A great battlefield, and features a MASSIVE overhaul of the BF2 reward system. But it has some major flaws.
Anyone who's read a review of 2142 will be familiar with one word in particular. Lag. Pretty much every BF2142 review under the sun has used this at some point or another. Some say its an annoyance, others a game-ruining disaster. But one things for certain, none of them mention just how little it matters...
Of course, any fan of the battlefield series will have one itching question when they want to buy 2142. Hows conquest? Well here's the answer you definitely want to hear. Its as brilliant as before, plus a whole lot more. This is down mainly to the maps. In BF2, whilst full of action, some of the larger maps could sometimes leave you feeling that you had to travel miles just to get into a battle. 2142 eliminates this problem, but throwing down some mch more uneven terrain, as well as more infantry-focused maps for the easily bored. Even the largest map, Shuhia Taiba, features a mass of hot spots, most of which not even tied to a control point! The slightly smaller maps, Suez Canal to name an obvious one, have a number of closely linked CPs to keep people busy. Theres also a number of small maps that, despite the vehicular oppertunities, really rely on infantry masses. One map in particular, Fall of Berlin, is pretty much an enlarged version of Karkand under 10 feet of snow. In short, conquest has been livened up dramatically.
And i know what your thinking, and no, lag isnt an issue, at all. Think BF2, and your pretty much there.
Now many of you will be thinking 'brilliant, you've covered conquest, so that must be the modes review over.' Wrong. One of the greatest new features that comes with 2142 is the Titan mode. This is pretty much conquerst involving missile bases, enormous battleships and enough spawn points to ship the whole of asia into the battle!
Titan mode is certainly a lot more objective based than conquest, which consists simply of 'capture that, kill that'. In titan mode, CPs are replaced by missile bases. The main objective is to destroy the enemy titan, which is basically an enourmous battle cruiser packed full of AtoS turrets and jets. Your first job is to destroy the titans shields, and to do this you need to capture missile bases, which will then fire missiles at the enemy titan periodically. Of course, since your against another team, its in your best interests to keep the majority of missile bases to keep your shield higher than theirs.
Once the shields are down, thats when things get intersting. You'e got two options. You COULD just keep capping missile bases until you eventually blow up the titan, but thats boring. Your other option is an internal assault. Much more like it. The long and short of these assaults is a number of close firefights in closed corridors as you battle to reach the four reactor consoles. Destroying these will open up the door to the main reactor. And the rest pretty much tells itself. Once the Titan is destroyed, its a mad rush to get off the doomed warship before it lights up the sky. If your still on it after the 10 second build up, potential points are lost.
Unfortunately, titan modes greatest feature is also its greatest flaw. The concept of massive firefights in such small spaces would excite ny fan of the battlefield series, if it wasnt for that dreaded word i mentioned earlier. Lag. This is perhaps the only point of the game where the ammount of lag actually spoils the experience. The point of closed space firefights is you have to be ridiculously quick on the trigger, and you cant do that at 15fps. However, all is not lost. Despite some slight frustration, Titan mode is still a fun edition to the battlefield series.
Now that the gameplay itself is out of the way, lets focus on the perhaps more obvious aspect of the game. graphics.Whlst BF2s graphichs were impressve, they culd be somewhat dull in places. 2142 takes this concept an throws it out the window. This game is a testament to ust how much the subtle tones matter. Sunrise over a ice age desert looks impressive no matter what graphical settings your on, and the look of the vehicles is just as impressive on the higher settings. Oerall, the game looks a lot more lush, which is surprising since its set during the next ice age.
Perhaps one of the more under-appreciated aspects of 2142 however isnt in the gameplay, but in the behind-the-scenes reward system. Remember the medals and ribbons of BF2? Well, not only has the selection been increased tenfold, but its now much easier to figure out how to actually EARN them, thaks to the progress meters which come with each award.Theres also a MASSIVE range of job and skills which you can get rewarded for, fom 5 straight kills to 8 headshots in a round to destroying all 4 reactor consoles on a titan.
Overall, Battlefield 2142 is a solid, lush improvement on its modern predecessor, and fans of the series will no dout welcome the slight skip from reality to mix things up a little. and harly a dipped frameate in sight.