Battlefield 1943

[Ardent Fox]

Let's go back in time real fast to a time when online gaming wasn't dominated by your Call of Duty's or your Left 4 Dead's and relive a simpler time when hopping into a jeep to run over an opponent simply to kill him instead of riddling him with bullets was fun and exciting instead of an everyday sort of thing. Back in 2002 when all you could really do for a World War 2 game was Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, EA took it upon themselves to release another one that had the promise of being open and quite free roaming.
Along came Battlefield 1942 and soon two expansion packs for it, each adding maps and additional sides and weapons. It was a fun period, back when WW2 games were not being released every day due to no creativity around the office and you could hop into every vehicle sitting around and drive your merry way around the French, German, Italian or Pacific countryside, crushing foes beneath your feat before one guy your turret gunner didn't see takes you down with a rocket launcher because he was too busy lagging.
Flash forward a few more years to 2005 when a game known as Battlefield Vietnam Redux is released with shiny new things such as a mod for the game that patched it to be Battlefield 1942 only with graphical upgrades. A lot of the Pacific maps looked especially amazing rendered in this way and it made me wonder how this game would look on a next gen console when, indeed, these goliaths made their apperance.
Since then the Battlefield series scooted away from WW2 after noticing that it's uncool to be stuck on that time period what with Medal of Honor crapping all over itself, it's taken them up until this point to realize that maybe people would rather go back to that old song and dance and relive just what made the game fun. To do this, they've gone to Xbox Live Arcade and set up shop with Battlefield 1943.
I decided to give this game a go, remembering the good old days when maps would be dedicated to knife fights and whole battles could be stalled due to a simple jeep race or air show.
Downloading the trial and loading it up, the trial period only lasted about 30 minutes I believe. Thiwasn't about to hinder me in the least, so I took up my all too familiar rifle and took it to the beaches of the Pacific since that's all that it seems to be about.
At first, I was a little uneasy about this game being just about the Pacific theater. Sure it's ground left very much untouched, much more so than the European campaign, but still, it can only go on for so long. Then again, I only played the demo, not having enough to shell out for an extra 1,000 gamer points. Maybe the real game has more of the maps, maybe even some new ones. Either way, this is for the demo.
So, jumping right in, everything looks very nice for being a download off of XBLA. It's actually visually stunning. Not Crysis by any means but very well maintained. The sound is actually really good too. Of course talking about graphics and sound being good these days is like complimenting the Mona Lisa for being both well painted and she has a lovely face. The real meat and potatos of this game is it's gameplay which for those of us who can remember Michael J. Fox having an acting career you'll know it's basic mechanics. Have gun, will capture enemy position. You can occupy anything from tanks, trucks, jeeps, planes, and machine guns to use all of these to capture and defend positions from the enemy.
A few things are different this enlistment however, the most glaring is the classes. In the original Battlefield you could choose between five, your sniper, assault, medic, engineer and anti-tank. Now it seems some of them have been combined for simplicity or lack of memory. Now you have Rifleman who is a medium range character, your Assault who acts as both assault and anti-tank and also Scout who is the sniper/engineer of the game. It seems to me that medic is out on it's ear here as well as engineer. Of course it could, again, be the demo version not having all classes unlocked.
Much like everything these days, you have a ranking system and you go up through the ranks as you play therefor seeming to unlock things as you battle. I've always found it nice when games do this as opposed to how it used to be when getting the top rank in a map was just a bragging right until the next map when you get the proverbial guts stomped out of you. Now climbing to the top of the mountain of people you've laid waste to is rewarded with XP like some kind of twitchy MMORPG.
Also, there seems to be some server issues going on, though, I didn't have any problems myself. Also there are some problems with lag in the game as well. On some maps I found myself sitting at a turret and mowing down someone only to be sniped by the same person I thought I'd just taken care of. There again, demo, full game may actually be fine.

In summary, if this is your bag, if reliving the the olden days of capturing an enemy point in a tank while hoping someone isn't sneaking around you with a bazooka is your kind of thing, then this game is certainly for you. If you like variety and nothing every really being the same, this is still really the game for you. Given the popularity of 1943, I'm certain they'll add more maps, even a European campaign back in. Until then, it's a recommended FPS game where teamwork really is key to winning maps and often times the guy with the bigger stick doesn't necessarily win all the time.

ADDENDUM: So, it seems that there are, as of right now, only two maps for the multiplayer. It gets very repetative and I don't think a lot of the people on the 360 version of Battlefield have ever actually played it. They may in fact be shut ins. The third map is actually on something called Air Superiority. You fight with every other guy and his grandmother to fly a plane until you explode trying to make other airplanes explode and gain air superiority over your opponentn. It's fun only for a little bit before finally the experience is awash with nothing but repetative issues and also the issue of everyone being totaly thick when it comes to "my turn to fly the plane."