[comments] Battlefield 1943 XBLA Review

[charlesr]

Battlefield 1943 XBLA Review

Thanks to Duncan for the words and banner.

[Tobal]

rubbish is the word i would use, seems the reviewer bearly spent anytime inthe game and all the community side of the game can be found in every fps out there. I managed to get top rank(which means alot of matches and a hr count over 90) and have seen the worse and best of the community which is no different from any other game and the majority of the matches i've played i've always been able to get into at least 3 man squads.

To further this the the reviewers total lack of knowledge to the depth of the game by saying there is none, as its gameplay and depth put it at the top the of the online shooter arena easily with Halo and CoD, rifleman can drop any man in 3 shots(1head), grenade launcher in one and switching between them and quickly override any defense, see a man hiding behind that wall, grenade it out and then fill the hole full of lead. Skilled rifleman can by using cover take out tanks with a well placed shot to the back of the tank, get 3 or 4 of them together and a solo tank is no problem, they provide excellent all round range.

Infantry with it's machine gun, lacks offensive firepower and range but gains in 1shotting tanks and jeeps(if skilled) with the bazooka, deadly up close if you strafe and the excellent abiltity to fix any vehicle which is key to a skilled tank player who can hold positions by himself when out numbered, delivering massive damage and backing off to fix the tank up for another go, again tank on tank battles can end quickly if a player can hit the rear so positioning really matters (specially taking cover from air planes near buildings and trees).

Sniper, while its main role is to snipe there is alot more depth to this with the demo packs. While you can just sit there and hide in the long grass and brushes head shotting or 2 shotting enemies or providing assault backup, a sniper round once hit only requires the enemy to eat 1 rifleman round or 3/4 shots from a infantry or inthe case if skilled snipers swap to pistol and shoot them down in 2 shots key for surviving mid range and close up battles. Demo pack and be used in many, many ways. It can one shot tanks, a good player will sneak up on tanks and plant it on them or spot tanks or jeeps coming down the road and lay a trap for them to ride over. An other method is using the demo packs to defend flags, so if your pushed off the defend point or are attacking a point with the rear open you can spot white flags onthe min map and set off demo's killing the sneaky enemy trying to take the rear. Last method is demo packing vehicles, turning jeeps into moblie bombs.

then you have jeeps and boats for fast movement across maps, planes can turn battles depending onthe players skill, they can one shot tanks, strafe men and defend against air bombing and can be counter by AA guns but sittingin a an AA gun makes you a prime target for snipers. And Air bombing itself is not massively overpowered, good players look to avoid choke points and back off while one is closing in, others will use AA guns or planes to bring them down before damage can be done, and getting a good air bombing can turn choke points around, remove cover the enemy is using or force them to retreat out the way of the flight path.

teamplay can work even with strangers, most high ranking players will work with you and balance the sqaud out, snipers provide cover, defense and a moblie squad spawn, infantry takeout tanks and riflemen covers him, other tactics like fixing teammates tanks so they don't have to back off to fix them up, defending tanks against sneaky snipers trying to demo the tank are some of the many tactics being used.

As for the lack of maps, i would say you would be hard pressed to find 3 of the best maps made together in one game and would easily say the "ridge racer" effect stands to point as few maps mean proper focused gameplay, you can really get to know these maps inside out provding great tactic's and must have control points everyone knows about. The replayability is the destructive maps, they provide different cover all the time and lots of places to hide in(good for snipers and dodging tanks), other great stuff like taking out bridges with people and tanks on with a single grenade, removing cover from well know sniping spots. I can't even name a single Cod map there's then many of them and Halo has about 3 good maps at best that are worth learning and as the map count increases so does not mean the fun does as you don't know the tactics and weapon placement the hardcore of the hardcore players do making for some very unfun games.

The maps are extremely well made, Wake main choke point is the air field and offers massive advantage in the air bombing, extra planes, one tank and defendable position, but can mean easily losing control of the other four points resulting in more victory points for the other team, there lots of places for sniper to hide and demo trap the single main road running through the map and the far points each control a map.

