Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII Hands-On Impressions

At today's Camp EA event, we got a chance to put in some more time with Secret Weapons of WWII, the upcoming expansion pack for Battlefield 1942. The expansion will include eight new maps, seven new weapons, and 16 new air and land vehicles. There will also be a new game mode that adds objective-based goals into certain maps. For example, on the Hellendorn map, the Allies must destroy the Axis V2 rockets located on the map. As the name of the expansion pack suggests, the vehicles in the game are drawn from lists of experimental vehicles and weapons that saw limited action in World War II or were only in development during the later stages of the war. These include the huge Horton-HO 229 Flying Wing and the German Sturmtiger, which is basically a huge naval gun mounted on top of a tank chassis.

We played a match with a handful of EA testers, as well as some bots to fill out the map. The first new vehicle we got to play around with was the US C-47 cargo plane. In Secret Weapons, this plane serves primarily as a mobile spawn point, although it does have a mounted machine gun that can fire out either side of the plane as it passes over the battlefield. As it currently stands, the machine gun doesn't serve much purpose as an air-to-ground attack weapon because you're frequently flying too high and too fast to effectively identify and target enemies. It's much more useful to use the plane as a mobile spawn point, because it can carry several soldiers, who can bail out at any time they choose. Ideally, you'll use the C-47 to parachute to the ground behind enemy lines.

We were also able to try out the US Goblin fighter, which is a tiny jet-powered aircraft armed with machine guns. It's capable of incredible speed; we actually found it a bit difficult to effectively strafe enemies on the ground with it, although more accomplished pilots will certainly be able to make use of its maneuverability. Considering the Goblin's remarkable speed, it seems reasonable to expect that skilled players will use it in dogfights.

On the Axis side, we had the chance to play around a bit with a new mobile antiaircraft gun. Featuring four gun barrels mounted on a tracked chassis, this weapon requires two players--a driver and a gunner. In our brief time spent in the vehicle, we didn't get much of a chance to fire at enemy aircraft, but we did note that the weapon offers a much faster rate of fire than the standard fixed antiair emplacements in the game.

The final new weapon we had a chance to try out is the T-95 tank, another allied weapon. Much like the German Sturmtiger, the T-95 is a supertank, outfitted with a massive gun on a fixed chassis. The gun allows you to make slight adjustments in aim but only in about a 10- or 15-degree arc in front of you, both side to side or up and down. The interesting thing about the T-95 is that its projectile fires as a perfectly straight shot. There's no arc, so there's no need to compensate your aim, making it extremely easy to hit targets. The only downside is that the T-95 is a slow, lumbering vehicle, and it lacks a proper turret to aim its gun.

Although it might seem that the fanciful vehicles introduced in Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII might upset the game balance, we haven't found any of them to be a problem thus far. From what we've played, the new vehicles seem to add a lot to the game, and we're looking forward to the expansion pack's impending release this fall.