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Review by Ren Höek for Battlefield 1942: The Complete Collection
Rating:
Ok, I love WWII fps games, I’m going through that phase I guess. I’ve played Call of Duty and Medal of Honour and I was surprised and somewhat disappointed in myself for not trying Battlefield 1942 yet-especially considering I love multiplayer. So I decided it was time I got Battlefield and since I always end up buying the expansion packs anyway, I figured I might as well get the Battlefield 1942: WWII Anthology. However when Christmas rolled around I saw this, the Complete Collection, on the shelf for the same price, in fact its even cheaper than the Anthology on Amazon!!!

Well, I got it for Christmas and it is one b****in’ game pack! You get Battlefield 1942 v1.6, Battlefield 1942: The Road To Rome, Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII and Battlefield Vietnam v1.2 (I think its basically the Redux version) AND Battlefield Vietnam: WWII Mod, Battlecraft Vietnam (a map editor)and Battlecraft 1942.*Take a breath*. It takes longer to read how much you get than it does to buy it! I mean WOW! This gives you a total of 8 disks!

…Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’m going to give you some info on the installation. This may sound stupid but I’m doing to prepare you for what to expect because I ran into a problem. First of all, you open the case (which is basically 4 times as thick as a DvD case) to find 6 of the disks piled on top of each other on the disk holder space moulded out of the case, leaving 2 of the disks loose in one of those paper disk cover each, and two manuals (the 1942 games manual-still referred to as the Anthology by the manual itself-and the Vietnam manual). Now, you put the first disk in the drive and simply check off all the games and features you want to install (just check them all off). Simple enough? Well here is where the problem comes in: when the game asks you for the games’ number codes. It tells you to find them on the back of the case, whereas they are actually on the back of the Anthology manual. But the biggest problem is it gives you the numbers all mixed up! I’ll tell you them in order and what they REALLY are in order: it lists the Battlefield 1942, The Road to Rome, Secret Weapons of WWII and then Vietnam. They are actually Vietnam, Battlefield 1942, The Road to Rome and Secret Weapons of WWII. There, now when it says you’re number code is invalid, don’t chuck it in the garbage like I almost did, they are just scrambled up. It’ll take you only about an hour or so to install everything and you’re ready to play single player. To play multiplayer, you need to download the v1.61 patch for 1942 and the v1.21 patch for Vietnam (because otherwise you can’t find a server). Now you’re all set and you had better set some time out of you’re schedule cause its gunna take you a week at least just to try all the levels and all the games! You can try and learn how to use the map editor too, however I have no idea how but I’m happy with the levels I have.

Now if you already have an idea of what the games are like, then you might as well stop reading now because I may ramble on for a long time…

