GOONL!NE

Developer: DICE
Publisher: EA Games
Also on: Xbox Live Arcade [Xbox 360]
Console Played on: PlayStation Network [PLAYSTATION 3]
Release Date: July 8th [XBLA], July 9th [PSN]
Age Rating: PEGI 16

When I tweeted this past week on Twitter, one of my followers (who happens to be staff for TheSixthAxis) said that I just grab a piece of paper and write “Battlefield is awesome – *insert score here* or something amongst them lines and then post it. While that wouldn’t be right, did our mutual friend have a point by saying “Battlefield is awesome”?

First lets get into the specfics about the game. You pretty much hit Quick Match and your away as you get randomly thrown into one out of three maps in the game which sees the US vs Japan during World War II, leaving you with the choice of either Rifleman, Scout or Infantry as your classes (you can choose your class again as you respawm) and your away. If you respawn on the carrier ship and look to get across to the main area of battle, you do have the option of gunboats and battle planes as well as jeeps and tanks once on the ground. As well as the three maps mentioned, there will be a fourth map in the game, known as Coral Sea, which is unlocked once both PS3 and 360 versions of the game rack up 43 million kills each (although make no mistake, there ain’t no cross platform gameplay).

All there is on the menu is Quick Play as well as leaderboards, meeting up with your friends and setting up a private room with your friends, although there are no clan support for the game itself which may piss off a lot of clans looking to do battle in the game, although you do get the abilities to invite your friends into matches as well as make your own private room and join/create your own squad in battle, but that’s it.  In battle, you get infinite ammo and regenerative ammo as the game only has one mode, which is a clash of Territories and Team Deathmatch.

Capture all 5 spawnpoints with each spawnpoint captured worth 30 points, but even that doesn’t end the match, continuously kill the other side as their respawn tickets just goes down and down without territories to spawn at.

Each class only has a selection of 2 weapons that cant be changed from menus, if you wanna change your weapon, just pick up one from a fallen comrade with a simple press of O. Rifleman has his Rifle and his bazooka launcher, Infantry has a sub-machine gun and rocket launcher and Scout only has a Sniper Rifle and handgun, all of which is all well and good but even then, a bit of customisation with the weapons wouldn’t be a bit of problem now, would it?

As well as what you have on you, there are also AA guns stationed all across all three maps that are available from the bat, designed to shoot down them sky planes from the sky.

The way the maps are designed in BF1943 is done nicely by keeping apart everyone and avoiding everyone piling up into the one spot shooting the fuck out of each other, sort of similar to the system done by Insomniac Games when they released Resistance 2 last year, the only difference is that in Battlefield 1943, your all going for the same objective compared to Resistance 2 when you were going for several objectives and not 1.

Speaking of lag, since we got the PSN review build on Wednesday, 24 hours before release on the PlayStation Store, I have experienced little lag whatsoever from the game. Either way, nothing on the scale the XBLA version has been suffering anyways, but as a precaution, DICE have added extra servers to each version to up the load for the game at the one time.

With Battlefield 1943, what you see is what you get. Of course we wont complain, it is quite good for a game priced at £9.99/1200 MS points. It’s layed out well on the front menu, presented nicely, graphics that are near enough similar to those seen in Battlefield: Bad Company (certainly in terms of destruction anyways). But you also get them n00bs, always looking to get the best toy in the game, which happens to be planes on the carriers. Good news however, there is no friendly fire in the game and there planes scattered about the map as well as carriers so everyone can get their turn. But when your standing there like an idiot, camping for that plane, makes you a big target for snipers.

Then again, should it really be a surprise this way? As well as that, just two factions, 3 maps, one mode. If this was £20, you’d be feeling a bit short-changed, but for what it is worth, you do get your moneys worth with Battlefield 1943.

As far as rewards go in the game, you do get your natural awards system on yoru console like Achievements or Trophies as per normal, but that’s it. No perks, no new weapons when you go up a rank. Just the rank, a award like a stamp and your trophy, depending what it is you’ve done to unlock said reward.

Final Thoughts: While there are a couple of things that do particularly annoy me, especially the ability not to make public rooms, Battlefield 1943 is still a fantastic deal and is, so far, this year’s bargain of the year so far. It’s no Orange Box in terms of value, but you do get your money’s worth for the game.

Gameplay is rough and tough, it takes no prisoners for granted, graphics are near enough on par of those of BFBC. We cant recommend this game enough.

Gameplay -8: It can get frustrating while playing sometimes but thats not a technical fault, it’s seriously fast paced and anything can happen. Brilliant.

Graphics – 8: Near enough on par with those of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, they are anyways destruction wise. They do stick out a bit with texture pop-outs sometimes, but that only happens very rarely.

Sound – 7: Not much there, just one music title (the theme), plus chatter on the radio at the end of the match, very little dialogue in English and Japanese, but there is some decent and authentic gun sounds which are from their respective weapons.

Overall – 8: You’d be pretty hard pressed to award Battlefield 1943 any less then a 8. Despite a couple of things, Battlefield 1943 is certainly the great bargain of 2009 so far. Miss this at your peril.