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Reviewer:
Quercus
Review Date: 15/09/2003
Score: 85%
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Battlefield
1942 is a wonderful game. It has its flaws, true, but unlike
some games *cough* Freelancer *cough* at least the
developers continue to provide support since its release,
in the form of patches, improvements and even the occasional
free map.
But reaction to the expansion disks has been less enthusiastic.
Certainly the expansion Road to Rome offered some
initial differences that were welcomed, but after playing
with the new toys for a bit the maps became criticised for
being too limiting - the tactic of forcing the attackers up
a single route (as with Omaha beach in the original game)
can be fun for a change of pace, but most of the RtR maps
were like this. The expansion was also criticised for only
having six new maps. Not good value for money.
So, with
that background how does Secret Weapons hold up? Firstly I
will be examining the different aspects of the expansion pack
and then I will evaluate the pack as a whole.
The pack includes; a number of new vehicles, new personal
weapons and kit loadouts and eight new maps to play with them
in.
New
Toys
Secret
Weapons is based around the premise of the last-minute technology
advances either in action or in prototype stage towards the
end of the war. Most never saw action, but that clearly isn't
important here. - Axis get the Ho-229 (jet fighter/bomber)
and the desposable Natter jet, the amphibious kubelwagon (with
attached MG), motorcycle & sidecar, Flakpanzer and the
Battle-kettle or Sturmtiger Artillery piece. They also have
the Wasserfall guided rocket (think V2).
Most of these are very nice to use (the Sturmtiger being the
worst due to the poor sights, lack of ammunition and less
than impressive splash damage). The Ho229 is the best of all
the jets and the flakpanzer is a very cool machine to play
with. The Wasserfall is of limited use - very impressive when
you hit but very difficult to control and very fast - so the
chance of actually hitting anything is fairly slim.
The Allies get a Buffalo amphibious APC, a Sherman with T34
rocket system, the T95 heavy tank, AW52 flying wing jet bomber
and the "Goblin" jet fighter, as well as their own
motorcycle.
The
Sherman is nice without being overpowering. The T95 is sluggish
and takes a while to get used to. I think its damage against
other tanks needs improving slightly because it doesn't seem
as capable against armour as it should be. The aircraft are
the weakest though. The Goblin has only machine guns and therefore
is useless against anything except infantry, but moves too
fast to target them. The AW52 has such a huge wingspan that
it will clip any nearby terrain or buildings and blow itself
up. It carries a limited bomb load and four rockets - which
bearing in mind the wingspan are more of a hinderance as they
have to be fired by flying down at low level towards the target.
There is also the jet-pack. This has been cleverly implemented
as a weapon kit that is left in certain buildings on certain
maps. It is great fun to use and effectively only allows short
hops, but it is useful for reaching the top of buildings or
passing over hills or rivers.
New
Personal Weapons
More
welcome changes here with the British and German "elite"
forces. The British have a silenced sten, Bren LMG as their
assault rifle and a shotgun for the Engineer. The latter is
the least welcome perhaps, rendering the Allied engineer useless
at any range other than close.
The Axis also have new weapons on some maps - the FG42 assault
rifle, a semi-automatic sniper rifle and a K98/Grenade rifle
for their Engineer. Again, the latter is possibly the least
welcome because the grenade rifle has a very poor range and
replaces the explosive packs. This seriously needs changing
because you can throw grenades significantly further than
the rifle can fire them, which is just ridiculous.
One very cool touch is the new throwing knife. Both "elite"
forces have the standard knife replaced with a throwing knife,
which is very fun to use.
New
Maps
There
are eight new maps, including two night-time ones. Most of
these are very nicely created and unlike RtR, most allow for
multiple attack points, allowing for more varied battles.
Essen is probably the weakest of these, with Telemark and
Mimoyecques being the strongest. Just travelling around the
maps makes you wish that the battles could be spread over
a wider area than just the straightest route to the enemy
flags will dictate.
New
Game Mode
The last change is a new game mode for
these maps called Objective. In this conquest-style mode,
the allies win by destroying a vital Axis site, with the Axis
having to defend it (Similar to the Battle of Britain map).
While this worked well with Battle of Britain, due to the
axis having to attack across a channel (and presumably the
same would be true of Mimoyecques), it fails with land-based
maps in my opinion because it is either too easy (Hellendoorn)
or too hard (the other maps) to get to and destroy the objective.
The former because the Allies can surround the objective easily
(shooting with tanks and any other vehicles) and the latter
because Axis can spawn at athe objective and kill any attackers
there too easily.
This is the weakest part of the expansion pack and I would
have been happier with a "push" based objective
mode, where flag point x has to be captured before flag point
y can be attacked (i.e. a sequenced series of objectives)
than this.
Indeed,
one really nice way to approach maps is if the attackers in
objective mode have to secure two or three flag points simultaneously
(forming a line between the Axis/Allied bases) to capture
that flag point.
This would allow use of larger areas of the map and force
combined attacks.
My overall
impression:
Better value than RtR with much greater longevity. Some nice
new features, but still work needed on the new mode and some
weapons.
