bf 1942 the road to rome

User Rating: 9 | Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome PC
Okay, with that all out of the way, Road to Rome supports up to 64 gamers (on select maps), playing as several infantry classes, controlling many weapons available to the Axis and Allies, and commanding numerous land vehicles, ships, and aircraft. Much like the original BF 1942. I noticed that the maps do seem larger than that of the predecessor. The Road to Rome's large maps are clearly laid out to encourage both tank and infantry skirmishes. The maps have many open areas to travel across, which makes having a vehicle very nice to get you to the action quickly. On the other side, there are plenty of smaller enclosed areas like bombed out villages that make the infantry battles quite fun. Those broken down buildings make great spots to set up an ambush or pick off men from afar with a sniper rifle. There also seems to be more of the stationary guns like machine gun nests and anti aircraft guns to go around.

The key elements to this new expansion are the new maps, vehicles and weapons. Unfortunately, if you like the campaign side of the game, there is nothing really new here. There is a single-player mode that has the 6 new maps in a battle style format. There is no scripting involved so each new game should be a bit different. The main reason for getting this title is plain and simple. New maps and toys for the MP games. It does come with the 1.25 patch to get you up to speed on some bug fixes in the original, but low and behold there is already a new release 1.3 at the Battlefield 1942 website. So if you have already downloaded that, which I'm sure any true fan has this patch on the CD means nothing to you. But for a MSRP of 20 bucks, you really can't miss.

All that being said the quality of the maps are fantastic to say the least. The Refractor 2 engine does a superb job of rendering the action. So if you are looking for quality and not quantity, I'm sure any fan will be satisfied. Personally I like both! Not to say that I am not happy, quite honestly I love the expansion, I just want more. So I will be looking forward to another expansion if one does come out! My personal feeling is that looking at the big picture on what you are really getting in this expansion, it could have been easily downloaded like the newest patch is. I would gladly pay top dollar for a game that would continue to grow rather than keep paying for additional expansions. Again for 20 bucks, it's still worth it especially if you take advantage of the online play.

This review was on the expansion and not the entire game. If you are new to BF 1942 head over to Kevin Krause's review to get the skinny on the game. I did not want to restate what he has already said in his wonderful review.