-Battlefield 1942 PROS: This is an awesome one to kick things off, it is what I like to call the Grand Theft Auto of WWII games. You go everywhere and do everything. You can play on African, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Pacific fronts! That includes you’re favourite battles like Omaha Beach, Battle of the Bulge, Stalingrad, Kursk, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Battle for Britain, Berlin, etc, etc. You can play as America, Britain, Russia, Germany, Japan, and Canada (on one level: the Liberation of Caen. This is cool, cause games tend to neglect Canada’s contribution). Soldiers can choose different kits: Scout (carries a sniper rifle and binoculars to direct artillery using Battlefield’s unique system where the scout plants a “camera” using the binoculars, and artillery weapons can use the “camera” to see where their shots are landing), Assault (heavy sub machine gun such as the BAR. This is the basic anti-personnelle kit), Anti-Tank (bazooka or panzershreck), Medic (light sub machine gun such as the Thompson and a medic kit. The medic can heal him/herself as well as others. A comrade’s health is indicated next to his/her name and if they yell for a medic they well appear as a red cross on the map), and Engineer (rifle, remote demolition charges, anti-vehicle mines and a wrench for vehicle repair and mine removal. The vehicle’s health appears next the occupant’s name in the same way health appears to the medic. Plus, the best part, you can drive ANYTHING! This includes jeeps, halftracks, infantry transporters, tanks, planes (including fighter planes with little bombs and larger bombers planes), anti-aircraft guns, anti-naval guns, artillery tanks(scouts direct your fire, its pretty cool and artillery includes Stalin’s Organs!), mg 42′s and 30 cal. machine guns (that includes ones on top of vehicles like tanks, therefore more than one person can use one vehicle), beach landing craft, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines-AAHHH! I’m having a heart attack! you really do get to use ALL of those! No other WWII game has that, and I thought the just tanks and jeeps in Call of Duty: United Offensive were good! This game friggin’ slaps other games in the face and pees on them while they are down, when it comes to vehicle warfare. The levels are large and impressive, and a lot of ppl can play at a time, a lot being, say over 50! And it also features a campaign mode (original 1942 is the only one with this) where you play through the levels as Allies or Axis. You get computer allies who know how to use the vehicles, and you can use them in multiplayer to fill in empty spaces that human players haven’t filled. The game has excellent music, good, solid graphics, and good sound (not as amazing as COD but still good) and you don’t need a top-of-the-line machine to run it, look at me, I can run it easily on a Windows ME with Rogers Cable Internet with a Radeon 9200 128 MB video card. The feel is reasonably realistic in that you carry one main weapon, one pistol, grenades and a knife (except the engineer). you can switch kits but there is none of this “carry 9 weapons around with you” junk and I like that. Plus, the crosshairs spread apart as you move to create a more realistic feel. Game types include Objective (Battle of Britain only), Team Death Match, Capture the Flag, Conquest and Coop. Conquest requires you or members of your team to capture/defend certain strategic points on the maps (it is the most common game mode) and coop lets you, and other human player who may join your server, team up with computer players and fight against other computer players in conquest mode. The AI is not the best but decent enough, they are smart enough to go for your objectives (most of the time) and the medics will actually heal you. Of course, lets not forget about the mods. It is as if Battlefield 1942 was made for mods, it accepts them so well and you can easily switch from one mod to the next with the custom game option. There are many mods you can download such as the popular Desert Combat, the ludicrous but fun pirates mod, the Canadian Call to Arms (unfortunately no one else has it), definitely check out Battlefield 1918 to play one of the very few WWI FPS experiences in existence (it’s incredibly well done and realistic too), and if your bothered by the inaccuracies in the game (as I will get into soon), download the Arsenal mod, the Battlegroup 1942 mod (another very well done mod), and/or the Forgotten Hope mod (excellent and popular) for a boost in maps, weapons, vehicles, graphics and historical accuracy.

-1942 CONS: As great as this game is, it isn’t perfect. Multiplayer can get laggy if there are too many people on a server (however that goes for any game and this one can handle quite a few people) and very occasionally the game will freeze up on you or crash to windows. The single player is really just multiplayer with computer players (instant battle), even the campaign mode is just a line up of the levels with a bit of story about the battle as it loads, there is no story plot and every level is conquest (you take control of certain points on the map and try to hold them)in campaign. If you are looking for a storyline and not just a multiplayer type game consider Call of Duty rather than this game. The AI can get annoying some times because your AI teammates will slack occasionally and make you do all the work and they are sometimes too accurate with their shots (sniping with pistols is soo annoying). Single Player also leaves some maps out that you can only play in multiplayer, like the liberation of Caen (some mods fix this though). Other countries were left out such as Australia, Greece, Austria, Poland, India, actual Africans (but lets face it, there are too many for the game to cover everyone, plus some mods will add a couple new armies).Its not as user friendly as other games are, but good enough. While switching between levels, the game goes to windows and boots back up again and this gets a tad annoying if your level setting make your games too short. There are no crosshairs to aim with when you switch to 3rd person view so you need to switch back and forth as a vehicle. When you run out of ammo, you have to reload yourself by pressing reload instead of auto reload (of course this feels realistic so I don’t mind at all). Although the existing weapons are fairly realistic, certain armies are equipped incorrectly. Everyone uses the exact same sniper and rifle (except US and Japanese who have semi-automatic rifles most of the time, and the Germans with 98K’s), it is especially bad at equipping Russia, by giving them MP 13′s, bazookas, and the wrong rifles. Plus cannon shells and bazooka missiles have to be aimed well above the target since the shells have such poor range (but, as I said, there are mods that can fix inaccuracies like this). Most people don’t bother to shout for a medic because there is health and ammo located in certain houses (not that it’s a bad thing). Also the planes pitch down when you try to fly them, making flying difficult. To fix this problem simply get a simple cheap joy-stick, the game accepts it well and a joy-stick makes flying more fun anyway. One more problem is that the single player maps don’t have submarines, only multiplayer maps, bummer.

