A Bite Sized Battlefield
The Battlefield series has paved its way into the hearts of many PC gamers by offering large scale skirmishes alongside teamwork and strategy. This time, developer DICE has rehashed one of its older first-person shooters, BF: 1942, and bite sized it to fit at a $15 dollar price point.
The new Battlefield: 1943 sticks to the classic BF formula with its territories-like game mode. Several flags are sprawled out on one of the three current maps, and its your job to capture them. This is done by being near them long enough for the enemy flag to go down and your team's flag to go up. A level of suspense and risk is associated with every capture, because you're almost always in the open for that lone sniper to pick you off.
The class system from previous BF games have been consolidated into only three specific classes, each with strengths and weaknesses. The rifleman class is good anti-personnel with its semi-automatic rifle that can hit targets from a safe distance and its grenade launching capabilities. The infantry is good against tanks because of its missile launcher, but its automatic machine gun makes it more than useless against distant targets. And what would a first-person shooter be without a sniper class? The scout has a sniper rifle effective at long range, but has a pistol as opposed to an explosive secondary weapon. The two factions you can play as, the US and Japanese, have only a cosmetic difference. I'm sure hardcore players could find the difference between the two faction's sniper rifles, but the difference doesn't seem to have any game changing difference.
Battlefield: 1943 brings very unique elements to the table, especially at such a low price point, but one of its greatest gems is something you can't buy for it, and that's friends. This game becomes a whole new experience when you have friends willing to work as a well organized team. There is no better rush then getting into a carrier boat with five of your friends, sailing over to one of the islands, and storming the beach. That being said, the game is at its worst when no one is working together. There is something out there that some people like to call Battlefield syndrome, and you're going to see a lot of it. This may vary from match to match, but for the most part people only care about one thing, and that's themselves. Its strange seeing that in a team oriented game, but if you are five feet behind someone in a jeep that has two seats open don't think for a second he will wait for you. This is partly because of the side of the maps and the time it takes to traverse them, but the excess in which this is done feels like, "United we stand, and united we will all have to walk because someone took the jeep by themselves."
