Battlefield 1943

I've always had expensive taste, which can be problematic if you're not in the same tax bracket as Bill Gates and Richie Rich. Dreams of fabulous wealth aside, it seems that the only Xbox Live Arcade games that are grabbing my attention these days are the hefty 1200 MS Point titles. Portal: Still Alive, Castle Crashers, and Puzzle Quest: all of these are big expensive Arcade games that happen to be well worth their big $15 price tag.

I'll admit that I got Battlefield 1943 because a good number of my friends list was already playing it. I happened to have a bunch of points handy, so I figured "What the hell" and impulsively dived in. What I found was a seemingly polished little gem whose high production values were apparent in the opening title screen. Or so I thought.

Before you think the worst, you should know that this game is very fun. It's a simplified sequel to the original Battlefield 1942, sporting only three classes to the original's five and only three island maps (Wake Island, Iwo Jima, and Guadalcanal) from the Pacific campaign. Players either fight in the United States Marine Corps, or for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The two sides are equal in every way, even down to the performance of the vehicles each side has access to. The game is very well made, and a lot of fun especially when played with friends or good players willing to partake in the necessary team work required to win a map. There's also an upcoming airplane-only map taking place during the Battle of the Coral Sea that sounds extremely intriguing. The before-mentioned three classes of Rifleman, Infantry and Scout are very well-balanced and players rarely ever find the role they've chosen to be useless in a given situation.

Unfortunately, I can't fully recommend the game just yet. Perhaps it's only me, but I'm having a lot of issues with the game locking up on my XBox. So far, I've yet to actually end a session of my own accord, as every other time my time in the Pacific ends when the game decides to freeze up. The "Join Session In Progress" option for people on your friends list is also hit or miss, and I truly hope that these issues will be remedied before too long.

It really is a shame, because aside from the glitches I mention, the game is very cool and very worth the reasonable $15 asking price. There is a lot of reverence for both sides of the conflict here, and everything is quite balanced gameplay-wise. The very comparable Warhawk was nearly twice the price, and I enjoyed this a lot more. I really want to give it a better review, but the current issues with the game cannot be ignored. Perhaps I'll update this if and when the problems I ran into are ever fixed. I do plan on continuing to play and in enjoy the game as best I can. 5/10

EDIT 2009.07.16: Looks like with the release of the Air Superiority map Coral Sea, most of the bugs have been worked out. I played for over an hour last night with no issues aside from Quick Connect intially timing out a few times. Coral Sea is fun as hell, with each side having two carriers and a rapid plane respawn, there's plenty of dog-fighting to be had. If you have trouble flying the planes, run through the tutorial some more, then head to Coral Sea for a fast lesson in getting your ass lit up. 8/10