-Road to Rome PROS: This is the first expansion pack to 1942. its got brand new Italian levels, including operation Husky (Sicily beach landing) and the Monte Cassino! The maps are actually nicer than I expected. New armies found only in this game: the Italian army and the Free French army. New weapons and vehicles including a Brenda (Italian light machine gun), various new tanks, an Italian beach-landing craft, fast bombers (more like big fighter planes because the pilot can also shoot a machine gun. The British, Germans, and Americans still have some levels too. The Brits and the Frogs now have the sten smg which Battlefield 1942 lacked. One of my favourite new feature is the fixed bayonets: when you switch to the knife rifles can shoot and stab rather than shoot and aim. This is the only game I know of where you can do this! Another small pro is that you can jump directly between the Anthology games without quitting one and starting up another, the Anthology is all playable on one disk.

-Road to Rome CONS: No campaign, only instant battles for the new single player levels. No Russian or Japanese levels but that’s not surprising, it is supposed to be the Italian front. No Rome level! Although there was very little fighting around Rome, this still makes the title a little misleading. The rifle is the only weapon that you can fix bayoneted to, none of the others, not even the sniper can, and I don’t even think that the Americans get the M1 Garand. Also Canada didn’t get a level, we were in Italy too you know (although the Battlegroup mod includes Ortona). The game could also use just a couple more new vehicles and weapons (the Bren, for example). It would also be ideal if this expansion modified 1942′s levels to have the new features like Stens and bayonets (the Arsenal mod does this for you though), had EA Games incorporated the updates in the original levels, far more people would play the Road to Rome version. Unfortunately, few people come on this expansion. It’s not that this expansion adds bad updates to the game, this is certainly not the case, the problem is that there is just not enough updates. But let’s not forget, you aren’t paying any extra for this update, so it’s good to have on hand if you spot a good server using Road to Rome.

-Secret Weapons of WWII PROS: This is the second expansion pack. Its got new levels that include a few memorable ones (I especially like Essen), however they are “secret missions” so you would never hear about them. Everything is based off of real locations, but several of the locations were never full-scale battle (that we know of). I like that the manual gives descriptions of each mission for this expansion and the other two versions. You play mostly with British Commandos and German Elites. Also you get more new weapons than Road to Rome, including the Bren (finally), one-shot kill knives, silence sten, shotgun, a Gewehr sniper (semi-auto), FG 42 (it is not scoped, unless you get the Arsenal mod), and a grenade rifle attachment and best of all: the rocket pack kit that lets you fly with a rocket pack, armed with an MG 34! But the most radical additions are the new vehicles! I’m talkin’ new f****d- up looking tanks, Shermans with rocket launchers on top, amphibious vehicles, motorcycle with machine gun-mounted sidecar, mobile flak guns, fighter/bomber jets (that’s right, you read correctly), rocket planes (quite unique to this game), paratrooper planes that act as flying spawn points (Essen has this), and Wasserfall guided rockets!!! Some of these are pretty historically inaccurate but they’re hella fun and they’re clearly just for the sake of fun. Servers for Secret Weapons are slightly easier to find than Road to Rome servers, but still very scarce.

