Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome Preview

Battlefield 1942 was one of the most pleasant surprises in PC gaming last year. Developed by a little-known Swedish studio, Digital Illusions, the game started to get some buzz a couple of months before it came out, but until it was final, there were some doubts that the developer could pull off such an ambitious design. Making such a wide variety of vehicles available in a team-based action game presented some definite technical and design challenges, but with EA's help, Digital Illusions got the game right, and there are concrete plans to expand the world of Battlefield 1942 and make it even better.

As surprising as it may be, the next Battlefield 1942 product is almost ready to ship. The upcoming expansion pack, The Road to Rome, has been in development since before the original game's release, and it's due out in early February. The expansion pack is focused on giving fans more content--new vehicles, weapons, and maps--to play with rather than making any fundamental changes to the game. EA has a separate team working on improving the core game, and future patches like the major version 1.2 patch we saw last month will work with both the main game and The Road to Rome.

The expansion pack's setting is revealed in the name, The Road to Rome. While the original game's maps featured battles from four WWII theaters, any hint of the major campaign that took place in Italy has had to wait for the expansion. Launching from bases in North Africa in 1943, the Allied forces made paradrops and amphibious landings into Italy to open a new front. The campaign in which British, free French, and US forces invaded Sicily and then mainland Italy involved some of the fiercest protracted fighting of the war, particularly due to the rough, hilly terrain. The expansion pack adds two new fighting forces to the game, the Italians and the free French, who had left France after the country's surrender to fight in exile under De Gaulle. There are new models and native-language voices for both of the new playable sides.

The Road to Rome has six new maps, or "battlefields," that cover the opening assault on Sicilian beaches through the difficult battles in late 1943 and early 1944 that were fought over the hills leading up to Rome. This setting lays the groundwork for some maps that are rather different in style than what the maps included in the original game. Only one map features a naval craft--there's a battleship the allies can use to bombard the beach in Operation Husky--and most battlefields have rocky or rolling terrain that reduces visibility and can provide ample cover to infantry lying in ambush. But that's not to say that there's any less emphasis on vehicles in The Road to Rome--in fact, the maps show off the new vehicles to good effect.

A total of nine vehicles are introduced in The Road to Rome. There are four new armored vehicles, and we're happy to point out that all the new vehicles with top guns protect the gunner. This design addresses the common complaint that the machine gunners on the Battlefield 1942 tanks are too exposed and simply make for easy kills. The Axis side has two new tanks. There's the German Sturmgeschutz, a medium-armor tankbuster that carries a big main gun with a limited turret that can't turn much beyond center and also has an enclosed machine gun position. The Italian M11-39 tank is quick medium tank with an enclosed top machine gun.

While the wide, low-slung Sturmgeschutz looks the most different of the new tanks, it's the Allied M3 Grant that is functionally the most unique. In addition to its main 75mm cannon, the Grant has a 37mm top cannon that fires about as quickly as the game's antiair guns and is effective at taking out infantry, planes, or even other ground vehicles. The other new Allied armor unit is the M3 GMC halftrack, which drives like an APC but has an antitank cannon on top that's manned from the second position. Since it's not the nimblest of vehicles, there's also a third position in the rear: an anti-infantry machine gun.

Those who have become proficient at flying Battlefield 1942's planes will find their skills rewarded by the powerful new attack bombers that The Road to Rome will put at their disposal. The Allied and Axis bombers are both twin-engine planes with large payloads. The British Mosquito is a single-seat bomber, while the German BF-110 has a rear machine gunner. The attack bombers are much more agile than the four-engine B-17, but they're likely a little more sluggish than the torpedo planes found in the original game. There's ample reason to try them out, as there's at least one of these medium bombers on every map except Monte Cassino and the Battle for Salerno.

Battle for the Hills

The remaining three vehicles aren't highlighted as much, but they're still worth mentioning. Anyone who wished that there were more stationary defenses, besides the antiair guns and shore guns, that would help give infantry a chance of warding off tank attacks will appreciate the new stationary antitank guns. Often located near capture points, these guns, available to both the Axis and Allied forces, fire moderately powerful shells at a good rate. Although they can't withstand much damage themselves, they can take out even a heavy tank with a few shots. The gunner is somewhat protected by a sheet of armor in front but is still partially exposed to a careful sniper. Lastly, there's what's probably the least distinct of the new vehicles, a Italian Higgins-type landing boat that appears on two maps, Anzio and Operation Baytown.

The Road to Rome does feature a few new infantry weapons for when soldiers don't have a chance to jump into a vehicle. The most impressive is the machine gun that Italian assault-class soldiers carry, the Breda Modello. This gun has a side-mounted magazine and fires powerful rounds at a rate that's rather slower than the previous guns for assault soldiers. There's also the British-made Sten SMG, which the French soldiers carry. A more subtle addition is the bayonet for the engineer rifle. Switching to the bayonet is like changing weapons--a new weapon model appears and the bayonet replaces the zoom as the weapon's alternate fire mode. While the bayonet is slower than the combat knife, if it hits it does enough damage to kill an enemy at full health.

The six new battlefields are the centerpiece of the expansion pack. The maps have a distinctly Italian character to them, including some nice touches like Italian villas surrounded by olive trees, a half-demolished monastery, and a civilian port with huge freight cranes. Here's a rundown on the maps:

Operation Husky: In this beachhead assault map, the British challenge the Italians, fighting their way up the wide beach and around a few abandoned houses in a race to capture points that are quite far inland. Although the initial assault by paradrop is exposed to fire from shore, the wide beach makes it somewhat easier than the Omaha Beach map.

Salerno: A central hill with a flag on the top turns this map into a game of king of the hill. Neither the US nor the German forces can spawn from the center flag, so it's a challenge to bring in reinforcements as tanks race up the narrow dirt roads to the summit.

Monte Cassino: It's all uphill for the attackers here, as the free French have to rush up a long hill toward a bombed-out monastery. There's not much armor to help out, and the German defenders have antitank guns at each of the capture points leading up the hill, but the steep inclines provide cover for soldiers lying prone.

Operation Baytown: The British have to deal with steep roads and a river in the middle of the map as they face the Italians in a battle to cross from Sicily to the boot of Italy. Skillful bombings and airdrops are a good option to open up the battle here.

Anzio: This map pits the Italian and US forces against each other on the bluffs overlooking a river, and it requires a stalwart offense combined with a careful defense to resist strong armor and air attacks.

Monte Santa Croce: The German and French forces start quite close on this map, and while lobbing initial shots into the enemy base can be quite effective, it will take all the armor this map gives you to assault and control the mountain base.

The new content that The Road to Rome offers should make for a nice change of pace for serious fans of Battlefield 1942. Given the multiplayer focus of the expansion pack, it makes sense for balance reasons that the new vehicles and weapons will be limited to The Road to Rome maps. The expansion pack will install a separate executable application and shortcut, but all the original Battlefield 1942 maps will also be available when you boot up The Road to Rome, so it shouldn't be inconvenient to switch between the new maps and the originals.

EA has carefully tracked the success of Battlefield 1942, and it has plans to keep expanding the franchise. There's a live team developing patches to add features and refine the gameplay--for example, the team wants to make the feel of the infantry guns as solid as that in any competing first-person shooter. Some fans noted that it took quite a while for the 1.2 patch to come out, but EA wants each update to include some significant features. There are milestones mapped out for patches up to versions 1.5 and 1.6. The good news is that the updates will work with both the core game and The Road to Rome or any future expansions. The Road to Rome is just the next step for the series, and the $19.99 expansion pack is now just one month away.