Battlefield 1942 Expansion: The Road to Rome

by Electronic Arts

Product Features

• Battle your way through over a dozen realistic maps depicting actual war zones
• Real-life weapons and equipment are all realistically rendered in 3D
• Go online and take part in 64-person multiplayer battle
• Get behind the controls of 35 different WWII-era vehicles as you storm the beaches of Normandy, cross the sands of North Africa, or pilot a plane at the Battle Of Midway
• Transport troops into battle in an armored APC, charge through the desert in a powerful tank, or pilot a bomber over a drop-zone

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00007LVJA
• Item Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: February 4, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,387 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #12 in Software > Outlet
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

For fans of large-scale team-based first-person shooters, Battlefield 1942 scratches precisely where we itch. The game comes with sprawling maps, massive teams, and a huge assortment of player-controllable vehicles up to and including battleships, tanks, and fighter planes--all wrapped up in a World War II setting with authentic voices, phrases, and uniforms. To be honest, I didn't think that Battlefield 1942 could get much better. Being wrong has never felt so good.

The Road To Rome is virtually a Platonic example of what an expansion pack should be. The six new maps are set in Italy, and include the Battle of Anzio, Operation Husky (in Sicily), as well as conflicts at Monte Cassino and Monte Santa Croce. Most of the maps tend to be hilly, which makes for exciting play and presents great opportunities for surprise attacks. There are eight new vehicles, including a tank with two turrets, a large bomber, and a new APC with a heavy gun turret. The expansion pack includes a single-player mode with nonscripted AI, which is useful to practice against when you're learning the new maps and vehicles before heading online--but there's no question that multiplayer is where Road To Rome shines.

It's hard to identify any weak points in this expansion pack. If I had to nitpick though, the multiplayer network code, though improved, still remains a little flakier than it should be. And there are one or two maps that have capture points that one side or the other will be mysteriously unable to recapture once they've been lost. It would help if there was some word from EA on whether those points are set to remain uncapturable by design or are the result of a bug.

There's no excuse for any self-respecting Battlefield 1942 owner to not pick up The Road To Rome. It has more of the elements you enjoyed in the original, conveniently condensed into solid, CD-shaped form. RTR is a shining example of what an expansion pack should be. --Jon "Safety Monkey" Grover

Pros:

• Great new maps are both a hoot and a holler
• Tons of cool new vehicles
• Really, really fun

Cons:

• Net code could still use a little work
• A few capture points on some maps inexplicably seem to be unable to be recaptured once one side has them

Product Description

Battlefield 1942 is an exciting new expansion pack that brings you the experiences of a lifetime -- you'll enter the most crucial battles of the Second World War, and give your all to claim it as a victory! You can even take charge of a submarine or battleship for intense sea battles Enter a global conflict and decide the future of the world in this amazing adventure!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Upgrade to a Fantastic Game, February 8, 2003

By 

Philip Lochner (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Battlefield 1942 Expansion: The Road to Rome (CD-ROM)

BF:1942 Road to Rome (RTR) is a satisfying, well-priced upgrade to an already top notch multiplayer first person shooter.

Don't be put off by the seemingly few additions to the game. The 5+ maps, additional weapons, and new vehicles add TONS of new strategies, tactics, and of course replay value. You're not just getting re-skinned variants of BF:1942 tanks, planes, and fortifications - you're getting a whole new battleground experience that significantly alters the way you approach each objective.

BF:1942 has never been a strong single player game, and this expansion is no exception. Like the original, if you don't enjoy online gaming, this is not something you should buy. There has been some single player "bot" improvement in this expansion, but the game's forte is multiplayer. Gamespy Arcade is included but I would recommend to ignore it and immediately download All Seeing Eye for your BF1942 game matching. DSL and Cable modem users should stick to games with less than 40 players, regardless of Ping, or risk choppy gameplay.