-Secret Weapons CONS: No campaign. Some levels aren’t very good. Its probably pretty historically inaccurate but like I said, who cares? There aren’t enough rocket packs! This is the biggest disappointment because so far I have only been able to find one two levels (one being Essen, the other does not support coop), there could be more but I can’t find them. It would be more ideal if you could choose it as one of your spawning kits and have large-scale rocket pack battles on certain levels. Oh well, its still impressive that the game has one. No Canada, in fact, no Japan, or Russia. America has no secret weapons of their own. Oh and no fixed bayonets! Most, if not all, of the updates from Road to Rome were forgotten and this expansion also excludes updates to the original 1942 levels. However this is not as big a deal since it would be ridiculous to have jets bombing Omaha beach, for example (but it might have still been fun).

Vietnam PROS: the new engine has some great jungle and scenery, superior to 1942′s. This is NOT an expansion pack, by the way. The levels are very immersing, accurate and well done. You can play as different American divisions, the South Vietnamese and the North Vietnamese (VC or NVA). I don’t know what everyone’s problem was with this game, I thought it was awesome. There are more weapons to choose from, and each level seems to have different sets. For example, an engineer kit on one level may be slightly different than one on another level. Plus you would get two different engineer kits to choose from! The kits are unique too, because an American kit is different from a Vietcong kit, it is not the same weapon with a different skin and the same equipment. The weapons are more realistic than they were in Battlefield 1942, and fire more accurately (for example, an M16 fires more accurately than an AK-47). On certainmaps almost every American kit has a medic kit and binoculars, since they were not getting enough use in 1942. The vehicles are cool, but being on foot is more ideal than in 1942 because you have foliage to conceal yourself in. A good Vietcong uses the jungle as his/her greatest weapon. You get tanks, patrol boats, fighter and bomber jets, various helicopters (some can airlift vehicles). The game is brilliant at creating a 60-70′s Vietnam feel by giving you little stories as the levels load and music from that time period. One of the things that everyone loves is the fact that vehicles can play music that you and others nearby can hear. You can be dropping napalm on a spawn point while listening to ‘War’ or what have you. You can even listen to your own MP3s! Like I said before, the weapons are awesome, and I especially like the deployable mortars! And you can lay boobie-traps like punji sticks or claymore mines. Also there is the 3D map (or so they call it) that helps you keep your bearings and identify teammates without constantly checking the map. I also like the metre that tells you how much of a base you have captured. Oh and lets not forget that WWII mod that lets you play the pacific levels from 1942 only they’re souped up with the new Vietnam engine that adds better graphics, thicker, more realistic jungle and foliage, more realism, mortars, and flamethrowers (find them inside houses). There are also other mods you can download for Vietnam, but not as many as 1942.

Vietnam CONS: no campaign. Not as many servers, but definitely enough. Well, the game has just a few bugs. It can also get laggy, even worse so than 1942, due to the jungle engine and my computer cannot support as many bots as it can with 1942 (however, the Vietnam Conflict had more small scale battles anyway). Like 1942, the multiplayer is prone to freezing or crashing to windows very occasionally and it seemed to have problems at first aborting a level or ending one level and starting another. You’ll know what I’m talking about if this happens to you, but my computer only did that only because it was screwed up, it won’t do it now if I hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete and end-task Hpoevm08 before I start the game. If it does this to you try end-tasking certain programs that may interfere with the game. Also, other players can’t hear your own MP3′s-a small drawback. The levels, while large, aren’t large enough for the jets. Well, they’re large enough, but you’ll find yourself constantly turning around without much time to get you’re bearing to bomb a small target. That’s where the 3D map comes in handy. Also, the helicopters take some getting used to (definitely get a joy stick for them, then their hella fun). Plus airlifting, while cool, is hard-very hard, the game could have worked on simplifying it even more. Oh, and remember how I said the weapons were very accurate? I neglected to mention that many of the bolts on the guns are on the wrong side (not very noticeable, except with the sniper rifles) for the purposes of simpler reloading animations. The WWII mod is even more laggy than Vietnam, especially when using the flamethrower (which isn’t very good anyway). Unfortunately, both Vietnam and WWII mod also forgot about bayonets.

