Battlefield 1943

Battlefield 1943 is a lot like Battlefield Bad Company; they both use the frostbite engine, they both have destructible environments and they are both great. The biggest differences between the two though are the little things that really make them stand apart, and as the owner of both games I can tell you that they offer enough differences to warrant owning both games.

Now, lets talk about Battlefield 1943. The game itself consists of 3 maps (as well as an unlockable one once the community reaches 42,000,000 kills), which are all based on islands and are different enough to make each map feel special. Each and every map is also massive, and would take minutes to travel from one end to the other, that is if it wasn’t for the well-placed vehicles. When the level starts, it does so with you either on land or a military ship, the latter situates a few stationary AA guns and two planes, which are very much a first-spawn first-served kind of deal. Then hanging off the side of the carrier are landing crafts that can be used to ferry people to the shore.

There is only 1 mode available to play, called Conquest, which has both teams fighting to capture and defend 5 strategically placed flags across each map. The more flags that each team holds then the quicker the other teams timer counts down, if the losing sides timer reaches zero then the other team wins. You would think that one mode would be limiting, but the truth is that it really isn’t, I mean sure there are times when a team deathmatch would be nice, but for the most part it’s easy to overlook as the core gameplay is just so much fun.

There are 3 different units to select from instead of 5, but they each have incorporated some additional abilities to make the game more balanced; the Scout has a side arm, explosive charges and remote, and a sniper rifle; the Rifleman has a rifle, rifle grenades, normal grenades and a bayonet; lastly, the Infantry has a BAR, grenades, AT rocket launcher and a wrench to fix vehicles. Each unit is well balanced, which is one of the benefits of the game coming from a well-known multiplayer developer, and if you feel like switching unit type at any time you can run up to a persons rotting corpse and switch class with them. There is also another element that makes the game more fast paced and that is the infinite ammo, and not just ammo but grenades, rockets, explosives and rifle grenades, you just have a slightly longing reload time but you can effectively play the game without dying and not having to worry about ammo.

The graphics are also nice and considering the entire download comes in at around 800mb’s, it’s fantastic. There are occasional pop-in issues but they are completely forgivable. You are also able to join as part of a squad, although I haven’t taken the function too seriously it’s still nice to have the option, but it does help when you are able to identify a good player and then see where they are situated on the map.

The planes, tanks and automobiles also make a welcome return and they are handle well, even the plane after 10 minutes of using it, although it’s power is fantastic, you still need to be a master of aerial combat to be useful with the thing.

Then there are also merits that you win throughout the game by completing tasks like killing 4 people with the rifle grenade, or being the best squad in a round. It doesn’t unlock any additional equipment or anything, but feels good that even this downloaded game has content that can compete with full retail games.

So basically…

It’s worth picking it up. It’s hard not to recommend this game as it does so much right, there are a few hiccups but considering that this game is about a quarter the price of a retail game, it’s a safe bet. Even if the reviews and videos don’t convince you, just check out the trial for yourself and you be the judge.