WTB - A One Way Time Machine Ticket to 1942.

You know, more and more these days game releases are making me feel old. Like some curmudgeon stuck in the past, glowering at those damn kids and their rock n roll and getting in a tizz over hip gyrations. I see game after game released which is either (in my view) dumbed down for consoles, dumbed down for a different generation's attention span, First person 3D for the sake of it, or just generally sub-par. Battlefield 2142 is no exception, but at least some reviews have been less than rapturous. Rather than the mid 90% ratings we are seeing in the low 80s from credible game review sites, but even so, I am not feeling that generous.

I have been with the Battlefield series since the release of the playable demo of Battlefield 1942. 1942 came in way below my radar and surprised the hell out of me. I only downloaded the demo because a friend of mine was raving about the fun he was having on Wake Island (the map included in the demo). I'm usually more of a tactical shooter sort of guy, so it was right out of left field that I loved the game with all my heart. My friends and I played the thing for the best part of a year. Somehow it never got old.

Battlefield 1942 finally died for me when the sequel, Battlefield Vietnam came out and proved to be a bit of a drag. The gaming community by and large had moved on to the new game and 1942 servers became increasingly barren. After trying and being disappointed with BF: Vietnam I forgot about the series and left Battlefield 2 alone when it was released. With the release of this latest game I just had to give it another shot.

I shouldn't have tried to dig up the memories of my once favourite game - because they are gone - perhaps forever.

Battlefield 2142 caters nicely to the gaming market and action fiends, but to a resistant to change old grump like me, it was more of what I hated about the other sequels. All the magic of the original game was the WW2 setting, with basic, yet charmingly realistic weaponry and a sort of historical-lite feel about it.

2142 is set, shockingly enough, in the year 2142 after an ice age has really mixed things up for the people of Earth. There's a couple of new factions and some interesting new features such as the ability to unlock weapons and abilities, almost in a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater sort of way. I liked this and the new "Titan" game mode was a riot for a while. It's a team based scramble to defend a giant dreadnought from the attacks of your opponents. Of course, there's also the familiar conquest - AKA "capture all the spawn points" mode seen in previous games. There's not much to talk about here, it pretty much adheres to what you would expect based on the previous games in the series, with points being drained for lost flags until they are regained, with the first team to zero being declared the loser.

Thirteen maps are included with the game, set in three different theatres of combat: European, African and Northern. The maps are well designed and clearly have been built with many of the new features specifically in mind. There's nothing quite as desolate and sweeping as El Alamein or classics from '42, but what is here works well and gels perfectly with this incarnation of the series.

The in-game sound effects are very crisp and strong here, with weapon-fire, explosions, vehicle and aircraft noises and every ricochet and zap sounding rather wonderful. Futuristic shooters occasionally fall into the trap of the "weak, piddly laser blast" syndrome, where no weight or threat is felt behind the weaponary and the destruction it causes. This is pleasantly not the case here, as the frequent cries of "can you turn that damn thing down" from ajoining rooms in my home seem to support.

Graphically, the game suffers a little, with the engine starting to look a little long in the tooth, and the load times - Lord the load times. Let's just say, the ice age theme fits nicely here, because the word "glacial" springs to mind. The game is filled with suitably futuristic weapons and controllable vehicles, which are believable enough and never go too "Jetsons" on us. There's also a neat sort of player progression system, apparently an evolution of what was already in place in BF2, which seems commendations awarded for specific achievements, which are then part of the player's online profile.


Overall though, I just wasn't grabbed for more than a day or two by this one. The magic of the Battlefield series just isn't here. The game feels more and more related to Unreal Tournament or Half Life than the series to which it is tied. It's true, the game format is BF all the way, but that special spark just isn't there - I think mostly due to the futuristic setting.

As already stated, this graphics engine is done - Time to start from scratch and while you are at it, remember what sent this series into the stratosphere - the original game. Enough time has passed and technology has improved enough to warrant a Return to 42!. Let's get back to basics. A new game set during World War II, with the technology of today, complete with some familiar, yet redone maps, and a host of new ones to delight in. Much to my chagrin, younger, more hardcore-into-the-action, or trendy gamers will be rolling their eyes at me, but this is where the magic is. It isn't too late to recapture all that was good about this series. Newer, more sophisticated and shinier doesn't always mean better.