World War II… In recent times, there have been several FPS’s based on events from The Great War. Battlefield 1942 is a team-oriented multiplayer game (e.g. Counter Strike) set in WWII where the action takes place across 16 maps, split across 4 areas: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, The Pacific Islands, and North Africa. You visit places as varied as the deserts of Gazala and El Alamein, the islands of Guadalcanal and Midway, Omaha Beach, and even Stalingrad and Berlin. The wide variety of maps and locations not only keep you interested but force you to come up with new and improved tactics to deal with different terrain. This game contains over thirty vehicles including ships ranging from destroyers to flotillas, airplanes, fighters, bombers, tanks, missile launchers, jeeps, artillery, all of which you can use... The list is endless.

Before we go on I must say this....This is NOT a single player game. Multiplayer is really the focus of the title. Unlike Medal Of Honour: Allied Assault, the single player component is neither too rewarding nor worth the price of the game. The major problem in the single player mode is the weak enemy AI. Even though you can dedicate more of your system's processing power to AI, it makes little difference. The game has no scripted events, which means nothing is predetermined. Unfortunately, it also means that both your enemies and allies run around with no apparent purpose in mind. At best the single player mode helps you to become proficient with the game so you won’t get die too much online! Multiplayer is where this game literally blows away the competition. There are three multiplayer games - Conquest, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag. Conquest is the main game mode, where you need to secure control points while minimizing casualties. Some maps require you to control all the points at once to score, while others only require you to control a majority. Maps vary in size, with some levels containing as many as six flag points to control, and others containing as few as two. Team Deathmatch is the normal free-for-all and Capture the Flag is where you….capture the flag! The Conquest mode is clearly the most fun of the three. Before you can play online, you’ll need to install a patch. Once the game is updated, joining a game online is a piece of cake. There are over 500 servers to choose from and if you use GameSpy Arcade, the action is only a few mouse clicks away.

You can choose between the Axis and Allies, playing a soldier from America, Japan, Germany, Britain or Russia. Once you begin, you'll have to pick a spawn point on the map and one of five "troop kits": Scout, Assault, Anti-Tank, Medic, and Engineer. Each of these kits gives your character different weapons and abilities. The scout carries a sniper rifle and can call in artillery strikes, the assault soldier has a machine gun with a payload of grenades, the anti-tank soldier hefts a bazooka, the medic can heal injured soldiers (and himself!) and the engineer can repair vehicles and lay mines. Each side starts out with a certain number of 'tickets.' Every death costs your team one ticket, so staying alive is the key. You don’t have to die for your country; you have to make your enemy die for his! You can also reduce your enemy's tickets by capturing key points on each map, denoted by either Allied, Axis, or Gray neutral flags. When one team controls a majority of these points, the other team starts losing tickets at a steady rate until they recapture a point and even it up again. If you're killed, you'll have to wait up to 20 seconds to respawn, during which time you can choose a new spawn point or change kits. Regardless of your kit, you can control any of the game’s vehicles. The transition between on-foot and vehicular combat is seamless. You can climb into a tank, blow up a few bunkers, hop out, get into a plane and take your battle to the skies. The possibilities are really endless. The developers have ensured that the different vehicles in the game are easily controllable. About the only thing you need to practise is flying planes. Once you master that skill, you’ll be a valuable addition to any online team.

BF 1942 is simply a great multiplayer game. Whether you’re acting as part of a team, working alone behind enemy lines or just fighting your own private war, the sense of immersion is total. Bombs explode, planes fly overhead, and bullets scream past your head as lie under cover. All this comes at a price, and the system requirements are steep. You need a real gaming rig to run this at decent rate. Unfortunately, this is an extremely buggy product when it comes to installing and running it successfully. Download the latest patch to smooth out most problems. You also have the option of buying the expansion pack, Road to Rome, which adds six maps, four vehicles, two planes, two guns and several artillery pieces. The best addition is the maps which add to the overall depth of the game tremendously.

• ULHIGHS: Amazing Multiplayer, Awesome Gameplay, Atmospheric Sound.
• LOWS: High System Requirements, Bugs Galore, Horrible Single Player
• NUTSHELL: Possibly Best Multiplayer Game Ever! Christof Rating: 90%

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