Battlefield 1943: World War 2 needs you!

Well if you are a Battlefield fan like me, then you would have been salivating at the prospect of more FPS goodness thanks to the nice people of DICE. Released as a downloadable game only, via PSN and Xbox Live, this game provides excellent value for money at approximately £10.

It is an online only game so you will need a broadband connection to download AND play it. Compared to previous Battlefield games this is only small with 3 maps and 3 classes of soldier. But this does not in anyway detract from the fun.

Set in 1943 on historic battle grounds, such as Iwo-Jima, the choices of weapons are limited. No mortar strike. No assault rifles. Just basic 1943 style rifles and machine guns which suffer badly from recoil. This will test your accuracy and skill! Luckily for me I’m a camping little sod with my sniper rifle so it doesn’t matter all that much.

One new addition, due to the lack of helicopters in 1943, is the addition of fighter planes. These are extremely difficult to master. But once you have your first kill the memories of numerous crashes you have suffered will fade away and be replaced with a sense of deep satisfaction. My one complaint about the planes is the near zero blast radius of their bombs. Unless you drop the bomb on an enemies head then the effect on near by enemies is minimal at best.

The Coral Sea Challenge that is being advertised sounds like fun on the surface. When the community racks up a total of 43 million kills a new map is released. However, this map is an air supremacy only map. I would’ve liked another ground map to be added and was disappointed to find out that it wasn’t. As much fun as the game is, unless more ground maps are added the game is in danger of becoming stale and boring more quickly than is deserves.

Clearly this is only a little side project from DICE to wet our appetites in anticipation of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. It looks nice and plays well. One of the better value for money downloadable games out there currently.

Could be more if more maps ground maps become available.
Score: 7/10