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With each successive showing to the public, Battlefield 1942 is looking more and more like a first rate title in the making. Picked up by EA Games, its WWII first person shooter combat is similar in premise to the popular Medal of Honor series but the two titles could not be more different. Battlefield 1942, with its emphasis on free-formed competitive play, is spiritually linked to titles like Unreal Tournament, Tribes or CounterStrike. Two teams, Axis and Allies, compete for objectives as simple as capture the flag to as complex as capture and hold. Team Fortress could arguably be one of the first titles to introduce class-based multiplayer combat. By this time, Battlefield 1942 is three, four or even more generations ahead of what was achieved there. It still works loosely on the class-based system with options for people to play scout (sniper), medic, assault, engineer and anti-tank roles. After you choose a role, you're unleashed on the battlefield where, if the game is going lively, you'll face a hailstorm of artillery barrage and the ricochet of enemy gunfire. Battlefield 1942 features plenty of vehicles, planes, gun emplacements and artillery you can get a hold of that can be piloted or driven regardless of class. While these are not new (we saw them recently in Operation Flashpoint and WWII Online), the vehicles perform in an arcade fashion, entirely controllable through the mouse-keyboard combo. This makes the change from fighting on foot to fighting in a machine almost seamless. Most importantly, they're fun, if not a little bouncy in physics at times.
  
Balance is the key to all good multiplayer gaming. In the real time strategy genre, Blizzard spends an inordinate amount of time in balancing its units. So too do first person shooters benefit from a good balance. While you can man, pilot or drive anything from a multi-person B-17 bomber to a near invincible Panzer tank, mechanized equipment is few enough that they won't overrun infantry forces. In fact, concealed infantry equipped with rockets can make short order of enemy armor in no time. Battlefield 1942 currently runs on a twenty second spawn cycle; a good choice because it keeps the action close without idling too long after death. The ticketing system, unique to Battlefield 1942, acts as a resource pool to keep spawning in check so there aren't any needless kamikaze or banzai-style charges.   
The fact the game is still in beta doesn't mean the AI is deficient. An elementary use of hull-up and hull-down tactics with armor can outsmart them but for the most part, the AI appears intelligent. For example, if you're holding down a strong point, they seem capable to think up alternate methods to flank you. The developers promise even greater flexibility during play with the AI able to harness sea, air and land tactics in real-time. In many ways, it is the antithesis of EA's other WWII franchise, Medal of Honor. That title used copious amounts of cinematic-style scripting. Battlefield 1942, on the other hand, will feature a single player campaign that uses the multiplayer engine, fitted with bots and pre-planned objectives. Arguably, with an open concept like that, single and multiplayer levels should have very little difference between them, making the final product immensely enjoyable.   
There are only two maps released to the press community so far. Battlefield 1942 purportedly has sixteen maps in total, each able to support different types of gameplay and rendered based on actual theaters of combat during WWII. Currently, Wake Island and Tobruk represent the Pacific and North African campaigns respectively. The maps are designed well, as are the technical audio-visuals involved. Again, balance is something the developers have a talent for. The maps aren't too spacey for infantry play and at the same time, they aren't too cramped for armored combat. All in all, each side from the Axis and Allies will be featured, including some rare land battles with Japanese armor. Curiously, the Axis won't have their Italian counterparts and so far, the battles are always one side versus another.   
The scope of Battlefield 1942 is perhaps the most ambitious part of it. Supporting up to 64 players, it doesn't approach the size of MMORPGs or online action games (WWII Online comes to mind) but it is able to balance an epic scope with a meaningful multiplayer component. I'm not sure how many times I've joined a 64+ player game only to see or play with/against a fraction of that amount. Here, it's promised you'll be able to pilot aircraft carriers, the planes, the landing craft and the troops put on the landing craft. Thus, every player can be engaged into the main action. Drawing from a rich WWII backdrop, the guns are all rendered with painstaking detail to realism; including clip sizes and ammo counts. Reloading before a clip is out, discards the remaining unused bullets. But at the same time, these nuances of realism are offset by the easier physics for vehicles. The final product is something that is undeniably fun and unbelievably addictive. Battlefield 1942 storms on to the PC this September.
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