REVIEW: The Road To Rome

For historical accuracy and insight into the Battlefield 1942 expansion pack we would have to turn to 'Dangerous' Dave, our beloved boss who previewed Road to Rome some time ago. We suspect that's because he was there, either that or his Tivo is locked onto the History Channel and he can't figure out how to shift it.

As mentioned in our preview, RTR offers six extra maps covering the all important Italian and Sicilian campaigns of World War II. Whereas the original game covers Eastern and Western Europe, the South Pacific and North Africa, Road to Rome focuses on the battle for Italy which the Allies thought would last weeks, but stretched out to a tougher than expected year. As well as extra maps, there are new vehicles and weapons - for more info, you guessed it, check the preview.

But how do the new additions add to the game - is this expansion pack something you should rush to lash out on? Well, yes, if a) your PC ran the game without a hitch first time around and b) you intend to go online with it. The frankly rather poor single player of the main game is, to us, vastly improved for Road to Rome's levels (which have to be played as instant battles rather than as part of the original campaign) but Battlefield's raison d'etre is still taking on folk online.

The first thing you'll notice on installing Battlefield 1942 Road to Rome and booting the game up, is that there's no discernible difference. It's the same intro movie, the same game and menus - the Road to Rome element has to be activated under the Custom Games menu. With a bit of fiddling, (especially if, like us, you're not in the habit of reading manuals) multiplayer can then be filtered to only show RTR games. But frills aside, RTR sets out to add more damn fine gameplay, not a makeover.

To go back to how your PC ran the original game, don't expect any instant improvement - Battlefield remains a hungry beast that will gobble as much of your PC's power as it can. An upcoming patch should improve things - though the US version left us and another poor player with echoing, stuttering sound. Let's hope the EA boffins can sort that out for the UK 1.3 patch, which is partly intended to improve performance for owners of both the original and the expansion. Such is life for a PC gamer though.

The new weapons are a bit rubbish. One of the guns looks more like a cartoon farmer's scatter gun (though we're assured it's realistic) and although being given a bayonet option (a one prod kill if you can get close enough) is great, the loss of the vital right click zoom mode on bayoneted weapons is frustrating.

So - those are our moans. But please, stay with us, because this hasn't really taken the shine of one of our favourite add-ons to one of our favourite games of 2002.

How come? You may well ask. That's because the general gameplay of Battlefield is stunning enough to take some weaknesses, especially when you take into account just how fantabulous the new levels are. There may be only six, but they are tightly designed, each adding their own special flavour - whether it be frantic uphill dashes, bullet ridden bottle necks at strategic bridges or a constant battle to control an all important central point. Each level plays with the rules (no spawning here, this base can't be taken over etcetera, etcetera) just enough to tweak things and notch up the heat of gameplay without confusing issues. With the right amount of players each map is a veritable playground, with the way you re-spawn (if you die, you choose one of your bases to come back to life at) meaning that both sides feel as if they're attacking or defending wave after wave of soldiers.

Each level also encourages strategy. Online matches have shown us a tremendous amount of natural born leaders online. Screams for artillery, snipers to find their targets, backup, medics, nothing so far has naturally pushed us towards a genuine sense of team work as Road to Rome. Before we get flamed, I should say 'I'. That is, as a fairly new online gamer, it's Battlefield that has made your beloved correspondent feel a part of something exciting and, well, human.

Fighting uphill as the French at Monte Cassino, it became quite clear that the manned artillery guns and a couple of stolen tanks were making things impossible for us. The few tanks that managed to get across the bridges were soon mincemeat at the foot of the hill, if not victims of the tanks or the German AT gun then taken out by German rocket launchers. Our tickets were fast reducing (the 'score' of each team, based on territory occupied and foes vanquished - the game's over when your side's tickets reach zero) and at the base of this seemingly unconquerable hill, which rolled with the sound of shell and thunder, we felt defeated.

Then Sgt Somebody-or-other (sorry we can't remember your name, dude) piped up. 'Snipers, take positions - find your targets, take out those rocket launchers,' he commanded, or rather typed. 'Stop wasting those tanks, group out of firing range ready for attack.' We gathered our forces, the non-stop flow of ever-respawning players wandering into a line of fire now gathered at a safe distance, snipers picking off anyone straying too close, waiting for a committed all-at-once push. Sgt Somebody-or-other spake again. 'Ready?'.