Iwo Jima being the bast map of the three can benefit all jobs, while control of the Airbase and armoury at the bottom gives tanks, a plane and Air bombing, controlling this point usually means its very hard to take the middle control point away from who ever is controlling the mountain resulting in victory points coming faster for the team without the firepower, so it means the airfield team need to use there extra power carefully to take heavily defended flags.

Canal is the open map perfect for skilled tank drivers and snipers, the reviewers calling the map lobsided clearly show a lack of skill and play time, one side offers easily defendable open field but a lack of cover allowing for long range sniper battles and a quick run to the radio bunker capture point, while the other side gets moutains offering long range defense against snipers but can allow people to sneak up on control points due to the extra cover and a hill overlooking all capture points, the key to this map being control of the middle capture point which allows fast deployment all the other flags but no extras(tanks, plabes etc,etc).

Extra depth can be found with the mini-map and sound(which is also brilliant), with the graphics being that good is very easy for players and especially snipers with the leaf camo to hide, and with players ducking for shots they don't show on the mini map unless there being hit which allows for sneaking(standing/moving none shooting players are the same), listening into sniper shots when your moving around can help pin point sneaky camping snipers by looking in areas you fellow snipers are not on the mini map, or hearing call outs from reloads or cheers in english(american) or japanese letting you know someone is nearby and not onthe mini map. One great little play for skilled tank driver that can not use the 3rd person view when shooting, can save themselves if they hear the dreaded line a sniper uses when planting demo's by jumping out and shooting the sniper dead even if it means losing the tank.

Also the booming explosion sound effects and none fatel explosions causing that "eeeeeeeee" noise as all sound muffled for a few seconds, the rumble of the tanks(its great to hear a tank coming over the hill but not on the mini-map and planting demo's ready for a killing), the meaty sound of machine guns to the "ching" of the rifle reload, plane engines echoing across the map and near miss sound effects from sniper shots(very scarey and lets you know your being targetted).

Also a total lack of mentioning anything to do with the ranking mode, leader boards and ingame acheivement tracking which is fairly addictive.

The review even fails to point out the biggest flaw in the game being the friends/party functions being buggy as hell, it is quite normal to end up onthe opposite team from your xbox live party, resulting in usually exiting the map which is a massive problem, the map rotation bug which is mentioned is also annoying be can be worked around by easily exiting the to main menu and joining another server which is about a 30 sec process at most. My only other annoyance is the lack other being able to see other no sqaud mates jobs so you can balance out what is needed, a team full of snipers will not win the map.

5/10 is can calling and an average game is a injustice to this game, it is easily 8/10 game and for the price is certainly worth it.

*edit cleaning up my rubbish english and added more about the sound effects and mini map.

[Matt]

Agree with Tobal.

Not the first review where I question the reviewer

[spagmasterswift]

Nice to read an alternate review, cheers Tobal, I must admit I stopped playing a little after getting the 100 matches achievement but agree with all you have written there.

[capcom_suicide]

It's not often it happens on the Internet, but I think Tobal has just given an extremly well written and accurate account not of why he disagrees with the reviewer, but actually why the review misses important details and thus one may ask if the reviewer put into enough time to justify his score.

Tobal makes a great counter review, and I almost feel it deserves a link in the article to "An alternative view from a member"

[Charlie]

Yup, Tobal's assessment of the game is much more insightful, and dare I say accurate, than the reviewer's. I appreciate the reviewer didn't enjoy the game, and that's cool, but I have trouble accepting his reasoning.

The negative comments about map design, in particular, lead me to suspect the reviewer either a) didn't spend much time playing the game or b) doesn't understand what constitutes intelligent design because the maps are superbly designed and, given their size, brilliant. They're incredibly varied in terms of terrain and topography and afford players a variety of ways to approach and attack each flag. I don't think I've played a tightlier designed set of maps.

