What the game amounts to, is a virtual battlefield of base taking, and cutting off supply lines. There is more strategy involved in BF1942 than most multiplayer games to date. For example, to earn your spawn point, you have to physically capture the base itself before you are allowed to spawn reinforcements in that area. Each map usually has about 3-7 bases in which you have objectives not only to capture those bases for reinforcements, but also to win the scenario. Points are earned on the basis of killing players, and capturing those supply points. The more you kill, the more you capture, the more bragging rights you get at the end of a mission, where it displays the top 3 players in that scenario. However, with all those weapons and vehicles, come unique and hilarious ways to kill others. For example, watching an engineer place in explosive on a bridge, and detonating it at the same time a player drives over that area with a jeep. The explosion, watching a jeep fly 50 feet into the air one way, with the player going the other, is a sight to see. But that's only one example. Players are making their own home movies of hilarious comedy as we speak, one including the best stunts of BF 1942 where I actually saw a B-17 land on a bridge. One even includes a rap song with Eminem. HA.

Gameplay
The gameplay and netcode of 1942 stumbled at first. At times, I would just drop for no reason, and quite a few others are still having some problems even after two multiplayer patches. What causes this is more client side than anything, but if you see some people moaning about it, you can rest assured they probably just have some client side system bugs to work out. So what makes this game the talk of the town besides the cool weapons? The fragging of your friends? Of your enemies? Of your loved ones?

When I first plugged this in, I was hoping for at least a couple single player scripted missions. Mind you, I just got done playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for the 8th time. But they could have least threw a couple things in there that would have made this game appeal more to the single player. Mind you, this game rocks your house in Multiplayer. But there is something that I love about being able to plug in a game and follow a decent storyline. One of these days, we are going to see the versatility of Battlefield 1942, and the single player campaign of Medal of Honor, mixed into the same game. Hopefully, the World War II theme will not be wore out by then. God knows, I do not think I can ever get sick of it.

Conclusion
Until that day comes, if you are looking for some hilarious action in the World War II genre, look no further. This game will keep you hooked and addicted like no one's business. The versatility and fun of just controlling all those weapons and vehicles alone, is worth the price of admission. And while the single player campaign, if you could even call it that, has you fighting AI bots doing the same thing you would be doing in multiplayer, the latter more than makes up for the fun. It's a great investment as far as a dollar to play value. As far as system specs, this game ran flawless with high details on an Athlon 1.4, 512 Megs PC2100 DDR, And a standard Geforce 3. Those types of computer systems are cheap these days.

If you have anything less, you can always turn off a few options. In the meantime, anything more, and you will be able to get away with cranking ansiotrophic filtering and AA, and notice the games beauty. Oh, and do not worry, for all the hardcore BF 1942 lovers, there is already an expansion in the works. Featuring new maps, vehicles, and even more enhancements to make the game more exciting.

Game: Battlefield 1942
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Author: Mike Nelson
Date: December, 2002
Best Price: 23 USD at Guru3D.com Pricewatch