It's moments like this that make multiplayer gaming; working as a team, knowing what's going on, who's who and what needs to be done. Each level is more or less designed solely to give that kind of feeling, that sense of 'real battle' (if battle were ever as fun, safe and survivable as this). The vehicles too encourage you to invite fellow gamers to 'jump in'. The new stationery artillery weapons make it easier to defend a base whilst calling for reinforcements.

The whole balancing of the game is superb, and provides a great test of skill. We'd not stopped playing the original by the time Road to Rome became available - it's rather like the much-awaited second series of a favourite TV show appearing mere weeks after the first series ended. Well, it's an analogy that works for us goggle-eyed sorts anyway.

Get it, get online and get behind me and Sgt Somebody-or-other. We'll see you right lad. Ready?

Every now and then a game comes along that reinvents a whole genre

Ultima Underworld did it for RPGs, Command and Conquer changed the way we played and viewed strategy, and Goldeneye did it for the FPS (no doubt I'll be laughed at for such insolence, but it's true).

Now it's about time that the FPS got another makeover, and EA are on hand with their make-up bag, and a certain Battlefield 1942.

Here's the pitch. Think of a WWII FPS which is more strategic than Medal Of Honour, but not as complex as Operation Flashpoint. Think being able to play as five historically accurate sides - American, German, British, Russian, or Japanese. Think of real campaigns - Normandy, the battle of Midway, operation Market Garden.

So far, so what?

Now get this. Fancy some more firepower? Climb into that tank and take control of its movement and the main cannon. Or jump atop the tank and man those machine guns. Take to the skies in a fighter plane and engage in dogfights and bombing raids as the battle scorches below you. Grab the nearest Anti-Aircraft cannon and flak the enemy planes out of the sky. Dive below sea level in a U-boat and sink battleships with your torpedoes, or even captain a warship. There are 35 vehicles are available in all, and some will take more than one to man them successfully.

You'd usually expect something this ambitious to fall flat on its face. But if the beta we've been playing for the last week is anything to go by, Battlefield 1942 may turn out to be the most important PC game of the year - and that includes Neverwinter Nights.

Up to 64 players (32 per team) can battle it out online, with each fulfilling one of a number of roles, including medic, engineer, anti-tank crew, assault troops and scouts. Each class of character is equipped slightly differently. The scout will carry a sniper rifle while anti-tank troops have bazookas, because it's usually quite tough to take out a Sherman with your bare hands. Medic and engineer might not sound like the most fun but each class has their own strengths and weaknesses. Engineers can lace a bridge with explosives and destroy it while a tank lumbers across. One amazing example of bravery and inventiveness I witnessed was an American engineer jumping from the back seat of the Marauder aircraft he was riding in, parachute onto the deck of a Japanese carrier and scupper their whole attack by peppering the deck with mines and ruining any chance the Japs had of getting further planes into the sky.

The sheer excitement engendered by the whole concept is still hard to extinguish after several days of play. To look at a warplane swooping towards you with the intention of strafing you with its guns, and to realise that it's another player - in fact, your boss, chuckling away to himself in his office - that's in the plane...to get into an armoured troop carrier, get someone to man the guns, a load of mates in the back and smash into the centre of a enemy's camp...to feel the exhilaration of knowing that battleship out there is sinking because of your expertise at the helm of a massive gun emplacement on the shore. All in all the gameplay experience on offer here is completely uncharted.

The handling of the numerous vehicles seems extremely strong at this point, sitting comfortably somewhere between the regions of sim and arcade-style handling. The planes on the other hand have a bit more depth to them and seem to have been designed with flight-sim experts in mind. This was frustrating for myself as every time I tried to take off I spiralled hopelessly into the sea, but really it's for the best - it gives people who know the basics of flight already a real sense of purpose and plus if I want to be a top pilot myself I'm just going to have to learn. Still, jumping into the back of a plane with a skilled pilot and taking out enemy fighters with the rear gun while being taken on a loop-the-looping joyride is an awesome rush.