So, anyway…This game pack is AWESOME!!! So what if there’s a few minute problems? Most of those cons are just me nit picking, trying to come up with what is wrong with the game. Really the Pros out-weigh the cons by about 10 times! I am not kidding, this game so unbelievable, if you’re interested in Battlefield 1942 DEFINITELY get the Complete Collection set. For that price, even if you don’t like 3 of the 4 games its still worth it! But that’s not going to happen, if you like one, you’ll like them all!!! Picture it: four games for less than the price of any new WWII game. Ok, I think I’ve rambled on long enough. well it was long enough a while ago, but I can’t help it, you get so much out of this game so, of course, it deserves a longer review.

Review by stormtrooper7777 for Battlefield 1942: The Complete Collection
Rating:
This game is the best collection ever! You get the 2002 game of the year battlefield 1942, and it’s two great expansions,Battlefield 1942, The Road to Rome, And Battlefield 1942, Secret Weapons of WWII. And you also get Battlefield Vietnam, which is my favorite, where you can drive and fly vehicles,from the Vietnam era, while listening to music from the Vietnam era. These games never get boring, so they’re guaranteed to stay fun for a long time. If you like FPS’s, and the ability to drive and fly war vehicles, then this is the game for you.

Review by David R. Krueger for Battlefield 1942: The Complete Collection
Rating:
From the other reviews, it’s obvious that the real strength of this game lies in its multiplayer mode. Nonetheless, I bought it with the intention of playing it in a single player mode. For a stinkin’ $10 you get BF1942, plus the two expansion packs and BF Vietnam with the WWII mod. Not a bad value unless the game really sucks, which it most certainly does not.

It reminded me of Quake Wars, Enemy Territory. A large playing field with various spawn points and you get to be on one of two teams of bots. Admittedly, the bots aren’t all that smart. I found the bots in Quake III Arena to be infinitely smarter, although that could just be my memory playing tricks on me. I haven’t played Quake III in single player mode in ages.

Anyway, I played through the campaign mode and then through the instant maps of the expansion packs and enjoyed every one. I couldn’t fly the planes very well, so that was the least fun part of it. There’s a lot of variety in the weapons and a huge selection of different vehicles. This game is worth playing just for the tanks. They were nicely done and fairly realistic. Going over rough terrain, the tanks bounce up and down as you would expect a real tank to do.

This is an old game, so don’t expect much in the way of detailed graphics, but the game ran quite smooth without a single problem on my Vista x64 machine. I did have to configure the properties of the executable to run in administrator mode before it would save the selectable options, profiles, and game status. One nice thing about the Complete Collection is that you don’t have to download any patches for it. They are already in the game when you install it.

Being an old game, it didn’t have any wide screen (16×10) video modes and I was unable to get any of the manual edits on the config files (as suggested on the widescreengaming forums) to work. I didn’t find that to be a big downside, though. The picture was slightly distorted, but not enough to be an annoyance.

BF Vietnam has a slightly improved game engine making it a bit more modern, but still very similar. Seems like the HUD is slightly more refined than in the original game.

Overall, if you’re running out of FPS games and and have $10 burning a hole in your pocket, this is not a bad game. I played through the games and expansion in about two weeks and wasn’t bored. I may check out the online play which is where the game is most likely to shine. I still play Quake III on line and I would put this in a similar category, although with much larger open maps.

Review by G. Garrett for Mass Effect 2
Rating:
I tripped across the original Mass Effect at EA’s download site recently, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Using basically the same engine and game mechanics as KOTOR I and II, it plays pretty much like the third installment of that franchise, minus the licensing fees. I downloaded the deluxe edition of Mass Effect II, ready to continue the saga of Commander Shepard.

The Good:

- You pick up where you left off in ME. You can import your character model, and the decisions he/she made, though no experience or skills transfer.

- The writing and voice acting are excellent.

- The universe of the original ME is still here, but expanded and enriched.

- Where you aim is where you hit.

- Graphics have been kicked up. Models are higher poly count, and textures are more detailed.

- You can customize your cabin now, as well as your clothing and armor color. It isn’t essential to the plot, but it adds more personality to the game. Remember to feed the fish.

