Customer Reviews

Battlefield 1942: World War II Anthology

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What can I say that hasn't already been said about Battlefield 1942?
The legendary MMOFPS that started it all packaged together with both its expansion packs doesn't only make good financial sense, but gives any war-gamer the one-box-stop to WWII heaven.
Playable online or over the LAN (other than the single player option) this game pits you against some of the biggest war-machines ever produced by mankind. And not only does it let you fight against them, but USE them. Every single vehicle in this game is playable. Jump in an artillery gun and blow up an incomming tank, then jump into an AA gun and bring down some enemy planes...but it doesn't stop there! jump in a plane, fly to the enemy base, bomb it to the ground, parachute down, grab one of their tanks and blast your way back out...did I mention the naval combat? including everything from aircraft cariers, to submarines, this game covers EVERY aspect of the legendary war, the likes of which will never be wittnessed again...and it leaves NOTHING to the imagination.
A definite 5 stars, hands down.

I play this game all the time i can. Its an incredible WW2 experience that spans so much territory with such incredible arsenals it has quickly became my favorite game. I first played it at my friends house on the original games and the next day i went out and got myself the anthology. Its perormance demands do however tend to be a little high as i have had to seet my graphics to nearly as low as possible to avoid lag and the game still looks incredible. Some of the actual gameplay problems include that though the game is designed for coordinated play whether in single player or multiplayer it doesnt always work like that. For example in single player, bots tend to run over thru fields while tanks drive right at them; another problem with bots is that they ttend to jump into vehicles and start moving with no one else in them. this is even true with multi player as people are to impatient to wait for otheres to get in 2 seater planes and such. Its like a seperate battle with teamates to get a vehicle. Coordinating artillery with stubborn teamates can be quite frustrating as well. Another thing that bugs me is that the vehicles dont have proper armor statistics; for example: if tou take an allied M3 light tank and attack a German Tiger and hit in front a few times youll destroy it however in real life to pull off an M3 taking down a Tiger it would have to get behind it or hit the treads or belly and even then it would be a suicide mission probably. Last thing ill talk about is that some vehicles dont have proper seating room like the sherman only holds 2 people when in reality its crewed by 5. That is probably whilepeople like driving tanks they dont want to be the fifth crew member who just reloads the gun. All in all this game is great for FPS lovers.

Though I am not a gaming fanatic, I occasionally get dragged from friends to internet-gaming places where I play the noteworthy games of that current period (Counterstrike, Medal of Honour, Starcraft etc). Having discovered Battlefield 1942 in the summer, I can truly say that I have spent many nights in internet-gaming places playing this, rather than actually 'going out.'

I must stress that Battlefield is an excellent game to play with friends and honestly, you will lose your track of time playing it. However, I find that I can never play alone in the freedom of my house, particularly because the single-player gaming is tedious and lacks real huma challenge. Capturing bases and sustaining them becomes a lot more easier, and thus a lot of the fun is missed.

The reason for the 4 star rating is though Battlefield 1942 is excellent, I feel the additions of 'Road to Rome' and especially 'Secret Weapons of WWII' are lacking. 'Road to Rome' offers several extra maps where you can play as an Italian in the role of the axis, and the missions are accurate portraying Italy's geographical circumstances. 'Secret Weapons' offers few extra maps that hardly warrant an additional gaming release and could have been introduced as patches. There are no new weapon additions (simply Italian variations), AI is still weak (playing at 80% is a pece of cake, while 100% is impossible), and bugs still exist.

To conclude, the game though is my definite favourite of an array I have played for LAN gaming. The two additions are ok, but will not offer you many extra hours of 'renewed' gaming time. Battlefield Vietnam and Desert Combat have added to tweaking the game, since it perfectly adapts to its historical setting and years of scenario.

The fundamental base has been set with 'Battlefield 1942'. Spoilt customers can only expect surpassed quality and perfection with the launch of Battlefield 2.

Amazing, absolutely amazing. I haven't even had a chance to play it online yet, and I still think it's amazing. From some of the reviews I had read about BF: Vietnam, I wasn't sure how the single player version was going to be, but I have to tell you, it's wonderful. I played through the Allied campaign in a little over a day, and I'm still fighting my way through the Axis campaign. (I haven't even made it to the expansions yet. Wow I'm entertained...)

This is the most incredible game I have ever played!Get in a jeep, race to an enemy base, grab a panzer, blast the Germans away, hop in a plane, bomb their base, and get back to your base. Watch an enemy shell curve towards you-and eternity. Definitely the most intense game I have ever played. The AI are pretty good, although they can be a little annoying, like hopping into a tank or plane before you, etc.
The maps are in some cases oddly similair to Day of Defeat, but far better. Although I'm running on a high end system, I have lag, but I think it's my keyboard. This is like going into a store and getting all the toys for free, but these REALLY BLAST!There is also no blood and gore, except when your tank blows up and you go flying into the air, but even then there is no gore. The Secret Weapons and Road to Rome Expansion packs are pretty good, particulary the Secret Weapons, so neat. If you get Road to Rome you MUST look at Mote Cassino, incredible map. The best feature,though,is that THE AI ARE NOT SCRIPTED!!!!No more boredom! Definitely worth the money.

Is to play it as a multiplayer online game. The single player game is worthless unless you're practicing how to maneuver the vehicles or fly the planes. I've played the game for probably a thousand hours over the last couple years and had a blast doing so. It's great to play with a few friends and use team tactics against other people. If you don't enjoy large scale multiplayer battles against other folks, don't buy this game. The icing on the cake are the great mods such as Desert Combat and Galactic Conquest. The above multiplayer comment holds for those as well. Another thing to note, this game will also aggravate you to a great degree if you aren't running it on hardware that can support at least the medium or better frame rate requirements. When the action gets intense, things will get choppy and you will get killed by people with better connections/computers. I've only played it over a cable modem so I'm not sure how the gameplay is over modem. An Athlon 1700+ with 512mb mem and a GeForce 4 4200ti were good enough for the medium settings but I observed slow down on the larger maps to the point that the game was effectively unplayable when many events were occuring at once. When I say unplayable, I mean you get frameskipping and lag that will get you easily killed. Otherwise, Battlefield has been a staple of my regular gaming and will continue to be so for some time to come....or July, when Battlefield 2 comes out ;)

great game even in 2011. I can say i will play this almost forever just because its a REAL battlefield game and not call of duty battlefield.

Battlefield 1942, although very old, is only of my all time favorite games. It is definitely my favorite FPS, if you can call it that. Although there is quite a bit of first person shooting going on in this game, It can easily become a flight simulator, a tank driving game, or even a ship simulator. Its quite rare now-a-days to find a game such as this. BF3 brags about having air battles and tanks! It seems like the game industry has lost sight of BF1942, as this game have everything from jeeps, to P-51s, to tanks, to battleships even aircraft carriers and submarines. This game is not just a land-based run in and shoot everyone game. To win it will take teamwork, and combine-arms action. A good pilot can win a game, but a good AA gunner can counter him easily. This game Is just amazing, looks great even if the graphics are old, and is epic in scale. No other game I know of has maps the size of this game. For those of you looking for a different game, but one with familiar FPS aspects, look no further.

Overall a very good and fun game. The graphics are quite dated compared to the newer games. Have not had much luck controlling the aircraft - even with a joy stick. The tight maps on single player are restrictive for aircraft. Also, on some of the desert scenarios - hard to determine where to press the attack. Overall very enjoyable.

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.