This expansion (especially the vehicles) focuses much more strongly on teamwork. Many of the new vehicles are only effective when you have multiple people inside, each manning a position. When on a public server, finally you have a chance of NOT being ignored when you "Request a Pickup". Friendly aircraft camping is still too common, and some vehicles, such as the stationary artillery cannon, look great but have very limited use in most battlefield situations.

The maps so far are a mixed bag. All are interesting and have multiple and creative ways to conquer flags. I have noticed that most game outcomes lean heavily on the team that somehow grabs the most flags in the first couple of minutes of gametime. It's far too easy to grab a few key flags, overwhelm the opposing team, and then spawn camp until the rest of the enemy tickets count down.

At least half of every new game I've joined has resulted in this overwhelming inbalance - very different from the original BF1942 maps. The number of vehicles available in each map compounds this problem, and it's not uncommon to find a talented and patient enemy team constantly bombarding your only spawn point with two artillery guns, four tanks, and three bombers. It grows very tiresome to wait out a 20+ second respawn on a public server just to be immediately destroyed by campers - who you really can't blame too much, because they currently have no other flags to claim or objectives to meet. Additionally, many flags have a *very* small capture radius, and it sometimes seems like you need to practically wrap your legs around a flag pole for 20+ seconds in order to capture it.

RTR's aircraft have been significantly enhanced, while flak and normal hand-held gun damage to planes has been reduced. Most of RTR's aircraft seem to take as much damage as a BF:1942 B-17 bomber, thus making an adept pilot a ridiculously overpowered force. Enemy planes now do more damage to other planes, increasing the need for dogfighting.

However, a very common tactic is to continually bomb and strafe an enemy airfield, reducing a losing team's effort to launch interceptors to defend against the bombers. AA guns are also relatively scarce in the expanion maps. Unlike the original game, aircraft are truly a force to be feared. This may sound more realistic, but in the balanced, arcade-style gameplay of BF:1942 it doesn't work well. On most of the new maps, an above average pilot can just devastate the opposing team. Hopefully this inbalance will be addressed in an upcoming patch.

Many users have reported sound problems (Audigy cards especially) wth this expansion, and many sounds (and some graphics) have been replaced. Personally, I like the new sounds, but many others in multiplayer do not, and expect to hear them complain. Graphics remain fantastic, and although RtR does not play as smooth (or load as fast) as the recent, 1.3 BF:1942 patch, chances are it will soon.

Despite the above listed gameplay issues, you can't go wrong. It's a great priced, solid expansion to a wonderful multiplayer game.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an upgrade worth the $$, February 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Battlefield 1942 Expansion: The Road to Rome (CD-ROM)

I strongly recommend spending the [$$] to purchase Road to Rome. This is an unusually strong add-on for what is already a fantastic game. The maps on RTR are meticulously crafted and challenging; they are, on the whole, a more complete package than the set of maps in the original BF1942. Husky, in particular, is a blast--extremely balanced and conducive to intense play by both sides, making it very difficult for one team to quickly take over the map and dominate the other side. The 1.3 patch that comes with RTR (which can also be downloaded without buying the RTR expansion) is also a strong reason to buy--the tweaks to existing maps, weapons, graphics, and gameplay in general are very worthwhile.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars World War II in a box!!, February 27, 2005

By 

OverTheMoon ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Battlefield 1942 Expansion: The Road to Rome (CD-ROM)

** Get the most complete Battlefield 1942 Game with add-ons by choosing Battlefield 1942: World War II Anthology. If it is not available then you need to get the three games in this pack - Battlefield: 1942, Battlefield 1942 Expansion: The Road to Rome and Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII Expansion Pack that work out a little more expensive. Battlefield 1942: Deluxe Edition has 1942 original and Road to Rome. So all you need with the Deluxe Edition is to get Secret Weapons. To be honest the steepest it works out at is. The Anthology is $30.00 and is the same price as the Deluxe Edition plus Secret Weapons. Getting all three separately will cost you nearly $40.00 so get the best deal in bundle packs.**