There's a single-player game of course, where you have a series of missions to play through as each of the five factions in order to finish the game, but this is undoubtedly a title made for LAN and online gaming. On a decent PC the graphics remain smooth and detailed, and though a broadband connection is obviously recommended, things really aren't too bad with an older PC or a 56k modem. Modes include your standard Deathmatch, and Conquest, where the battle is won by seizing control of the camps on a given map - take control of an encampment and your country's flag will proudly fly in the centre.

Criticisms at the beta stage are few, but niggling. One map I played was strewn with minefields, and yes, I understand that knowing where mines are defeats their object, but from the very little I (admittedly) know about real war I would imagine the rough whereabouts of mines are usually known. Another reality-driven thorn in my side was the inability to tell whether the soldier up ahead is on your side or a bloodthirsty enemy (it's not always clear what colour uniform they're wearing). Holding the crosshair over the unidentified person will eventually bring up a name (colour-coded so you know the allegiance) but by that time I was usually dead. Realism is all well and good but let's hope the developers don't forget that it's a game at heart and some concessions are necessary to keep it a fun, rather than frustrating, experience. Not to worry though, there's still plenty o' time to iron out such worries.

In the superlative-ridden, exaggeration-friendly world of games journalism, it's often difficult to tell which games are simply going to refine an existing genre (Unreal Tournament 2003 for example - yes it'll be amazing but it'll be evolution rather than revolution) and which ones are going to completely and utterly shape the future. Barring a major disaster (the Swedish developers being eaten by a rabid moose for example) Battlefield 1942 is surely going to become the first PC title in ages to offer an experience which feels completely new and is mind-blowingly exciting. The initial gaming sessions we've had on the Beta have driven this office into a frenzy like we have never experienced before. Finally we're going to be able to live out each and every war-time fantasy we've ever had without having to put up with the grim realities of mud, exercise, capture, torture and of course, gruesome death.

War, huh, what is it good for? Well, nothing really, but at least we get games like this out of it fifty years on.

Dangerous Dave Evans takes time out of his Nuclear Holocaust drills to engage in some bulge battling antics with Battlefield 1942: Road to Rome.

War is hell, but whether you like it or not, it makes for some damn good games. One of 2002's must-play multiplayer games was Battlefield 1942, EA's tank-driving, plane-flying, beach-storming shooter. Battlefield gained a reputation amongst even the most jaded online gamers as something genuinely new in the world of first-person-shooters. The early releases of the game didn't quite fulfil their promise, but a couple of technical fixes have made the game stable and reliable and largely addressed most online gamers' initial gripes, and for the last few months gamers all over the world have been fighting virtual WWII as Germans, Japanese, British, American and Russians, in battles from Stalingrad to Midway, El Alamein to Berlin.

However, there are only so many times you can storm Omaha Beach before you fancy a change, so get ready for the first Battlefield 1942 expansion pack, "The Road To Rome". The game concentrates on the Allied assault on Sicily and mainland Italy, and delivers six new battles, two new armies and a raft of new weapons to play with.

For our first look at The Road To Rome, we played in single player mode, which helps give a feel for the maps and new vehicles, but the real fun will start when we try it out against other players; Battlefield is first and foremost a multiplayer experience and The Road to Rome doesn't change that, and some of the new vehicles and scenarios encourage teamplay more than ever.

First impressions; the new maps are huge. Most of the maps feature hilly terrain and a lot of capture points when playing in the 'conquest' mode and one gets the impression that Swedish developer Dice have done a lot to make the new maps as tense as possible, with lots of potential for to-ing and fro-ing across the map.

As with the original game, your first Allied army is the British, this time up against the Italians during "Operation Husky "(The British landings in Sicily) and "Operation Baytown" (the crossing from Sicily to the mainland). You then move on to the American operations at Salerno and Anzio, first against Italian, then German opposition, then finally, you can play as Free French troops against the Germans at Monte Santa Croce and Monte Cassino.

