Battlefield 1943 Review

[Shawn Zipay]

Battlefield 1943

Release Date: July 8, 2009 (Xbox Live), July 9, 2009 (PlayStation Network), September, 2009 (PC)
Reviewed On: PlayStation 3
Also Available On: Xbox 360
Developer: EA Digital Illusions CE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
ESRB Rating: Teen - Violence
PEGI Rating: 16+
OFLC Rating: M - Violence

Battlefield 1943's release is a very controversial one among longtime fans of the PC series. The name alone would suggest this is the official sequel to Battlefield 1942; however, the price tag hints we’re to expect nothing more than an arcade shooter that has very little in common with its predecessor. Perhaps this is due in part to the inclusion of a modified version of Battlefield: Bad Company’s Frostbite engine rather than the classic Refractor 2 engine credited for the breakout success of the series. Still, at a price tag of only $15, it’s safe to say that Battlefield 1943 offers many draws to console gamers who, to this day, lacked a true Battlefield game to call their own.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like...Victory.

The Frostbite engine is a marvel with its ability to render entire battlefields with crystal clarity while simultaneously allowing players to destroy the beautiful scenery provided with the help of a grenade, tank shell or airplane bomb. From the moment you turn the game on until the moment you turn in for the night, your eyes will be in for a treat thanks to the lush green jungles that mark the landscape of the Pacific Island-themed battlegrounds. Foliage sways in perfect sync to give the player a sense of wind blowing. Water splashes high in the air whenever a heavy object crashes down into the many puddles that dot the greenery. Heck, if you lob a tank shell into the dirt, you’ll end up with a hole deep enough for infantry to hide in. Battlefield 1943 subscribes to the, “If it exists, it can be destroyed” school of thought, unless, of course, we’re talking about indestructible flagpoles and flags made out of a titanium polymer.

I should also mention that the draw distance in this game is nothing short of phenomenal. You won’t have to deal with the pesky “fog of war,” known for plaguing each and every shooter since the conception of the genre. Sadly, even in spite of the long drawing distance, you may find it difficult to find people. The frontlines are ever changing in this game, and with such small servers, you’ll be spending most of your time running from flag to flag. While at first this may not seem like a problem, with every stage possessing a hilly landscape, traversing battlefield becomes difficult at best. You’ll often waste your time trying to follow an uphill footpath that leads to a cliff you can’t cross, or find yourself taking five minutes to circle around a camp just to find a way up a nearby ledge.

Tank, APC, and Anti-Aircraft warfare is also a major chore due in part to the obscenely hampered view for the Tank Operator and the horrific UI/crosshairs given to players who haphazardly hop into an APC or Anti-Aircraft vehicle or encampment. Rarely will your shots actually fire on target while the bullet drop on most vehicles is so far-fetched, you’d think the Army ran out of metal for ammunition and began firing misshapen stones.

Wake Island makes a return in all of its splendor and glory.

Not unknown to the Battlefield series are the persistent issues with hit detection found in 1943. It is far too easy to connect on an enemy’s hit box, even if I was aiming two meters away from an enemy soldier. This may seem like a good thing initially, until ironically, I happen to watch the bullet travel directly through the forehead of an enemy, while there is absolutely no effect whatsoever. I find it strange that you can fire a meter in front of your enemy while he is running diagonally, and actually manage to hit him. Though, if you happen to pull of a shot between the eyes, there is a chance he won’t even be dazed, making the erratic hit detection in this game both a blessing and a curse, depending on whether it’s helping or hurting you.

For a downloadable game at such a bargain price, you get quite a decent selection of music to accompany you as you wait for your game to load or as you slog through the lush jungle marshes of the Japanese Island of Iwo Jima or the Solomon Island of Guadalcanal. While normally barely noticeable, the variety of music is pleasant when you are paying attention.

What is noticeable is the complete lack of diversity among sound effects in Battlefield 1943. Every gun seemed to sound the same. Every soldier sounds the same when they’re talking with the only variations coming from the obvious language differences between the Americans and Japanese. Then there is the ‘phased’ noise that occurs when you’re close to an explosion; the booming, fuzzy noised destroyer of speakers. It became famous in Call of Duty 4, when it was accompanied with a gentle ringing – but BF1943 takes it down a dangerous road -- one that could destroy the ears of your squad-mates should you accidentally have your TV on too loud while talking to them through voice chat – when it actually works.

You may find playing a sniper more difficult than in previous games of the Battlefield series.

Sure, the PlayStation 3 has always had issues with Bluetooth. Battlefield: Bad Company still has problems with its VOIP even today, but BF1943 takes the frustrating experience too far. Every five minutes into a round you’ll find yourself without VOIP, without so much as a warning bleep to let you know. Apparently, the only way to fix this little issue after it cuts out is to either remake the squad or to manually restart the headset.

