Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII Hands-on Preview

You might not have thought that grinding through the desert in the seat of an outdated battle tank would be all that much fun, but that was probably before last year's team-based first-person shooter Battlefield 1942 came around. The action-packed game let you play as a soldier in one of five different classes and slug it out on wide-open World War II battlefields using conventional weapons and a wide variety of vehicles, including tanks, armored transports, bombers, and even battleships. The original game was followed by an expansion pack, Road to Rome, which added a set of new, more-balanced maps that took place in and around Italy, as well as a variety of new vehicles, many of which required that two players operate them simultaneously. Digital Illusions and EA Games are now returning to the battlefield with Secret Weapons of WWII, a second expansion pack that will include a total of 16 new vehicles, 10 of which were used conventionally and the other six of which were top-secret, experimental weapons that, historically, saw little use in the Great War. However, these new vehicles will change Battlefield 1942's gameplay considerably.

Allied troops make a drop behind enemy lines.

We were graciously afforded the opportunity to try out the expansion's upcoming Hellendorn and Essen maps--the former will be a large, snowy outdoor map; the latter will be a medium-sized map on which the enemy bases will be located on either side of a river. While several of the maps in the Road to Rome expansion pack focused on huge outdoor areas with varying terrain heights, the maps in Secret Weapons will be based on top-secret European weapon factories. And like Road to Rome's maps, the maps in Secret Weapons will attempt to emphasize more-balanced skirmishes over long, pointless expanses of terrain that are no fun to walk across if your teammates have grabbed all the nearest vehicles.

But we were most interested in getting the scoop on the most obvious new addition to Battlefield 1942: the rocket pack--a personal booster rocket that your soldier straps onto his back. Battlefield 1942 has never been a highly realistic game--though it has a good physics and flight model for its various vehicles that's just realistic enough to be believable, the game has always been about fast-paced action, first and foremost. But a rocket pack? We had previously been able to try the item briefly at this year's E3, and it seemed like a very powerful item to have--perhaps a bit too powerful. Fortunately, it's been toned down considerably. The rocket pack is now a soldier "kit" (a pile of weapons and equipment that must be picked up and equipped before you can use it) that spawns in specific locations on certain of the new maps, and it comes saddled with the less-than-impressive MP40 submachine gun.

A lone foot soldier goes toe-to-toe...with an enemy plane.

The rocket pack can't be used to fly for long periods of time; instead, it lets your soldier take huge flying leaps. But pack's fuel is depleted very quickly and replenishes slowly, so you have to make sure not to take leaps that are too huge--otherwise, you'll come crashing down to the ground and take severe falling damage. You can, however, use these huge leaps to hop up to the tops of buildings (that aren't normally accessible) and take potshots at enemy soldiers as they pass by. However, as the production team at EA explained, you'll want to drop that rocket pack the moment you get up there. That's because the rocket pack is powered by highly volatile fuels, so if it takes a hit while it's being worn, it'll burst into flames and take its user right along with it.