[averybluemonkey]

rubbish is the word i would use, seems the reviewer bearly spent anytime inthe game

I spent somewhere between 15 and 20 hours in the game.

and all the community side of the game can be found in every fps out there.

I have played nearly all the FPSs out there. The only community I've seen play on the whole worse is the Halo 3 community.

majority of the matches i've played i've always been able to get into at least 3 man squads.

75% of the time I was in empty squads.

, rifleman can drop any man in 3 shots(1head), grenade launcher in one and switching between them and quickly override any defense, see a man hiding behind that wall, grenade it out and then fill the hole full of lead. Skilled rifleman can by using cover take out tanks with a well placed shot to the back of the tank, get 3 or 4 of them together and a solo tank is no problem, they provide excellent all round range.

Infantry with it's machine gun, lacks offensive firepower and range but gains in 1shotting tanks and jeeps(if skilled) with the bazooka, deadly up close if you strafe and the excellent abiltity to fix any vehicle which is key to a skilled tank player who can hold positions by himself when out numbered, delivering massive damage and backing off to fix the tank up for another go, again tank on tank battles can end quickly if a player can hit the rear so positioning really matters (specially taking cover from air planes near buildings and trees).

Sniper, while its main role is to snipe there is alot more depth to this with the demo packs. While you can just sit there and hide in the long grass and brushes head shotting or 2 shotting enemies or providing assault backup, a sniper round once hit only requires the enemy to eat 1 rifleman round or 3/4 shots from a infantry or inthe case if skilled snipers swap to pistol and shoot them down in 2 shots key for surviving mid range and close up battles. Demo pack and be used in many, many ways. It can one shot tanks, a good player will sneak up on tanks and plant it on them or spot tanks or jeeps coming down the road and lay a trap for them to ride over. An other method is using the demo packs to defend flags, so if your pushed off the defend point or are attacking a point with the rear open you can spot white flags onthe min map and set off demo's killing the sneaky enemy trying to take the rear. Last method is demo packing vehicles, turning jeeps into moblie bombs.

What you describe here are basic, rudimentary actions, not tactics or intelligence, all of the above is obvious. Every FPS has stuff like this, it's not something unique to this design. I was in the top 3 for my team on virtually every match and never had to involve my brain, I never felt challenged. Games like COD4, Section 8, Counterstrike, Quantum of Solace and others make you think, 1943 doesn't. If you read my words you'll see I didn't say there weren't any differences between the classes, instead that in their execution on the battlefield much of the time they are all pretty capable at the same tasks so there's little in the way of genuine separation between roles. I did expand more on this in the initial draft but cut it due to the already long length.

planes can turn battles depending onthe players skill, they can one shot tanks, strafe men and defend against air bombing and can be counter by AA guns but sittingin a an AA gun makes you a prime target for snipers. And Air bombing itself is not massively overpowered, good players look to avoid choke points and back off while one is closing in, others will use AA guns or planes to bring them down before damage can be done, and getting a good air bombing can turn choke points around, remove cover the enemy is using or force them to retreat out the way of the flight path.

I believe you'll find I said as much in the review by complementing the great job they did in balancing the planes.

I can't even name a single Cod map there's then many of them

CoD4's map design was superb throughout.

Extra depth can be found with the mini-map and sound(which is also brilliant), with the graphics being that good is very easy for players and especially snipers with the leaf camo to hide, and with players ducking for shots they don't show on the mini map unless there being hit which allows for sneaking(standing/moving none shooting players are the same), listening into sniper shots when your moving around can help pin point sneaky camping snipers by looking in areas you fellow snipers are not on the mini map, or hearing call outs from reloads or cheers in english(american) or japanese letting you know someone is nearby and not onthe mini map.

Sounds an awful lot like features included in most FPS from the last few years to me.

Also a total lack of mentioning anything to do with the ranking mode, leader boards and ingame acheivement tracking which is fairly addictive.

Why would I complement something that every FPS game has? If anything the game got off lightly here because one of its achievements is glitched for many players, the one for being in the Top Squad in all 3 maps. I didn't get it until midway through a match approximately 6-7 hours after I should have unlocked it.

