Battlefield: 1942 Preview

College football fans can tell you that one of the big games each year is the classic Army vs. Navy matchup. From the standpoint of pure athletic competition, the hubbub around the game doesn't make much sense--neither team is usually ranked highly, nor do many of them make it anywhere near the NFL. Of course, that's not the point. The game has essentially become the singular outlet for the rivalry between the different branches of the armed forces.

All of this could be yours.

We mention this only because Battlefield: 1942 is the first console game that isn't trying to separate war into tidy pieces. Usually, if you want to pilot a submarine, plane, or tank, you must buy a sub simulator, a plane simulator, or a tank simulator, respectively. Battlefield, as the name indicates, is all-inclusive. You can control any and all elements of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. Even more impressive, you can potentially play them all on the same 3D field of play--all in the same mission. This isn't some removed real-time strategy game we're talking about, either; you can jump in a tank, then take off in a plane, fire the guns on a battleship, or run through the trenches as a grunt, seeing exactly what they see, as they see it. As you've probably figured at this point, Battlefield is a tremendous undertaking. Digital Illusions Computer Entertainment (DICE) claims it's been working on the PC game for three years now and has finally confirmed the game's simultaneous development for Microsoft's Xbox.

The year 1942 has been considered the real turning point of World War II. In Africa, Rommel's Panzers were halted on the border of Egypt by a determined British defense; in Russia, the German blitzkrieg was blunted in Russia, at Stalingrad; and in the Pacific, the Americans anticipated the Japanese attack on Midway and routed their powerful fleet with a preemptive strike. Against this dramatic backdrop, Battlefield lets you participate in four of the major campaigns that proved to be the turning point of the war. DICE promises that these four campaigns in the game (each about six missions long) take place in both the Pacific theater and in Europe and are playable from both the Axis' or the Allies' perspective.

A bazooka's eye-view of the ground.

You will have the entire World War at your fingertips, and DICE is promising that it has given the game's single- and multiplayer games equal attention. In the single-player game, you begin as a noncommissioned officer, mostly performing the kind of infantry missions you may have played in the Medal of Honor games (though Battlefield's first-person shooter grunt game is a more bare-bones representation). What makes Battlefield different is what happens as you complete your missions. Sure, you can win medals and promotions for speed and accuracy, but these rewards are mere harbingers of added responsibility. One you're promoted to sergeant, you're given control of your own platoon of men. Eventually you'll control a platoon of tanks, squadrons of planes, and even a battleship. You'll turn from being a participant in the battle to being the commander of the battlefield, dictating the action as you see fit. You'll be scheduling bombing runs, coordinating assaults, and plotting artillery strikes. Furthermore, DICE claims it's made these battles fit into a larger dynamic campaign, which changes the overall situation based on your performance. The goal is to win enough major battles to swing the course of war to your side's favor.