- Bypass and hacking mini-games are a little more contextual, and less forced than the “circular frogger” mini-game of ME.

The Bad:

- This is a different game engine than ME, and as others have said, many of the RPG elements have been stripped down. There are fewer skills, with fewer steps. Ammo types are now a skill, and after you’ve used one skill, you have to wait for the recharge time to use any other. So if you decide to switch ammo types in a fight, find a place to hide before you can use AI hack.

- Levels are smaller, and linear now. There is little or no 3rd person exploring. You will proceed from one “shoot house” (with liberally distributed cover, a few exploding barrels, and a few breakable boxes) to the next. Lather, rinse, repeat.

- Squad mate AI has taken a step back from ME. I’ve got to babysit my team mates in ME2, while in the original ME, they usually provided effective support without me having to micromanage their actions.

- Inventory is simplified, and abstract. Upgrades now affect everyone in the group, weapons choices are paired down (though you can still pick different weapons for each team mate), and figuring out the difference between different weapons is reduced to comparing text descriptions (or going to the wiki). I liked the stat comparison feature in ME better.

- Your squad gains back health during combat, as well as barriers (shields), so combat becomes a rate game. Do damage at a faster rate than you take it. ME’s weapon mechanics were a refreshing change, forcing you to manage heat buildup with tactics and modifications, sadly lost with ME2′s regression to ammo clip mechanics.

- Looting lockers/crates is largely gone, along with trying to find a set of MercVIII armor that fits a Quarian. I miss customizing weapons/armor/ammo/upgrades for each character.

- Combat is FPS standard now, with a few glitches. Cover is essential, but I’ve occasionally gotten “hung up” and unable to shoot from cover. Hopping over low barriers is possible, but only using the same key used for taking cover. So you have to take cover before you can hop over it. Combat is much more frantic in ME2, and getting lost in the button-mashing can be frustrating. Save often.

- The map function is largely absent now. Maybe this was to preserve the surprise of the next shoot house, but it makes figuring out where you’re going (or remembering where you’ve been) a pain.

- Some of the remaining RPG elements are counter-intuitive, or just random. I’m playing as a Paragon (good guy), which apparently includes jacking people up to intimidate them, and trading my good name for shopping discounts. Who knew Japandering was virtuous? I’m still trying to figure out how I garnered the few Renegade (bad guy) points I’ve gotten. I think the writers designated some of these points with a dart board.

- Mining resources in ME2 is a mind-trap for anal-retentives like me. Without knowing how much of each resource I’ll need to allow for researching upgrades, it’s easy to get stuck in the mind-numbing rut of “must…scan…last…planet…for…Palladium.” Give me back the keys to the Mako, please. At least I could shoot things with it.

Bottom line:

ME2 is still fun, but it atrophies a lot of the RPG stuff I found fun in ME, and pumps up the FPS stuff (with cookie-cutter FPS mechanics) I didn’t think needed pumping up.

Review by S. Fuentes for Mass Effect 2
Rating:
I must first admit that I believe the first Mass Effect to the better game. But don’t take that to mean that this is a bad game. Far from it, this is game in of itself is a masterpiece of game play and story telling. The combat is more enjoyable this time around with an overhaul to the cover system that both you and the enemy AI utilize. In addition you get the standard Bioware squad members who you recruit and can do missions for (if you want the mission to succeed this is imperative). These characters are for the most part wonderfully structured and along with the old and new faces you will meet along the way make for another great sci-fi adventure. Plus how can you not like Martin Sheen playing the Illusive Man?

While I do miss the old Citadel, the old upgrade system, and some former squad members these are small issues in the scheme of things. Did Bioware maybe take a safe approach to the sequel? Perhaps but lets not forget this is a buildup for what promises to be an epic finale in the trilogy. Finally a tip of the hat to EA for not including DRM in this title. 2K games opted to do continue using this ineffective and intrusive copy-protection method in Bioshock 2. I would encourage folks to buy this game to support publishers who don’t use DRM as well as to support developers that make good games.