Review by Craig on Sunday 01st of July 2007Battlefield 2142
You choose your profile and go into the server menu. You click on a server to discover that your version is incorrect. You exit and download the (hopefully) latest patch and start again. This time you have to wait for the game graphics to optimize as it's the first time you have run the game. Though it took a bit of time to get here, the results are worth it.
You enter the map, and all is well in the world at last. Except for the ravaging ice age and the walker (mech) that's just strolled by you equipped with missiles and what looks to be some sort of pulse emitting machine guns, mowing down several team mates at the flag point. The walker stands at the flag and, attempting to kill time while the flag slowly shifts down the flagpole, pans around and sees you standing there. He doesn't even bother with the missiles. 50 rounds from his machine guns leaves you and the surrounding area blasted to bits. You call out for a medic with your re-spawn counter ticking down but you know there is no medic coming. Welcome to the year 2142, you're on the latest release of the Battlefield series.
Now Before we begin...I will state for the record that I am NOT going to compare this game to any of the other Battlefield series for 1 reason. People either like BF2142 or BF2. It's kind of like the Guild Wars vs. World of Warcraft argument really, just not to such a big scale. Instead I review this game as a stand-alone in the genre of tactical FPS's.
So...GraphicsWell there's snow, lots of snow. BUT let's not be in the mind that just because it's an ice age all the maps are ice. The ice only covers part of the world so there is a chance to see other terrain as well, which means all the maps don't look strikingly similar.
The minimum specifications are:1.7 GHz processor
512mb Ram
Geforce MX5700 or Radeon 9500
Internet connection required.
Now I personally think the minimum specs for a game are usually a load of rubbish. A game cannot graphically flourish with such a low specification system. Low detail, jagged edges and no lighting effects are the result and in that case you'd get better results running Battlefield 1942 because it would probably look a little smarter AND run a lot smoother. I like to give the detail of a mid range PC that could probably be bought nowadays for sub ?300, the other is a high end system costing around ?1000. I had this game running a while ago before I upgraded my PC, so I'll use the 2 systems to give you ideas on what performance you can expect.
System 1:Pentium 4 630 - 3.0 GHz Skt 775
1 GB DDR1 400 MHz dual channel
Radeon x800XT 256mb PCI-E
IDE/133
Win XP Pro x64
System 2:E4300 @ 3.15 GHz x 2
4 GB OCZ DDR2 900 MHz CL4 dual channel
Inno3D Geforce 8800GTS 320mb
Win Vista Ultimate x64
System 1:Played the game in mid-high detail at a fairly competent FPS but did lag somewhat when scanning the horizon sat on top of the Titan ships (suspended in the air overlooking a lot of the map). I think the main bottle neck to this system was the graphics card, because when I overhauled my system I left the x800XT in for a little while before buying the 8800GTS and FPS on 2142 did not improve that much.
System 2:Plays the game at maximum detail with all effects on full and touch wood I have never received low FPS in game. I play this game still now and the graphics are brilliant considering it is a revamped BF2 engine (which has been out for a good while now). Light snow fall makes the scene ever more realistic and its impressive how quick the maps load considering the size and detail going into the game.
These graphics aren't necessarily what I would call next generation. There isn't quite enough shader work for it to be classed as such.
So how does it all sound?Well as soon as you enter the map you hear plenty of gunfire and orders being communicated via radio. The guns admittedly sound a bit pants sometimes, I think in trying to make them sound futuristic they've gone and made them like corny futuristic movies make them sound, unrealistic and plain rubbish. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that applies to all weapons but does in particular to one of the assault rifles held by the infantry.
Still you half soil yourself when you hear that dreaded artillery scream down on your location and duck for cover in the nearest building or sit by a med pack and hope for the best. The same applies when you hear the hydraulics of the walkers' legs charging its way down the road, it sends you dashing for cover hoping they really didn't see you.
On Titan maps the ships engines produce a LOT of noise and this can at times get annoying because it's SO loud. Pulling your headphones off when late night gaming causes you to realise just how loud you have to have the sound to hear radio commands and bullets hiss at your feet. The only music to play is at the end of the round or in the menu, which conveys a dark feeling with it, but chances are you won't notice because it's fast paced rotation onto a new map means your thrown back into the fray.
On conquest there is a level of ambient noise that makes you feel like you're in the middle of a battlefield, couple this with the sound produced by other players and it sounds so close to being in a real battlefield.
Now let's get into the game�
ClassesYou can choose from 4 different types of soldier.
Recon: Otherwise known as the sniper. Has a scoped rifle and is obviously best found perched in a sweet spot for maximum foot soldier annihilation.
Assault: This is your born to kill average marine who carries an assault rifle and also double as a medic with a healing kit and resuscitator (if you unlock it).
Engineer: Equipped with the ability to repair tanks and then destroy them. Welder repairs and the rocket launcher destroys. Though the rocket launcher isn't the greatest, like all weapons in the right hands it can cause severe damage.
