Today I’ll be taking a look at the Battlefield 1943 review written by “jrturner0112″ over at E4G.info. I need to preface this by stating that E4G doesn’t appear to have any kind of editorial staff in place and appears to publish absolutely anything that gets submitted to the website.
The review opens up with a paragraph that doesn’t make much sense to anybody who may be coming to 1943 as their first game in the Battlefield series:
Battlefield 1943 is an exclusively downloadable online shooter set during the Pacific portion of WWII. It supports twenty-four players and does a decent job of sticking to the Battlefield universe. It would have been tough for developers to explain a WWII tale where a rag tag group of undisciplined soldiers in the Pacific had to engage in a gold heist, so 1943 is Conquest all the way. – jrturner0112
So who are these undisciplined soldiers? Why would developers need to explain an event like a gold heist in a first person shooter? What exactly is Conquest? What do any of these questions mean in relation to Battlefield 1943? With the exception of mentioning Conquest none of these have any relation to the game, and mentioning Conquest without any explanation of what Conquest is is essentially useless.
Battlefield 1943 is a strictly multiplayer first person shooter, complete with a set of four maps. On each map players are divided into two teams and both teams fight to capture specific points on the map. When a point has been captured the team that owns it can spawn there if they so choose and continue pushing towards the next objective. Each team has a meter which slowly decreases depending on how many flags the opposite team has captured — when the meter reaches zero that team loses the round. That is Conquest in a nutshell, but without that explanation knowing what it’s called is pointless. And since it’s the only game type in Battlefield 1943 proper an explanation of it in the review would have been nice.
DICE…offers most of the franchise’s experience for around fifteen dollars…There are four maps total. I think. I can’t remember, and I’m pretty certain most players won’t keep track either. They all look and feel pretty much the same. Yes, I understand the game focuses on a few key battles in the Pacific, but more diversity would have been nice… -jrturner0112
Most players actually do keep track of the maps, to the point where most players participated in the event where achieving a cumulative total of 43 million kills unlocked a 4th map for the game: Coral Sea. While each of the maps do look similar in terms of the terrain, well, what do you expect? Four islands in the Pacific are bound to look similar, but this review glosses over the more important details on the maps.
Iwo-Jima is a straight shot from end to end but has steep cliffs around most of the back end, making it nearly impossible to attack from the sea. Guadalcanal, on the other hand has a similar layout but it much lower to sea level and much more open which means you can attack and be attacked from multiple points and from a greater distance.
On top of lazy research complaints about the maps, he also claims that playing a match of Battlefield 1943 devolves into a game of both teams choosing the Scout class:
Since the other two are limp as can be, Battlefield 1943 de-evolves to what nearly every other online shooter eventually falls ill: a boring, frustrating map full of twenty-four snipers. This game just does it much more quickly. It’s not just that the other two classes are too weak, but the sniper rifle is also much stronger! -jrturner0112
While I can only provide anecdotal evidence to counter this I will say that I have never found a game where every player is playing as a Scout. I’ve never found a game where even half of either team is playing as a Scout. Having just turned it on and played through a series of matches as a quick refresher I deliberately chose the Scout and was one of only four players in the entire game playing as that class.
While the sniper rifle is very strong, it isn’t always a one hit kill. A shot to the chest will not kill a fully healed player, but a headshot will. What the reviewer fails to realize is that despite the game employing regenerating health for every class the Scout is much, much weaker and dies much, much quicker. He doesn’t seem to realize that balance in a game like this isn’t just in weapon strength but in the character as a whole. Stronger gun, less health.
The reviewer makes a point of mentioning that the game is downloadable and set at a price point of around $15, but then turns around and complains that there isn’t enough diversity in class or maps. His entire review smacks of somebody wanting to pay out the equivalent of $15 and receive $60 worth of game; he doesn’t seem to grasp that as this is a downloadable game it isn’t going to have a plethora of classes and entire map packs in the product.
My final thoughts on this review lead me to comment on the reviewer’s final thoughts:
How do you judge a game when it’s blatantly not meant to sit on retail shelves next to the latest and greatest? -jrturner0112
You don’t judge a game. It isn’t a reviewer’s place to judge the games we look at. We review them. We talk about how the game succeeds and how it fails. We talk about what we liked about the game and what we disliked about it. We praise the game on it’s achievements, and much like I do with this feature we point out it’s failures.
Most importantly, we review a game based on the game. We shouldn’t review the game based on how it compares to other games, especially games that aren’t a part of the same series. The “latest and greatest” games are meant for a longer, more fulfilling experience and carry a completely different tone — a game like Battlefield 1943 is meant for quick, fast, and fun action.
