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Battlefield 1942

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Battlefield 1942
Battlefield 1942 box cover
Developer(s)Digital Illusions CE
Publisher(s)EA Games
EngineRefractor 2
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh
ReleaseSeptember 10, 2002 (NA)
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Single player multiplayer

Battlefield 1942 is an expansive first-person shooter (FPS), set in World War II, developed by Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows (2002) and Apple Macintosh (2004). The game can be played single-player against Computer game bots, but most playtime has been in its multiplayer Internet games.[citation needed]

Battlefield 1942 combines high polygonal and high texture resolution 3D computer graphics with extensive gameplay. Players are able to fly World War Two era fighter aircraft and bombers, navigate capital ships and aircraft carriers, man coastal defenses, drive tanks and jeeps, control stationary weapons, vehicles or just fight as one of five classes of infantry. Some argued that Battlefield 1942 had one of the most realistic physics and game engines available in FPSs on the market when it came out in 2002[citation needed]; others however, find this debatable because of certain details. For example, tanks tended to lob their projectiles (which should have had a very flat trajectory) and target leading was arguably due to game and network lag rather than programmed physics.

Each battle takes place on one of several maps located in a variety of places and famous battlefields in all of the major theaters of World War II: the Pacific, European, North African and Eastern Fronts. While the combat is always Axis Powers versus Allies, the location determines which specific armies are used (for example, on the Iwo Jima map, it is Japan versus the United States, while on the Battle of Britain map, it is Germany versus the United Kingdom). The maps in Battlefield 1942 are based on real battles, but are not necessarily realistically portrayed.

Gameplay

The gameplay generally has a more cooperative focus than previous games of this nature, as it is not only important to kill the opposition but to also hold certain "control points" around the map. These control points allow players and vehicles to respawn as well as reduce the enemy's reinforcement pool if enough are held. Unfortunately, the gameplay suffered from some serious issues such as: lack of spawn protection, team killers/griefers, various map and engine exploits, as well as a lack of team play mentality from players on public servers. Despite these setbacks, Battlefield 1942 was one of the first main stream games to represent a dramatic shift in FPS gameplay mentality, from the "One Man Army/Rambo" mentality to a more cooperative, team orientated mentality.

In detail, the default gameplay mode, called Conquest, revolves around the capture and control of "control points" of the map; once a control point has been captured, it can usually be used to respawn from by the owning team. When a team loses control of all their control points, they are unable to spawn again. And if no one is alive, the team with no "spawn" points, loses.

Games operate on a round to round basis, a round can be won when one team has forced, through the killing of the other team's players, the other team to run out of tickets, or when one team holds all of the capture points on a map. A game cannot officially end until all players on the losing team are dead or a team runs out of tickets due to lack of control points. The hunting and defeating of straggling or hiding enemy forces offers an occasional extra task at the end of a round for the winning team. On rare occasion, with one team holding all of the available spawn points on a map and with a few enemy forces left loose, the spawnless team can manage to re-capture a spawn point and give their team another slim chance for a round victory. However, this is unlikely because the newly recovered forces will probably have fewer tickets remaining and will definitely have fewer resources available than the 'winning' team; typically in this scenario the stronger team's victory is merely delayed as the sheer weight of their tickets, team and available equipment (air power, extra tanks from all the owned spawn points, etc) is no match for the 'losing' team which probably has little or no resources. On some maps, controlling all available spawn points is impossible because it is configured to be a defensive map, where one team's goal is to defend as many spawn points as possible, all the while slowly shedding the enemy's tickets until they lose. Conversely, the attacking team's goal is to capture all of the defending team's spawn points, thus winning the map. Alternatively, the attacking team can attempt to slowly deteriorate the defending team's tickets by holding certain spawn points and not attacking in full force, thus slowing their own loss of tickets while the defenders also lose tickets. This however, is less likely to result in a victory than the former method of attack. Another map configuration that prevents total ownership of all spawn points is where both teams posses a permanent, uncapturable base (Battleaxe, for example); unfortunately these maps easily lead to spawn camping (the map Kursk is especially prone to this), especially after one team captures all the points that are capturable and the other team is confined to their base.

Spawn tickets also play a vital role in the success of both teams. Every time a player on a team is killed and respawned, his or her team loses one ticket. Each team starts every round with tickets in a range from 150-300 depending on the particular team's role that certain map (defense, offense, etc). Teams can also lose tickets varying on how many spawn-points they control, as a general rule, the less spawn points controlled by a team, the more tickets that deteriorate from their overall ticket score. For a team of 32 on a 64 player map, with 150 tickets, this means a little less than 5 respawns or deaths on average for every player if they hold their starting spawn points, in perspective, this can make victory a difficult task for inexperienced players.

Development

Battlefield 1942 was a development of the less successful Codename Eagle (2000) computer game which was set in an alternate history World War I. It featured single and multiplayer modes. The earlier engine had more arcade-style physics and a less realistic focus than its sequel. A fan-made port of the game to the Battlefield 1942 engine, compatible with the 1.45 patch was made though. In continuation of the series, Digital Illusions developed a sequel to Battlefield 1942 called Battlefield Vietnam. It has conceptual similarities to the Desert Combat mod, except that instead of present-day helicopters and tanks, it features Vietnam War-era weapons comprising the game's arsenal. Its new features include a new game engine that heavily uses normal mapping, multiple weapons for most classes, and new maps. The next game in the Battlefield series is Battlefield 2 which has a Desert Combat-like theme, some changes to gameplay, and an updated graphics engine. The extreme demand for the Battlefield 2 demo upon its release crashed servers around the world as fans flocked to download it. The Battlefield series currently continues with the future-themed Battlefield 2142.

More patches and maps may still be released in the future for Battlefield 1942, and a Macintosh compatible version of BF1942 was also made and released by Aspyr Media in mid-2004. A huge amount of content is available in the form of its many mods, with an unknown amount still to be added. With the release of new battlefield games, another full-blown expansion pack for Battlefield 1942 is unlikely. The Macintosh port by Aspyr Media, and especially the 1.61d patch which added full mod support, added a new influx of players as do the periodic releases of mods.

Gameplay statistics and player rankings

Main article: Computer game tracking websites

Player statistics and rankings are not officially colated by EA/DICE; however, there are third-party websites which have similar functionality.

Expansion packs

The creators of Battlefield 1942 have released expansion packs entitled Battlefield 1942: The Road To Rome and Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons Of WWII. Both add various new gameplay modes and design concepts. The Road To Rome features a focus on the Italian battles and Secret Weapons Of WWII focuses on prototype, experimental, and rarely used weapons. It adds downloadable patches, fixes bugs in the game, and it adds some extra content (such as the aforementioned Battle of Britain map).


Milestones

See also

Official
Other
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