TITLE : BATTLEFIELD 1943 PLATFORM : XBOX LIVE/ PSN PUBLISHER : EA DEVELOPER : DICE

Battlefield has proven so popular in the office that it has been given a dual review. 2 of our reviewers have given the game a good going over and give their opinions below. Does this mean the game is just that good or is it due to having very little to do in the office during the summer you decide !!

Battlefield 1943 hit both xbox live arcade and the PSN this week and it has been a huge success. Due to the usual summer slow down in game releases there is a very large lull in the market and EA have pounced on it. Battlefield has been such a success it even took EA by surprise and the first day of release on xbox saw massive sales figures forcing EA to double the amount of servers for it due to the amount of problems from people trying to log on thankfully they worked very quickly and by the next day when it was released on PS3 everything was running smoothly. As an arcade game it is very impressive. it is battlefield as we know it just a slightly scaled down version. For your 13euro you get 3 maps 1 large, 1 medium and 1 small map. Each are very different one is mountainous which is perfect for snipers. One is a horse shoe shape and the other is a small flat almost crater like island. 1 further map Coral sea will be released when everyone playing reaches 43million kills. EA thought this would take 3 to 4 weeks but at the time of writing this xbox has hit the 43million and PS3 hs 30 million in under a week again highlighting the success of this game.    You can choose from 3 classes first up is a long range anti infantry class this equips you with a semi automatic rifle to which you can attach a grenade launcher. This gun is powerful but lacks a scope so can be quite tricky to use. The second class is your machine gun class this is for when the combat gets up close and personal the machine gun is not very powerful and can often take most of your clip to kill someone so if you come up against 3 guys your in a lot of trouble as reloading times are painfully slow. If you happen to come across any vehicles you have a handy rocket launcher !. Jeeps are dispatched with a single shot while the tanks can take any thing from 1 to 3 rockets depending on how much damage it has sustained on it way.   Finally the 3rd class is the sniper class which is a mixed bag. The games are not all ways suited for snipers which is a good thing as camping is pretty limited but it takes two shots to kill some one and you must reload after each shot which involves the view coming out of the "scoped" view reloading then back in to the scoped view in which time your target has just simply run off. Unless of course you nail that head shot.  Each island is jam packed with vehicles including boats, jeeps, tanks and planes each team spawns on a aircraft carrier just off the island on each carrier there are 4 boats and 2 planes. The planes can be tricky to used properly ( plenty of suicide missions were ran while getting the hang of this ) which is a good thing as they are effective killers so in turn should be weighted correctly. On land then you have a choice between the jeeps and the tanks the jeeps are small and fast but are light and easily blown up the jeeps can carry a driver, 1 passenger and 1 guy on the machine gun turret at the back. The tanks then are slow but powerful they fire massive shells as well as having 2 machine gun turrets for dealing with infantry. The game only features 1 game type a cross between team deathmatch and zones. As you spawn you are on the aircraft carrier just off the islands this begins the race to the island to capture the flags. Each island contains 5 flags the more you control the better as you can then spawn at those flags. But thats only half the battle each time you kill an enemy they need to respawn or call in reinforcements each respawn uses up some reinforcement tickets having more flags causes the opponents to loose tickets faster. Once all their tickets are gone you win.    Some small problems in the game include buttons not working properly having to hit reload 3 times before he will reload ( which is already really slow ) can be fatal. the ear piece support is pretty shoddy with them working in the lobby but as soon as the game starts they can drop out and if they do stay connected the quality is very poor with voices constantly breaking up. Other problems include your squad members suddenly finding themselves on the other team when a new game starts !!. And since being in a squad is the best way to play it as too many people playing it don't understand team work this is a pretty big problem.   But over all when it works its brilliant even when its bad its still fun. The first time you see a speeding jeep coming towards you, you line up a perfectly timed rocket and as it about to mow you down you hit your target sending it flipping through the air right over your head like something from the opening credits of the A-Team. When you consider the price this game is great value and after this success EA who have been heading in the "push the DLC" direction already are sure to keep this concept going. Im sure more maps will follow as they would be very silly to let a cash cow like this slip. Normally the few faults and the fact that the 3 maps will get old quite quickly would cause me to knock a few marks off the score but at this price its hard to get hung up on them. As an arcade tittle this is a new direction and a welcome change from all the other older games and if they can back this up with enough extra content this new direction will be very successful. Score 91% REVIEWED BY ANTHONY

2nd OPINION

With developers lining up to tell everyone how much money their loosing from the pre owned market it only seemed like a matter of time before someone did the obvious thing.

This brings it to battlefield 1943.

After not being a major fan of the battlefield franchise I decided to dive into last years BF:Bad Company with an open mind as I was promised a campaign, no doubt in retrospect it was my own fault. I should have done the research and if I had, I would have seen that BF was never about the single player experience. It was always about huge multiplayer maps and blowing things up. Now not only I know that but so does EA.

Stripped to its bare bones and released as a digital download Battlefield 1943 has hit live and PSN servers as of last weekend and is a bright gratifying and finely balanced multiplayer experience. With only 3 classes and four multiplayer maps Battlefield vets could well feel a little let down by the lack of tweaking options available but if you fall under that category your a philistine. What this stripped back approach offers is the chance for players to quickly concentrate on honing the tools available to them from the beginning of the experience.  Using the fighter planes as example, the inexperienced player will find it difficult to wrap there heads around the pitch and roll steering and combat but given time you will be dive bombing targets inches from the ground, it reminds me a little of the flight school element to GTA:San andreas.

The 4 maps on offer, Iwo Jima, Wake Island ,Guadalcanal and forthcoming unlock able map Coral sea are all very impressive with Wake Island being the one that really stood out to me.. The close combat small settlements and the hilly county side cater for machine gunners and snipers alike.

There something very thrilling about spawning on an aircraft carrier, dropping from your pins and watching as your teams boats and planes race towards the islands sandy beaches to fight it out for territory. Hopefully players will feel the same way as there is only one game type at the moment and those familiar to BF will know the tried and tested formula of capturing and holding positions.

So there you have it, Devs DICE have crafted a very impressive little multiplayer experience to have installed on your machine, so splash out the 12.99 so you can call it up on wet days when your bored of your latest retail release and dive into its lush green pastures and dog fights.


SCORE 89%

REVIEWED BY BOY POLAR