Across all of these battles, you get new toys to play with; three new infantry weapons; the Italian Breda Model 30, the British Sten gun (although oddly you only get to use it when playing as a Frenchman…) and engineers get bayonets for those corporal Jones "they don't like it up 'em" moments. You get a new set of tanks in this game; gone are the Tigers and Shermans of the first game, replaced by the more obscure Sturmgeschutz tank-killer, M3 Grant light tank and Italian Carro Armato (and no jokes about six reverse gears thank you, these Italians are as tough as you want them to be). There's also a half-track with an anti-tank gun (better than the almost defenceless half-tracks in the original game) and for the first time you get various artillery pieces dotted around the place, which don't move much, but are pretty devastating. The new tanks have been introduced to the game to encourage teamwork; these tanks can carry two players, both with a weapon, and unlike the tanks in the first game, the machine gunner is protected by armour, so taking the machine gunner's seat is no longer automatic suicide. Finally, there are two new aircraft, both fighter-bombers, the Messerschmidt Bf110 for the Axis and de Havilland Mosquito for the Allies, and yes, when you play on the British maps you do get proper RAF markings.

Battlefield 1942 has proved to be one of the most popular PC games online over the last few months, and The Road To Rome looks set reinforce that popularity; it's got all of the great gameplay of the first title, with some useful tweaks in tactics and equipment to promote greater teamwork. The Road to Rome is also encouraging because it shows that Battlefield 1942 franchise has a lot of life in it; it's not difficult to imagine further expansion packs coming along once you've stormed the monastery at Monte Cassino for the thousandth time.

When Battlefield 1942 stormed the multiplayer gaming front last year, it offered a breath of fresh air to first-person shooter nuts.

Featuring huge scale battles between two teams of up to 32 players each, and the ability to control numerous vehicles, it was an instant hit. In any one game you could find yourself piloting planes, driving tanks, sinking huge battleships or simply fighting through the streets with a choice selection of small arms.

The first expansion pack Road To Rome expanded upon the playing experience, and free-to-download mod Desert Combat added the recent Gulf conflict to the available battles.

Secret Weapons returns to WWII for inspiration, and, as the name implies, features a selection of weapons which were in development, in secret, during World War II. Some of them saw combat in real-life, some of them were at least feasible, and some of them were just stupid. But no matter, because for the purpose of this expansion pack, they all work just fine and dandy.

Secret Weapons will feature eight huge new maps, and, in response to popular demand, six of them will feature objectives (as seen in, for example, the excellent Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory). Locations involve the infamous Eagle's Nest, where the Third Reich stored the riches they'd looted from the furthest corners of their short-lived Empire, while objectives can range from destroying fuel dumps to deactivating experimental new missile silos. It certainly looks like Secret Weapons will add some depth to a formula which already provided a fair bit.

This is all well and good but the Secret Weapons of the title are what will really get your whistle wet. There's a selection of weird and wonderful tank-like vehicles, such as the snub-nosed little wonder that can blow a hole through practically anything, and a marvellous mobile rocket launcher.

The Natter is a rocket plane that launches from a ramp and comes complete with a huge payload but limited hangtime, while the Wasserfall remote-controlled missile (somewhat reminiscent of the Redeemer in Unreal Tournament) is powerful but very tricky to get to grips with. The Jetpack is perhaps the piece of kit which is causing the most excitement and though it can be incredibly useful it requires a skilled player to get the most from it. Its fuel cells need to be constantly refuelled, meaning that it's capable of huge leaps rather than constant flight. Take care not to run out of fuel at the top of a jump, as you'll plummet to death unless you get wriggle out of the pack and release your parachute.

There's also some other changes involving less secret weapons. Allied Medics and Engineers now come complete with a powerful shotgun for close-range combat, While their goose-stepping counterparts are equipped with a silenced SMG and rifle-grenade respectively. The standard issue weapon of choice for the Allied Assault troop is the British Bren, a good solid weapon and one that stops our boys running into battle with American-made weapons of friendly-fire destruction as they did in the original game.

Battlefield 1942 remains one of the greatest multiplayer experiences available, and this second expansion pack looks like it can only improve on what has gone before. Get ready for action featuring some of the craziest weapons dreamed up by the maddest warmongers of all time.