Want to play the best war simulation? Go play the old Operation Flashpoint and pray that the spring 2006 Operation Flashpoint 2 deadline will be met with the best war multiplayer simulator ever conceived. Want to play a single player war game that matched the experience of Medal of Honour: Allied Assault? Then go play Call of Duty and get the expansion pack Call of Duty: United Offensive. Want to the play the best SWAT type tactical one on one? Then go get Half-Life 2 and play Counter-Strike. Fancy a futuristic sci-fi multiplayer with huge maps? Then get the latest Unreal Tournament. So what else is there? Well to be honest Battlefield 1942 is straight up probably one of the best multiplayer games I have played, but be warned, the simulation experience does call for infinite amounts of patients and the game is extremely buggy to install. There is very little good technical support except for what the community offers, updates can be patchy, people end up can't playing it, and it suffers from fatal spawn point easy target syndrome that has rendered many of the maps unplayable... however new maps are updated, but just don't expect the BF1942 community to be as responsive as let's say STEAM. The bottom line here is that even single player mode is not supported. The game comes pretty much as it is served so expect to spend more than a day, maybe a week, to get it to work on your machine with lots of google searches for your problem. The solutions should be found in forums troubleshooting guides. Be prepared for discs that don't appear to like firewalls, anti-virus checkers and other background processes. This is the game of games in terms of installation bugs and crashes. In short - Requires broadband INTERNET.

Single player like we said is not supported. Multiplayer is one big CAPTURE THE FLAG, but what a game of CTF! Problem right away is the lack of classes that looks restrictive but it is actually okay, with five types of soldiers to choose from - sniper, machine gun, rockets, medic, engineer... so it is closer to Team Fortress than Operation Flashpoint that allows full configuration of up to twenty classes. Having said that it does not reduce the impact of the game, but does leave the realm of simulation, deviating into more Unreal Tournament territory where there is very real possibility of just leaving your team behind and going on a frag-a-thon across the map. If you are into that sort of thing then maybe the more recent, but certainly not as good, Battlefield Vietnam, can offer you that type of solo bush mission multiplayer experience like Far Cry with lesser graphics, but if it is Pearl Harbor, Petersburg, German Forests, French Country, Operation Overlord, multiplayer style, where you can pilot lots of vehicles, and use a little team commands, then sir, Battlefield 1942 is really what you should be playing across that 1MB connection you got jacked into that modem.

So limiting by its nature of being a multiplayer only game, with a difficult install, that is quite old'ish by today's standards, still manages to provide the best World War II multiplayer entertainment you have ever seen with Operation Flashpoint beating it for realism and detail as a simulation, but this is the war game that people play online, and it still has quite a large community, meaning plenty of 60 (30/30) servers are still up and running with Battlefield 2 coming out sometime in 2005 (hopefully early) you can still live with getting this just because it offers world war II as you want to play it, on-line. I must say that even though I am an avid CS:S player, this one has stolen it for a bit. Battlefield 1942 really is worth it, after you get it running, and after you have the patients to actually play it like a solider ---- crawl for 2 minutes before sniping 3 enemy over the space of 10 minutes with guys above you on a score of 44... patients is the virtue while playing this if you want to win.... Or if you have the skill, grab a bomber and go drop some bouncers on a spawn building for mass kill. Personally I prefer to play to the sneaking sniper. You know I 0wned u. 

Pros:
- Multiplayer must-have.
- Fairly realistic simulation experience that you will play again and again.
- The only World War II simulation worth playing on-line right now.
- Good game engine. Solid playing.
- Replaces Operation Flashpoint as best on-line war simulation game.
- Really big player numbers of servers.


Cons:
- Harsh reality of enduring install problems and updates.
- Expensive.
- Needs broadband.
- Spawn points have exploit bugs.
- No voice-com.
- Not much of a team communication interface either.
- 2002 graphics... but still nice. Models need work.
- There is a bit of a learning curve.
- Not as vast as Operation Flashpoint.