When Battlefield Bad Company released it sparked new interest in the series particularly because of its new engine, the Frostbite engine, created by the developers at DICE. The game garnered a lot of attention thanks to its characters and story that pulled you in and kept you around waiting for you to blow everything up. The series itself has been known for its multiplayer offerings and has been delivering on that front for many years. In Battlefield 1943, the game pits Imperial Japanese forces against the might of the American military. You’ll be fighting in the Pacific jumping from island to island capturing as many villages as you can to declare victory for your team.

Gameplay

There isn’t much of a learning curve when it comes to the Battlefield series. Basic control functions are easy enough to figure out and you should be fighting for your life in no time. Most of the features in the game will feel at home to Battlefield veterans, there is a reinforcement bar at the top of the screen based on the amount of players in the game. As you die and respawn the bar goes down and when the bar is depleted the game ends. Each game is decided by player count or by your team capturing all the flags on the island. Every map has 5 capture points and you and your squad mates have to work together to capture all of them while defending them at the same time from the enemy. To make things interesting there are 3 different skill sets you can choose from before you spawn in the match. You have Riflemen, Infantrymen and the Scout and this works for both teams.

The Riflemen carries your standard rifle with a grenade launcher equipped and several grenades. Your Infantrymen carries a small submachine gun with rocket-propelled grenades as well as a wrench to fix broken vehicles. The scout is equipped with a sniper-rifle, pistol, sword and remote explosives. Though you’ll have access to an unlimited amount of ammo you still have to reload your weapon based on the amount of ammo you have on you. You can spawn near your friendly capture points which shift the action constantly. You have to think on your feet quickly otherwise you’ll be killed almost instantly. The bonus to the game is the ability to fly planes and take off from either your base on land or off the battleship which is not too far off shore. Controlling the planes is rather an interesting experience. The planes take advantage of both control sticks and it should be noted that you are better off switching to third-person view when you’re in the air. With the planes, you can drop bombs on your unsuspecting enemies and even dogfight for control of the air. Be careful, anti-aircraft weapons are on the ground and your enemies will be taking advantage of them so don’t be surprised if you get shot down. Make sure you get enough practice with those planes, otherwise you’ll find yourself scrutinized by your teammates.

The options looking at the grander scheme of things are limited. You don’t have a single-player campaign to introduce you to anything and only two multiplayer modes. 1943 is a pure downloadable multiplayer experience. The game supports up to 24 players and if you are able to gather 16 of your friends you can easily form up a private match. Outside of that you’re only option is to jump into the public matches. The game doesn’t exactly shuffle its options for you and with 3 maps, you’ll likely be seeing the same map during the next round. When you’re inside the maps, players can join up into squads of up to 4 to help in battle. What this also helps with is the ability to spawn with your squad mates in battle and receive special bonuses for helping out fallen friends. You can even select certain objectives for you and your team to make a run for. Achievements are limited but the game does have its own reward system and ranks you based on experience as you level up. The ranking system, however, doesn’t exactly provide any advantages or bonuses.

During the first 3 days of launch, the game was greatly hindered by server issues. Though, thanks to care from the developers, those have been fixed and you should be able to find a room quick enough instead of having to wait for an hour before getting into a match. Also amazingly, during the first week, the game surmised a kill count of 43 million unlocking a special 4th aerial map with unique variants making for a dog fighting special event. Each map has an air-raid bunker that allows you to call in for an air-raid to drop bombs and give for massive damage on the enemy and even eliminating an entire village leaving to being a pile full of flaming rubble. You should know that your main bases can’t be captured so you’ll always have at least one spawning point and it’s just a matter of fighting for control of the others. It’s easily safe for novices to take in the game considering its regenerative health, though that is balanced out by how easy it is to get killed with no help thanks to the long reloading times.

Marking players with red or blue icons on the top of your head makes it hard to coordinate ambushes and park yourself in a sniping position. Though it does help when you’re on the crowded battlefield just running in guns blazing. Outside of its problems, Battlefield 1943 is an easy game to get addicted to and you’ll find yourself wondering where the time went at the end of it all.

Graphics

Battlefield 1943 runs on a modified Frostbite engine, and comes with all the sights and sounds you would expect from the year 1943. There are some dazzling sights like the ocean floor if you’re in the air, as well as, the explosions on the ground floor just after an air raid. All the maps are fairly detailed with structures and environments surviving well in a heavily server loaded environment. There doesn’t seem to be much drawback and when you find yourself inside a 24 player match, there is little texture pop in outside of walking a long distance and coming up on your destination, but that’s to be expected. Explosions are nicely rendered and pop in and out as they’re supposed to and realistically.

Sound

Everything sounds as it should, explosions go off and you’ll hear them in all their glory. The most hilarious part of it all seems to be the louder then life screams when someone dies. Air-raid sirens are clearly heard for all so you’ll want to make sure you run for cover so you don’t die in the process. The only music you’ll hear throughout the game is the main title sequence which can get tiring after while considering you’ll be hearing a lot of it while you’re waiting to jump in a game. Outside of that everything seems to be pretty much in order and you won’t have any problem getting sucked into the experience before realizing a few hours have passed by.

Plasma Factor

Battlefield 1943 should be an easy buy at $14.99 and offers just enough content that you’ll be coming back for more. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was downloadable content in the pipeline for a future release. More maps would certainly be more desirable at this point as many of you have probably exhausted them by now. The planes are a considerable bonus to the gameplay and while tricky at first, are satisfying in the long run as you drop bombs on your nearby enemy capture point. There are many ways to play the game and if you manage to be in a squad with your friends it makes thing much easier to fight and not get killed so easily.

Conclusion

Battlefield 1943 manages to capture your attention and keep you around for a while. Despite its flaws there is still that good feeling inside when you manage to have a successful dogfight protecting the skies and protecting your team for the win. Don’t let any harsh criticism of the game push you away from trying it out at least once. The game lacks content, but it certainly doesn’t lack heart.