A month or so ago, someone sent me a link to a game I'd never even heard of, from a developer who's existence I wasn't aware of. That game was Battlefield 1942. "Great." I thought to myself. "I see that someone else has hopped onto the World War 2 shooter bandwagon with both feet."

How good could it be? I mean, there's been a crapload of really, really good W.W.II themed shooters out lately, Medal Of Honor and Return to Castle Wolfenstein being the best of the lot. What could this new game have to offer that the others did not?

A month and god only knows how many hours later, myself and 8,000 other people are still playing the demo. On that one map. And don't seem to be getting bored with it, and there's not even too much bitching about the bugs. Now the retail game is out with so much more to offer. Does it live up to the hype and the hope? Read on for all the details.

Premise

Well, if you've ever taken history you know the general story. The Axis are evil bastards out to take over the world. The Allies are out to stop them. It's probably the coolest genre for games, partly because it's history and mostly because the Nazis make such magnificent bastard enemies.

Gameplay

1942 is a huge team based first person action/strategy game with a World War 2 theme. (Hence the name, eh?) So you're thinking, it's another Medal Of Honor..... Oh, did we mention the vehicles? :) The vehicles are what separates this game from every other military shooter I've ever seen, including Operation Flashpoint. You've got sea, air and land forces under your team's control. If it's in the game you can drive, fly or pilot it. You'll be fighting your way across a wide variety of landscapes, including destroyed cities, vast deserts and tropical islands. You'll play in every theater of the war, from the beaches of Normandy to Northern Africa.

Each team has access to five different "kits" (Classes) from snipers and assault to demo guys. Think Team Fortress on crack. Teamwork is paramount, as is a good mix of player classes.

There are several game types in 1942, the most common being Conquest. In Conquest:Assault each team has a certain number of "tickets", which can be reduced by the other team capturing and holding points on the map or killing enemy players. The defenders start with all the flags. The more points you hold, the faster the opposing teams tickets are reduced. Get their tickets to zero and they lose. If the attackers capture all the points they win automatically, regardless of the number of points still available to the defenders. Control points are captured by killing all enemy troops around them, and staying there for a few seconds until the flag flips. Your troops can then spawn in at that point and continue the advance. Once a player is near an opponent's flag, he "contests" it, so that no enemies can spawn there until they retake the flag, preventing immediate reinforcements. This makes for some very, very tense firefights around the flags as you wait for your buddies to get there and help you take it. There's also a respawn time, generally set to about 15-20 seconds, which gives you added incentive to NOT get killed. :)

Conquest:Head-on is basically the same as assault, but each team gets an uncapturable flag, and can only make the enemy tickets reduce by holding over half of the capture points on the map.

Capture The Flag: Get the enemy flag, bring it back to your base and touch your flag.

Team Deathmatch: Kill enemy players to reduce their tickets. Kill them. KILL THEM ALL!

There's enough variety of play in this game to keep everyone happily fragging away for quite some time. All of the gameplay modes are fun, but Conquest and TDM are, in my opinion the best by far. CTF... Eh. Tribes 2 or Quake CTF is more enjoyable.

Graphics

I dunno, I've been getting complaints from people about the graphics in 1942, and I frankly have no idea what the bitching is about. Sure, we're not talking a Quake 3 level of details and eye candy here, but then again we're not all trapped indoors. :) The maps are expansive and look great. The vehicles and models are detailed and sweet looking, dust sprays up from vehicles as they move across the landscape, debris explodes and scatters from shell hits. The whole game just feels very realistic, and the nay-sayers can go to hell. :)

Sound and Music

Sounds in the game are excellent, and very realistic. There's a few outstanding audio features in this game, the most notable being the "crump" of artillery shells impacting on distant targets, and the ungodly screaming noise that planes make as they come in on bombing runs. Oh yes... And the horrible sound of a destroyer pinging your sub with his sonar... Usually followed by the sound of depth charges detonating in the water around you.

That being said, there's a few nasty little sound bugs. Sounds just don't happen sometimes, most notably with the flak guns. Your footsteps sometimes sound like they're behind you for some reason. Your rifle shots sound like they're coming from another location. And sometimes (and this really sucks!) your sound just dissolves completely into ear shattering static. Turning on the hardware acceleration in the sound options seems to fix this for the most part.

The music is very well done on the load screens, and end match screens. It's got a really nice martial sound that reminds me of Rainbow 6 and The Rock. But it's pretty short, and doesn't loop properly. It just cuts off and starts again. I find that quite annoying, and I hear it a often on my slow loads. (The maps take a bit of time to load up initially.)