Battlefield 1943 Review

Battlefield 1943 first graced our Xbox's mid last year and was instantly the fastest selling and most played Xbox Live Arcade game of all time. Rightly so too, never before has an arcade title featured such excellent multiplayer experiences as only Battlefield can provide, despite a slightly rocky launch week where even the success surprised DICE and EA when there was too much demand for the servers.

We take a look back at one of the best Xbox Live arcade games available and one of the biggest launches of 2009 to remind you of just why we love it so very dearly.

Gameplay

Gameplay is kept simple and is all the better for it. Think of this as the original 'domination' from Call of Duty where you play as the US Marine Corps and the Japanese Imperial Army on one of three maps (Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal) and you objective is to secure the most bases and run down your opponents meter at the top of the screen before yours depletes.

Standard first person controls exist, simplified and perfected for the title and maps are large (although not extensively) and mostly varied. Vehicles make an appearance in the game, be they jeeps for transporting other squad mates quickly to other objectives, tanks for sheer fire power, transport boats for... transporting and planes for dog fights and bombing runs.

There was also upon release a race between Xbox 360 gamers and PS3 where a race to get the most kills first unlocked a special map exclusively for dogfighting. Xbox 360 won the race and unlocked the map "Coral Sea" quite a while before it surfaced on the PS3. Whilst not my particular cup of tea (always finishing negative score for committing a fiery suicide) it offers some different gameplay to the norm.

Battlegrounds are very varied and intense, as some people prefer to avoid the action and grab the enemies objectives, some prefer to camp around for the regular air strikes from the tower, some prefer sniping, some prefer tanking it up and taking the bases by force and others, well they like a general mix of everything.

You and up to 3 others are placed in a squad, accolades and ranks increase depending on how you do individually and as a squad together. When spawning, you can choose one of three classes, each of which comes customised for your play style varying primary weapons (machine gun, rifle, sniper rifle) and big fire power (rpg and grenade launchers).

Keeping everything clean, simple and basic and introducing subtle ranking and scoring systems without resorting to rewarding the hardcore gamers with higher powered arsenals is something that the current generation of online first person shooters are lacking. The back to basics approach used here is far in a way the game's leading attribute and will keep you coming back in bursts for more.

Graphics

DICE have done admirably in creating a believable, detailed, rich and vibrant battlefield in which you can unleash you menace and fury on your opponent.  Grassy vergers are detailed with varying levels of depth and height to the grass. I know I've just described grass there, but it's a good indication to the level of detail that's been achieved if they've had enough time to perfect that stuff.

For a Live Arcade title and for being such a small download size, it's a detailed and rarely bland or repetitive affair. Some graphical glitches are present, where backgrounds disappear, lag out, flash black white and reappear when on the brow of a hill. They're infrequent and don't distort or distract from the general feel of the game, but they are disappointing and annoying to say the least.

Sound

Baring in mind the origins of this game are on PC and the port to Live must have hampered the file sizing and priority in development must've shifted away from creating high quality audio effects, the audio score is still pretty pants.

The standard Battlefield theme tune is present - that grating 15second loop of music that grates and ingrains itself into your black matter and replays when you're just trying to dose off to sleep - as well as some pretty weak "grenade!" and rare voice overs are infrequent and of poor quality but perhaps I'm being too harsh.

There also appears to be a standard delay when firing weapons for the standard 'bang' to be triggered. That my be an issue solely with my setup but it's still confusing.

Multiplayer

As this game is solely multiplayer, this is probably the most important factor. Luckily, it's good enough to warrant a purchase for multiplayer alone. In fact, it's better than good, it's really rather excellent.

Reason for that opinion is the simple back to basics and totally variable way you can play the game as described earlier in the review. If you simply must brag about your kill/death ratio, stick to sniping and camping and feel good about yourself, if you're a score hound go and capture the bases and if you just like staying out of trouble, fly around a bit and parachute into a quiet zone.

Any way you choose to play, it's always fun. Messing around is where the best games are found and roping in a few friends for a private match further enhances the gaming experience.

Summary

An excellent multiplayer experience, not only for Xbox Arcade standards, but for Xbox all together. Grab it now for a taste of what's to come with Battlefield Bad Company 2 and enjoy one of the most enjoyable first person shooter experiences on Xbox Live.