1up had a chance to play BF1943 this weekend at the New York Comic-Con, and they wrote impressions from a couple of their reviewers. Check it out:
Thanks to 1up for the article. We're getting a lot of previews from various big game sites today, so stay tuned to Total Battlefield for the latest!
It's rare to witness a publisher reveal a first-person-shooter that's exclusively delivered as downloadable content. At this year's New York Comic-Con, UGO's Russ Frushtick and 1UP's Tina Sanchez had the opportunity of checking out EA's latest downloadable game, Battlefield 1943.
Tina: The gameplay's easy to jump into, and is pretty addicting. As a newcomer to the franchise, I'm quite impressed with the "ticket" concept, while also having the traditional "capture-the-flag" objective. From my understanding, tickets (which both teams start with equal numbers of) are docked for each death and base you lose control over, and a team can never earn more. I particularly appreciate how a battle can continue even after all bases are controlled -- it will speed up the ticket-depletion process of course, but there's still an opportunity for redemption if your team has an excellent kill-to-death ratio. Is this similar to Battlefield 1942?
Russ: It's extremely similar to BF1942. If anything, it's like a simplified version of that game, since there're only three classes (assault, sniper, rifleman) versus the standard five. The new game does blend a lot of the classes into one -- the assault class is now equipped with a rocket launcher, and the sniper has demo packs to take out tanks. The simplification definitely fits, since downloadable games are usually a bit easier to pick up and play, but I think folks may be put off by the fact that there are only three maps (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Wake Island), which seems a little low for a game that could cost between 15 and 20 bucks. Especially since they're just remakes of maps we've already seen. The map we played today, Wake Island, had the same shape and spawn points as it did in the original BF1942.
I will say that the use of Bad Company's Frostbite engine adds the much-loved element of being able to blow gaping holes in buildings, so the developers are definitely working to add on to what the franchise has done in the past.<!--more-->
Tina: Yes -- I found myself blowing buildings up for the sake of laughing at my destructive powers. I also found it exciting to control a cluster of planes to bomb an enemy's territory. It definitely adds to the experience if you don't want to run-and-gun the whole time. Unfortunately, I had two big complaints about the game as it stands now; there's no kill cam, and at the end of each round, you don't know how many kills or deaths you had -- just "points" earned. So it will be interesting to see what kind of improvements DICE will make from now until BF1943's release sometime in June. At the very least, I'd hope the end-game stats will be better. And when EA finally decides on a price, I hope that it takes the lack of maps into account.
Russ: Yeah, there's definitely room for improvement, though 1943 fills a pretty large hole in the PSN and XBLA library for solid multiplayer first-person shooters, so I appreciate the effort being made. The element that'll really help push the title over the top is the ranking and medal system, which is something we didn't really get to go into. It's not pulling off anything on the level of Call of Duty 4 perks, but online stat tracking, and some sort of character progression beyond achievements and trophies would do wonders. All in all, though, the game shows promise and I think the simplified approach should get new folks into the series.
Tina: The gameplay's easy to jump into, and is pretty addicting. As a newcomer to the franchise, I'm quite impressed with the "ticket" concept, while also having the traditional "capture-the-flag" objective. From my understanding, tickets (which both teams start with equal numbers of) are docked for each death and base you lose control over, and a team can never earn more. I particularly appreciate how a battle can continue even after all bases are controlled -- it will speed up the ticket-depletion process of course, but there's still an opportunity for redemption if your team has an excellent kill-to-death ratio. Is this similar to Battlefield 1942?
Russ: It's extremely similar to BF1942. If anything, it's like a simplified version of that game, since there're only three classes (assault, sniper, rifleman) versus the standard five. The new game does blend a lot of the classes into one -- the assault class is now equipped with a rocket launcher, and the sniper has demo packs to take out tanks. The simplification definitely fits, since downloadable games are usually a bit easier to pick up and play, but I think folks may be put off by the fact that there are only three maps (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Wake Island), which seems a little low for a game that could cost between 15 and 20 bucks. Especially since they're just remakes of maps we've already seen. The map we played today, Wake Island, had the same shape and spawn points as it did in the original BF1942.
I will say that the use of Bad Company's Frostbite engine adds the much-loved element of being able to blow gaping holes in buildings, so the developers are definitely working to add on to what the franchise has done in the past.<!--more-->
Tina: Yes -- I found myself blowing buildings up for the sake of laughing at my destructive powers. I also found it exciting to control a cluster of planes to bomb an enemy's territory. It definitely adds to the experience if you don't want to run-and-gun the whole time. Unfortunately, I had two big complaints about the game as it stands now; there's no kill cam, and at the end of each round, you don't know how many kills or deaths you had -- just "points" earned. So it will be interesting to see what kind of improvements DICE will make from now until BF1943's release sometime in June. At the very least, I'd hope the end-game stats will be better. And when EA finally decides on a price, I hope that it takes the lack of maps into account.
Russ: Yeah, there's definitely room for improvement, though 1943 fills a pretty large hole in the PSN and XBLA library for solid multiplayer first-person shooters, so I appreciate the effort being made. The element that'll really help push the title over the top is the ranking and medal system, which is something we didn't really get to go into. It's not pulling off anything on the level of Call of Duty 4 perks, but online stat tracking, and some sort of character progression beyond achievements and trophies would do wonders. All in all, though, the game shows promise and I think the simplified approach should get new folks into the series.
Thanks to 1up for the article. We're getting a lot of previews from various big game sites today, so stay tuned to Total Battlefield for the latest!
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