Battlefield: 1942

Especially with the Desert Combat mod expansion! (Similar to Battlefield 2)

The "Battlefield" series has always been famous for its large-scale battles, vehicles, and freedom of action. I had heard and seen a lot about it over the years, but I only got around to trying it out decades after the franchise began. And I think that's exactly where the problem lies.

I'll say it right away - I wasn't impressed. Sure, there are some interesting mechanics here, but playing this in 2024 was, to put it mildly, a tough experience. I do admit - for its time, the game was probably groundbreaking thanks to the sheer variety of activities available. But that didn't help me much when I double-clicked the game's shortcut.

"Battlefield 1942" really does have massive battle maps. But they feel empty. You run... and run... and run some more. Somewhere far away a tank is already exploding, but there's no one around you. I'd occasionally spot a few teammates or a couple of enemies in the distance. The environment just feels deserted. I understand that back in the day, the developers probably didn't have the resources to fill the map with vegetation, landscape details, and other things modern players are spoiled with. So I've definitely concluded for myself - I was simply playing this game "out of its time". In the end, I spent more minutes running around than actually shooting.

For me personally, the lack of a story is a downside. Yes, I know it's a purely multiplayer shooter and no one promised a campaign. But as a fan of story-driven games, I would've loved to see at least some narrative here. But there isn't one - and that's fine, I went into this knowing what to expect. Just stating a fact.

The game does offer different soldier classes, each specializing in certain skills and playing important roles during missions. There's the sniper, assault soldier, anti-tank unit, medic, and engineer. Each has their own abilities and equipment. I enjoyed playing as the sniper the most.

There's also military equipment in the game - you can drive tanks or fly planes.

I understand the game is over 20 years old, but I didn't really like the graphics. I guess it's just that in 2024 I'm used to visual progress, but "Battlefield 1942" still looks pretty rough to me - even by 2002 standards. The models are simple, although the explosion effects look decent overall.

I started my acquaintance with the series from the very first game, but honestly, I was left disappointed. Yes, there are some cool ideas here, and I'm sure they were awesome when people played this together in teams, but in my solo experience with bots, the game just felt too empty. Maybe if I had played this in 2002, my impressions would've been completely different. But now it's more of a historical artifact - a game I checked out simply to satisfy my curiosity. It was interesting to try, but I didn't stick around for long.

5 out of 10.

There isn't really much reason to go and play Battlefield 1942 anymore unless you're nostalgic and got time on your hands. It's still certainly playable - it hasn't aged badly, but now that the Battlefield franchise has so many installments you're not really missing out on playing the game. However, immense respect is due. Battlefield 1942 pioneered the future of relatively large player counts in multiplayers FPS, and like it's successors offers tons of opportunities to play different roles and styles across different maps. Everything great you see in the large battle FPS games, had its spirit originate rate here.

A very fun and action packed game, BattleField: 1942 is a flawed but still entertaining game. The AI skills in this game are pretty bad. For your side at least. All of your allies pretty stand around doing nothing while you have to do everything. This isn't a particularly bad thing if you just want to blow off some steam and shoot up a map, but after a while it gets frustrating. The way that the maps are planned out and the strategic battle plans are organized are relatively accurate, but each map has at least one noticeable flaw in it. The weapons are relatively useless-it takes at least three machine gun shots to drop a single man, and an entire pistol mag to drop somebody. The tanks big guns are badly worked. When you fire it, the shell begins to descend as soon as it's out of the gun. The enemy forces tend to single you out as well. For example, your ally has a tank to your right and you have a pistol; the enemy would rather blow you away than go after the more powerful tank. I have been able to get past all of these flaws in the game and it is incredibly enjoyable. Definitely recommended for those who do not insist on complete historical accuracy. 8/10 For those who like historical accuracy (as i sometimes do) and a more authentic war and weaponry feel, i would recommend any of the Call Of Duty games.

Battlefield 1942 is not like the regular WWII FPS(First person shooter).

Single Play:

In single play there are 16 maps you can choose from: Pacific Maps:

Wake Island, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and Midway Eastern Front maps: Berlin, Stalingrad, Kharkov, and Kursk North African Maps: Gazala, Tobruk, El Alamein, and Operation Battleaxe Western Europe maps: Omaha Beach, Bocage, Battle of the Bulge, and Market Garden

Some have more Aircraft based fighting, some have more tank based fighting and some more ground troop fighting. Most of the maps are reasonably big, they feature hills, cities, water, bridges, trees and houses. You can concentrate on your mission or just go around racing in jeeps or doing stunts in your plane. You can do a wide variety of things, shooting, knifing, flying, driving, swimming, planting mines or explosives. The AI look very stupid as in the way they move there bodies. When they walk they often move there heads and arms all around making them look very dumb. You can set the AI on easy, medium, hard, or impossible. On each of the settings they move there bodies stupidly but are still deadly. They can strafe you in planes, shoot your plane down on flak guns, snipe you, plant mines and many other things. When the enemy AI come close to you they will crouch or go into prone. They are very accurate when you set them to hard or impossible. Graphic wise the game is OK. The terrain is very flat looking. You can usually go inside of most buildings but they generally look very simple. On my windows XP the BF1942 and runs very smoothly. One of its expansion packs "Secret Weapons" is glitchy on many maps. Authentic wise its OK. Tanks, weapons, and uniforms are mostly correct. There are some issues such as: The British have Thompson's as their SMG's and BAR's as their assault weapon when there SMG should be a sten and the assault weapon should be a Bren LMG. The US have a Lee Enfield as their main rifle when it should be an M1 Garand or Springfield. The Russians also have the Lee Enfield as their rifle when they should have Mosin Nagats.

All the weapons sound and look fine except the M1 Garand has the bolt on the wrong side. Tanks, planes, and cars are easy pretty easy and simple to use. One great thing about BF1942 is its is easily MODed and there are tons of mods out that you can download. I suggest this game if your looking for a change in pace from the COD and MOH Style game play.