Battlefield 1942

Battlefield 1942, the first in the acclaimed Battlefield franchise, pits Axis versus Allies in large-scale multiplayer battles.

Mac

Overview

In-game, players assume the role of one of five classes of infantry: Scout, Assault, Anti-Tank, Medic, and Engineer. Players also have the ability to fly various World War II fighter aircraft and bombers, navigate capital ships, submarines and aircraft carriers, man coastal artillery defences, drive tanks, APCs and jeeps, and take control of anti-aircraft guns and mounted machine guns. When entering a game, players choose one of two sides; axis or allies. The game was the first successful FPS to feature large scale maps, and sandbox type play.

Wake Island, one of the maps set in the pacific.

Vehicles: The original release of Battlefield 1942 contained 35 historically accurate WWII vehicles. Among these are submarines, planes, jeeps, tanks, APCs, battleships and aircraft carriers.
Game Modes: There are three multiplayer modes: Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Conquest. The latter has become something of a hallmark of the Battlefield games.
Classes and weapons: Across the five classes, there are a total of 19 different weapons. Each class has a unique ability, such as healing for the medic or repairing vehicles for the engineer.

Single Player

Battlefield 1942 has a single player mode. However, this is simply a means playing multiplayer against bots and is meant to be more of an introduction to the game, allowing the players to familiarize themselves with the maps and game play.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is the heart of the Battlefield games. In Battlefield 1942, up to 64 players can play in the same match. This combined with the large maps has earned the battlefield franchise a reputation for being more strategic than other online shooters.

All maps in the game are based on actual battles that took place during World War II. These include battles in Africa , Europe, and the Pacific.

At the beginning of a round, players choose to play as either axis or allies. On different maps these two teams corresponds to different countries. In the game, the axis are represented by Germany and Japan. The allies are represented by America, England and Russia.

As well as the regular Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, Battlefield 1942 also features the Conquest mode. In Conquest, both teams start with an equal amount of tickets (the exact amount varies with map and server). Each respawn costs one ticket, and the objective is to reduce the other teams tickets to zero, which can be done by killing enemies. However, on each maps there are flags placed at key locations. Controlling these flags doesn't only activate spawn points. If one of the teams control a majority of the flags on a map, the enemy's tickets will start to decrease. As more flags are controlled, the decrease is faster. If one team controls all flags and none of the players on the enemy team are alive (meaning that they are unable to capture a respawn point), the tickets decrease to zero instantly.

Expansions

Two expansions were released for Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome and Secret Weapons of WWII. Road to Rome introduced new maps based battles that took place in Italy during World War II as well as some new weapons and vehicles. Two new armies were also introduced; Italy (for the axis) and the Free France Forces (for the allies).

Secret Weapons of WWIII took a less conventional route and added weapons and equipment based on research that was made during World War II. Among these are jetpacks, jetplanes and guided missiles. The expansion also added an objective based game mode.

Popular Modifications

Desert Combat

Desert Combat is an award winning FPS mod for Battlefield 1942, created by Frank Delise, Brian Holinka and Tim Brophy. DC is set in Iraq during the first Gulf War. It acquired popularity since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces. The mod saw large success and enjoyed a large following especially in the competitive gaming scene, the Cyber Amateur League ran many seasons of the game. Its creator Trauma Studios was acquired by DICE in September 2004, where they went on to help create Battlefield 2.

Forgotten Hope

Forgotten Hope is a modification for Battlefield 1942 that concentrates on adding both a more realistic and more enjoyable playing experience than the original BF1942 and includes many new specially designed custom maps to play in. The mod includes over 250 new pieces of authentic equipment (more than any other Second World War FPS), with tanks such as the mighty Russian IS-2 heavy tank and the diminutive Japanese Ha-Go light tank, aircraft from the rugged American P47 Thunderbolt to the antiquated British Fairey Swordfish biplane, warships such as the British Ark Royal aircraft carrier and the German Battleship Tirpitz and weapons including the powerful German Panzerfausts and the fearsome Russian PPSh-41 submachine gun.

Competitive Play

In North America, Battlefield: 1942 had a very lengthy competitive run through several leagues and ladders, most notably the Teamwarfare League(TWL) and the now defunct Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL). Team d.emise won CAL's inaugural (Season 1) Battlefield:1942 Championship by defeating The Final Stand on the Wake Island map during the Spring of 2003. The format featured both teams of 12 players going head to head, best 2 out of 3 rounds. TWL had very popular ladders and leagues as well, with 5 versus 5, Capture the Flag, 8 versus 8 and 12 versus 12 formats.

10 Year anniversary

To celebrate the Battlefield's 10 year anniversary, EA announced that Battlefield 1942 will be free of charge until March 1, 2013. An Origin account is required.

PC System Requirements

Minimum

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Pentium III 500MHz Processor
128MB RAM
4X CD-ROM Drive
1.2GB Hard Disk Space
32MB Direct3D Accelerated Video Card with Hardware Transform and Lighting Capabilities
DirectX compatible Sound Card
DirectX 8.1