players (12 Americans and 12 Japanese) can be locked in combat for Battlefield supremacy. For team and map purposes, your team will always be color coded as the blue team and the opposite team will be red. I thought I should mention this because for some reason I believed blue meant the American Team and red meant the Japanese team and that had me acting crazy for a few games. Don’t be like me and thinking your winning when you are actually losing…
As for the premise of Battlefield 1943 it is simple and right to the point. Each team has something that resembles a life bar and that bar decreases in one of two ways. One is capturing the enemy’s bases and the other is causing your enemies a quick and painful death. The main goals during playing Battlefield should always be capturing a base or defending a base as the points / life bar damage for doing either greatly overshadows running around killing aimlessly.
The weapon section is limited in Battlefield 1943, but it doesn’t seem to take away from the gameplay. Before every respawn you are given the choice as to what class of soldier you want to be. Infantry, Rifleman, and Scout are your choices. Infantry comes with machine gun and rocket launcher (great for blowing up vehicles), Rifleman comes with a rifle and grenade launcher (great for blowing up scattered enemies), and Scout come with a sniper rifle and C4 (great for defending bases from vehicles). Each class holds different uses that you may find to be beneficial depending on what kind of strategies you need to use, so it will be up to you to decide how to go about picking your class of soldier.
The vehicles in Battlefield 1943 are another story. They are bread and butter of the game. Battles can be won or loss because of a timely vehicle assault. Tanks, boats, jeeps, and fighter planes are all the vehicles at your disposal and ready to help you cause destruction. It will be up to your team to devise ways to use the vehicles to your advantage as just using them for the purpose of using them is not very effective. Tanks are great for attacking or defending bases, jeeps for long distance travel, boats for sneaking around bases, and planes for ultimate destruction. I’m sure you will have fun using them all, but here is a heads up. The developers say that those players who truly master the usage of planes will dominate the game. I usually stick to field of battle with a gun in my hand so I wouldn’t know about that. Maybe thats why I’m always getting bombed on at the weirdest moments.
Overall, Battlefield 1943 is a solid arcade game. The only complaints I have for it are things that I would like to see in the game. Nothing is wrong about what’s already in it. The sounds are good, the graphics look good, the gameplay is solid, and as the homie Bob Barker would say, the Price is Right. For $14.99 the value of this game is exceptional and worth every penny. It is sure to hold you over until that Activision shooting game comes out and takes over the very existence of online gaming as we know it…