5/10 is can calling and an average game is a injustice to this game, it is easily 8/10 game and for the price is certainly worth it.

Every other FPS game on the service is cheaper so I think price is a mute point.

[Tobal]

you spent 20 hrs in this game and yet lack any understanding. To claim you never had you use your brain just proved your playing wrong, if thats even possible. How can you claim all 3 job do the same job, sure they'll can all half arse do everything but excel in specific areas like every other FPS with a class system. And while i am describing gameplay, it was for proof of depth the game has and it is the only popluar game series where these tactics exist as Halo, Gears, CoD do not play like a battlefield game and if someone had never played a BF game before how would they know.

As for the planes you fail to mention anything to do with the air raids a big part of the game and a key choke point on all maps. You still yet to have any biting remarks to your lack of understanding great map design, the lack of the mention of the party system problems which shows you played zero matches with friends, you claim it has no depth but contains features "you say" are found in the best FPS.

[averybluemonkey]

you claim it has no depth but contains features "you say" are found in the best FPS.

I didn't say that. I said it contained features I would consider standard for an FPS of this type.

My point was that nothing you described involved anything mentally challenging or tactical and was already taken into account when the review was written. I haven't missed anything here, everything mentioned was known at review time.

[Brim]

I spent somewhere between 15 and 20 hours in the game.

Only a small point and I appreciate it's a bit trivial but the BF1943 site states you played for just 11hrs.

Personally, I think it's the most balanced FPS I've played. Every soldier/vehicle type has equal strengths and weaknesses. Despite the small quantity of maps available I'd agree with Tobal that the quality of those available together with the low price makes it a great buy.

[PeteJ]

Very minor point but this is only the second game to use Frostbite (the first being Bad Company).

Surprised that the review had issues with the maps, I'd rate them among the best in online shooters. I agree with the order of quality but I would hardly say Wake Island had "very little thought put into it"! It's been a massive fan favourite for years and for good reason, like the others it is balanced and tweaked to perfection. I'd much rather these three than ten average ones.

The squad mechanic is terrible though, and one of the few cut-down features from BF2 that has not been successful. It's difficult to know what squads are doing, whether or not you can join one etc. A shame because the squads from Battlefield 2 were really well done.

I'd still rate this as the best Arcade title I've played, it's of such high quality that I felt it was actually a very good deal.

[Decider-VT]

Agreed. Usually I hate online FPSes but BF1943 is so wonderfully, simply balanced that I keep coming back for more. I certainly preferred the use of simple strategy and tactics to the use of mechanics like COD's perks system, which seemed to reward the more able players or those that simply persevered. Spawning into a random team almost guarantees that you won't know your team mates but that simply seems to encourage people to play with a bit of common sense for the greater good in my experience. Of course you'll always get people stealing planes and flying them into mountains but that's the fault of the player, not the game. After a few matches with some familiar names people start to get to know each other and begin to work together.

It's a very balanced, highly-polished downloadable game that is really fun to play and doesn't cost the same as a full retail release does. 5/10 seems too harsh, really.

[Stoppy2000]

Nothing more to add other than I agree with all of Tobal's points. 8/10 game for me.

[Lebowski]

I don't normally comment on site reviews but I'm sad that something like this is up on the front page of site. I don't feel its representative of the buzz that this game got on release.

I don't want to get personal but Ignoring everything else in the review The fact that its written by someone with eleven hours playtime really makes us all look like a bunch of amateurs that let anyone put up a review.

[averybluemonkey]

Only a small point and I appreciate it's a bit trivial but the BF1943 site states you played for just 11hrs.

Except that I spent time on it on a few other profiles. A few hours with friends trying to convince them to play it, a few hours round a friends place who also owns it when we took turns and a few hours on another profile to check if it would glitch on the Top Squad achievement too like it did with mine.

Given that you learn every tactic and nuance within the first 3 hours, 20 hours is more than sufficient to judge the game on.