Support: Comes as standard with a heavy machine gun that overheats with continuous use but lays down a good blanket of fire. Support guys can also have a shotgun for close range annihilation. They can also put down a small shield to defend themselves against return fire from troops when laid down.
GameplayBattlefield 2142 Both fast and slow, fun and yet boring, extremely difficult yet easy. All contradictions yet strangely they all fit into this game. Let me elaborate:
Fast and Slow: Now I say this because if you pick a spawn point close to the front lines you'll inevitably end up in the thick of it with the rest of the grunts battling away. But even then your closest spawn point may be a minutes' walk away and you get splattered by artillery the second you get there. Alternatively you may be at a spawn point and the enemy is trying to capture it, and it's the classic you vs. the world as a tank hovers over with 5 infantry running behind. You get killed. You spawn again thinking backup will be there, wrong you get killed. You spawn at the nearest spawn point and run to the other spawn point thinking people will have seen it being captured and run to it. Wrong. Each time you die is worth 15 seconds of game time waiting to respawn. 15 seconds doesn't and realistically isn't a long period of time. But when all you're doing is watching the sky or watching the team medic miss you (and revive the wounded soldier next to you), it starts to get a tad annoying.
Fun Yet Boring: Fun because there's up to 64 players on a decent sized map with tanks, some form of plane or futuristic helicopter that I just cannot pilot, or you pick a group of men to follow. Reviving your fellow soldiers stops the teams' respawn ticker from going down (each team has so many respawns left) and you earn points and medals for this and many other things. Pick a good sniping spot means you know you'll get some poor unsuspecting enemy infantry without his head after you've taken it off. But what happens when you're the attacking force and you're losing the battle before you have even begun to push forward? It gets boring, or more precisely it gets annoying. Lack of team co-ordination means a lack of support for big pushes and a lack of continuous firepower. The walkers are never available because some guy has sat at the spawn point for 5 minutes eager to drive it like he always does no matter what server he goes in or how long he has to wait. The map take several minutes to run from one end to the other and this can get annoying sometimes if u accidentally spawn in the wrong zone or you tried to get the vehicle that has just been taken by someone who wasn't willing to wait for some passengers.
Extremely difficult yet Easy: Find a snipers nest and use it, whether you have a heavy machine gun or a sniper rifle, the right perch gives you so much opportunity it makes the game a walk over. But at the same time to be on the receiving end of a barrage or machine gun fire from a seemingly invisible enemy soldier, and then finding him on the respawn is very difficult. Especially as the map is so large, it has a lot of good sniping spots to choose from. Similarly it's surprisingly difficult to put enough rockets into a walker to blow it up as they are nimble and the rockets are not guided. Call me silly but in 2142 to not have guided rockets seems a bit backwards. Perhaps it's for game play balance but I don't think it's the right way to balance it.
Game ModesConquest is the mode that is basically about killing and capturing. Kill their soldiers to make the ticker go down to 0 and capturing all the flags, stops them respawning at all and makes their ticker shoot down.
Titan is where you have to destroy the other side's Titan reinforcement ships by first disabling their ships and them bombarding their hull with ground based fire or boarding their Titan and destroying it from the inside. The other team of course can defend their Titan or counter-attack. To lower the shields you need to capture missile launchers on the ground. The Titans themselves are not defenceless and carry some decent ground bombardment weaponry.
UnlocksAs your ranking progresses you can unlock special
Single playerThe single player to my mind is useless. I have never played it and never will as games are so much more fun against people and not AI. But if you're not big on the FPS genre and want to learn when you buy this game, then it's a good place to pick up the basics, this can be done online as well however.
Storyline
In terms of storyline the game has little to none but this suits most of its players, myself included. People don't buy the Battlefield games for story. You don't buy Counter Strike Source for storyline and it's the same for this. But they do try at EA bless them. Included while the maps are loading are the basics of what happened at that map and details of how each side fought. The 2 sides are PAC and the EU. Both sides are fighting for the remains of land not ravaged by the ice age.
Pros/Cons
Pros
* Easy to get into in terms of game play. You pick up a gun and go!
* Good graphics
* Don't worry about story, there isn't one
* Good lifespan, as you never really complete the game, like CSS
Cons
* Titan mode brings with it Titan sound! Way too loud!
* No auto patcher and the graphics optimisation can take several minutes
* Can sometimes drag with maps being so large
* If you mention playing this to a BF2 fan they'll whine about how BF2 is so much better
ConclusionBattlefield 2142 A good game, worth a play but in order that I don't get hate mail and death threats I'll advise that you also try BF2 out. Decent graphics, decent gameplay for the most part and lack of storyline to have to pay attention to, make it sometimes fast and furious. Yet the true tactician will take his time, pick his targets and hopefully get a couple of kills before the enemy even realise where they are.
Still the game has those few points that bring it down the rankings as one of my favourites; this game is good entertainment but far from the best. Bigger (maps) isn't always necessarily better.
One problem is that you require an internet connection to login for the single player as well as multiplayer. But once again, this game is built for multiplayer so this is not, to my mind, a major issue.