Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII

Oh my - I doubt that the jet pack will bring this soldier back to earth in one piece after he jumped out of his Natter Rocket plane.

The Second World War accelerated the development of new technology like no event in world history before it. The German engineers in particular excelled in creating strange and powerful weapons in the last years of the war, which (luckily for the Allies) never saw action on the battlefield on any significant scale. However, the Allies were not enjoying life on a sunny beach either and prototypes like the Armstrong Whitworth AW-52 jet bomber proved the capabilities of Allied engineers. These “secret” weapons of war have generated a lot of interest afterwards – not least due to Hitler’s many comments about secret wonder weapons and how they were going to change the tide of war. Thus it comes as no surprise that EA and DICE have chosen these weapons as the topic for the second Battlefield 1942 expansion.

Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII requires the original Battlefield 1942 to run and luckily includes more weapons and vehicles than the first expansion, Road to Rome. The hooligan version of the content is eight new maps, fifteen new vehicles and weapons and one new gameplay type - objective mode. Now that the hooligans are satisfied, let’s have a more in-depth look.

Soldier, you know your objective

The new Flakpanzer to the right, the new LVT4 Water Buffalo to the left and a soldier with the new Gewehr 42.

The basics of Battlefield 1942 have not been changed apart from the objective mode. It’s still a team and class based multiplayer first person shooter, so don’t buy this game if you aren’t prepared to play it online. Secret Weapons adds two new forces to the battle: the British Commandos and German Elite soldiers (it would probably be much too politically incorrect to call them their real name of the Waffen SS, but that’s what they are really). Six of the eight new maps support objective mode, but can also be played in the traditional modes. Typically an objective is about blowing something to smaller pieces than snowflakes. For example the Allies must enter the Telemark heavy water facility and destroy the generators on the Telemark map.

Sadly it’s not very easy to figure out just how much damage you have done to the objectives, which kind of spoils the fun. The most serious problem is finding servers that run objective mode, though. It seems that most servers stick to conquest, but hopefully that will change.

Is it a bird? Is it Superman? No, it’s a plane…

The Armstrong Whitworth AW-52 flying wing was probably one of the most exciting prototypes the Allies built during the war.

But lets talk about the core of the game: the weapons of war. Secret Weapon’s new vehicles will probably get most WWII hardware enthusiasts drooling: McDonnell F-85 Goblin jet fighter, Natter Rocket aircraft, Armstrong Whitworth AW-52 flying wing, Horton HO 229 (Go 299) flying wing, XA/42 motorcycle with machine gun-mounted sidecar, R-75 motorcycle with machine gun-mounted sidecar, LVT4 Water Buffalo amphibious landing vehicle, C-47 cargo aircraft (with flyable spawn-point), Sherman Tank with T-34 Calliope rocket launcher, Flakpanzer (anti-aircraft tank), T95/T28 Super Heavy Tank (ridiculously powerful tank), Sturmtiger (Tiger with a naval gun), Commando raft and Schwimmwagen amphibious vehicle.

Additionally there is a German guided anti-aircraft rocket called Wasserfall and the much-debated Rocket Pack. Soldiers get equipped with new weapons as well like the powerful paratrooper rifle, Gewehr 42, the Remington Auto 5 shotgun or the throwing knife.

Tank you very much

Imagine being hit by a naval gun fired from a tank. Must hurt, right? Unfortunately for the Allies that's exactly what the Sturmtiger (two of 'em in front of my normal Panzer) does.

That’s quite a list and it’s clear that the vehicles are much more interesting than those in Road to Rome. You’ll have many hilarious moments as you experiment and learn the ways of the different vehicles. The fun of seeing a Sturm Tiger creating havoc amongst a group of soldiers can’t be overestimated. However, since the vehicles are somewhat more powerful than the original ones the gameplay now leans more towards Desert Combat, where you really need a vehicle to survive. I even encountered a lamer on one server, who was so fixated on getting to control the Wasserfall rocket on the Essen map that he team-killed everyone who took control of it before him. This is not helpful for the gameplay but I guess that the very nature of Battlefield results in people focusing on getting vehicles – it has just gotten a bit worse now.

The new vehicles demand some new strategies however, and especially the amphibious vehicles have in my opinion brought a new element of surprise into the game. The high speeds of the planes make them difficult to control but very rewarding to master.

Ups and downs in the world of secrets

The technical highlight of Secret Weapons is without doubt the motorcycles' very cool engine sounds.

As mentioned earlier Secret Weapons not only offers interesting vehicles it also includes eight new maps. Sadly the overall quality of the maps is lower than in both the original game and in Road to Rome. The map in the Secret Weapons demo, Hellendoorn, is definitely the best among the newcomers and a map like Essen is also very addictive (when there’s no lamer around). However, I don’t know what DICE were thinking when they designed the way-too-dark Kbely Airfield map, and both the Gothic Line and the Eagle’s Nest maps get boring too soon.

The graphic quality is nearly the same as in Battlefield 1942 and although it seemed to me that there have been minor improvements it’s difficult to pinpoint them. The technical highlight of the pack is definitely the motorcycle, which has a very cool and distinctive engine sound (and a horn!). You can clearly hear that it’s a two-stroke engine. Secret Weapons also includes all the earlier patches up till 1.45 and thus offers a much more stable and bug-free gaming experience than the original game as well.

I'm a doctor, not a commando

BF1942 Secret Weapons is fun, not doubt about that. But I don't think it will last... people will revert to the original game.

Sadly EA and DICE didn’t use the release of 1.45 and Secret Weapons to change the fact that medics and engineers aren’t rewarded for healing people and repairing vehicles like they are in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. This results in very few people actually playing these classes and thus robs the game of one of the basic strategic elements. But I guess (or hope rather) that this will change when Battlefield Vietnam is released next year.

On the other hand objective mode is a very welcome addition to the BF universe, and I hope that more servers will start appearing for it. Apart from that Secret Weapons basically offers the same as Road to Rome: new vehicles and new maps. The vehicles are way better than in the first expansion pack, but the maps are mostly not quite as good. If you take a look at the final score you may be surprised that I only give Secret Weapons a score of seven. The reason for that is simple. Ask yourself – how much have you been playing Road to Rome lately? Not much, I’d bet. And that has been the case with many BF gamers, which has meant that many Road to Rome servers have been taken down again. The packs are fun for a while, but for some reason one goes back to the original game. I fear that Secret Weapons will only last a short while, although the pack itself offers some good material.