For a console shooter, Battlefield 1943 makes a dire mistake. The slow movement of the characters is coupled with an obscenely slow aiming movement as well. Even the highest sensitivity setting for Battlefield 1943 becomes comparable with the lowest sensitivity settings for similar console shooters like Socom or Call of Duty 4. For what is touted as an Arcade Shooter, Battlefield 1943 grows to be an ever-present pain as you’re forced to retrain your brain to handle the painfully slow looking and aiming motions, forcing your thumb to manually compensate for the lack of sensitivity by jamming on the analog sticks. Granted, this is manageable for infantry warfare; most, if not all, players will get used to this setup when holding a rifle in their hands. They’ll also make use of the lack of sensitivity by forcing their opponents to miss by strafing.

However, this issue is not so forgiving when you’re in the seat of a mounted .50 caliber machine gun found on tanks or jeeps. When in one of these mounted machine guns while the vehicle is moving, the complete lack of sensitivity will prevent you from stabilizing your turret long enough to actually hit an enemy. Consequentially, should the vehicle be stationary, you’ll be a sitting duck because it takes three shots on average to kill with the high recoil .50 caliber machine gun – as opposed to the 1 or 2 shots it used to take in prior Battlefield games.

This is my boomstick.

Would-be pilots will also experience the inevitable frustration from the lack of sensitivity, especially when trying to pull up from a tailspin or trying to maneuver out of the crosshairs of an enemy plane. Still, one of the things that Battlefield 1943 has done an excellent job of is capturing the sheer deadliness of a tailspin: if you don’t have plenty of airspace to break the diving effect, you’ll literally be straining on the analog stick just to pull up in time. Of course, because you’re moving so fast while in a tailspin, you’ll find it to be an invaluable evasive maneuver, if only because not everybody can pull it off properly.

Battlefield 1942 fans may notice some of the same frustrating features from the PC series found their way into 1943. The effectiveness of grenades and rifle grenades make the slow firing guns seem almost useless in comparison. Tossing a couple of remote-explosives onto a jeep, driving it into a group of enemies, jumping out, and then setting off the explosives is perhaps the most reliable and effective way to score a kill. Many Battlefield veterans will know this as the “Jihad Jeep” and in 1943, there are no server administrators around to ban them, so you’ll be forced to adapt. Finally, planes are by far the most dominant force in the game. Much like every other vehicle-based Battlefield game in existence; a skilled pilot will destroy everything else with relative impunity to all but an equally skilled pilot on the other team. You might even find it amusing to know that despite of the diminutive 24-man servers, it is still not uncommon to see a stray soldier waiting on the airfield, praying to his God that a plane will spawn, even on Coral Sea, the “Air Superiority” map.

Were this not enough, 1943 offers an entirely new array of problems that will irritate even the most hardcore of console shooting fanatics. Team-balance is a joke. Nearly every one of my games has ended with one team having nine players, and the other team having five or less. Auto-balance does exist in Battlefield 1943, but amazingly enough, it seemingly only switches players who are in squads. I can’t even count how many times my group of friends, and I had to quit out of a server because the horribly implemented team-balance repeatedly broke up our gaming. It felt as if there were Digital Illusion employees waiting for the perfect moment to push a button with the intent on preventing us from having fun playing together in a squad.

They may as well call jeeps the, "free kill delivery service."

Another thing that has persisted to bother me is the fact we’ve got less kits to play with. It’s difficult to understand why they only added a grand total of four guns. Then, with only four maps to choose from (Coral Sea was released), you may find it difficult to convince every one of your friends to purchase the inevitable stream of Downloadable Map Packs, just to be able to play together on these maps, turning the ever so attractive $15 into what I like to call, “a price to be determined.”

The only saving grace that makes this game even marginally fun can be found in the intense firefights when you squad up. When you do manage to make it to the frontlines first, you can almost always expect to be greeted by a half dozen gun-toting enemies. Sadly, it seems that even if by some miracle, somebody figures out how to bring up the squad menu, they’ll only use you as a spawn point before they run off to do their own thing. You may want to bring a friend or two if you really want to get the most out of 1943.

Somehow when playing Battlefield 1943, I get the feeling I’ve done this all before. Probably because I have. Battlefield: Bad Company and Battlefield 1942 offer what 1943 boasts, and more, despite being older games. 1943 offers absolutely nothing ground breaking, while it takes away almost everything that made both Bad Company and 1942 such enjoyable games. For a long time, console shooters have deserved a decent port of the Battlefield series, but I’m afraid that Battlefield 1943 just isn’t it. Now, I know what you’re thinking, at $15, Battlefield 1943 is a game that is too good to be true. Well, that’s because it is. After all, for only $20, you could get a used copy of Battlefield: Bad Company.

Graphics: 10/10
Audio: 6/10
Controls: 4/10
Gameplay: 5/10

Total Gaming Network Rating: 6.3

~Dairuka