Battlefield 1943 - PSN

I'm an avid Warhawk player, and I love the planes in Warhawk. I'm better with a rifle or the tank, but I do love to fly. Warhawk makes flying easy and almost anyone can do it. It's not realistic, but the sense of speed, the ease of maneuverability, the clouds... Warhawk makes flying fun! Last night I downloaded and tried out Battlefield 1943 because it looks to be a game similar to Warhawk.

1) They both have ground battle. In Battlefield you can pick between 3 different classes, get a basic loadout and it's an FPS view. In Warhawk you pick up weapons from various weapon spawn points and it's TPS (third person view). In both cases ranking up seems to mean little and everyone is more or less "equal" with no extra armour, better weapons or extra points being awarded to higher ranks.

2) Both games have ground vehicles... tanks or jeeps equipped with mounted MG's. The vehicles in Warhawk are a little faster and easier to drive, the vehicles in Battlefield are fairly good (though when you change the view on the tank to an external view, the aiming cursor becomes very inaccurate and you have to aim quite high).

3) They both essentially have a "Zones" mode. Capture and hold certain areas of the map in order to win. Battlefield only has the zones mode, whereas Warhawk also has deathmatch, team death match, collection, hero, dogfight and capture the flag modes as well.

4) Emplaced weaponry. Both games have anti-air, anti-tank turrets, while Battlefield has the added ability to maneuver an incoming air strike from a remote ground location.

5) Flying. This is where the games differ substantially. The flight controls in Battlefield are simply difficult. Learning to fly has a strong learning curve and the flight feels awkward, slow and cumbersome. I simply can't fly. I figure I'll eventually learn to fly, but it seems that Dice should have played Warhawk to see how they could make flight controls that are easy and fun. The planes are equipped with cluster bombs and machine guns... so the weaponry is more limited than in Warhawk which works again on weapon pick ups and has a vast array of fun weapons including a lethal TOW missile that you guide once you launch. It seems that flight will be secondary in Battlefield 1943, whereas in Warhawk it becomes more and more important as you progress. In some way flight in Warhawk becomes too important because the team that rules the skies usually wins. With the bad controls and more limited flight options in Battlefield, it seems that ground combat will be more popular. One additional difference is that in Battlefield you do have the chance to bail out and parachute to the ground... something I suspect I'll be using a lot! In Warhawk you pretty much have to land or if you have the Tau Crater add-on pack, you can bail and use the jetpacks.

6) Destructability. While Warhawk has much better planes, more maps, more modes... in Battlefield you can blow shit up. Yeah, you have a pesky sniper in a building... blow up the building. That fence is in the way, blow up the fence. Blowing up trees and watching them fall over... well, it's very simply fun to do (even if it's not environmentally correct!).

7) Got friends? Warhawk makes it easy to game with friends. It has a lobby system where you can simply look for a game name that you all agreed to, you can create private unranked passworded games, you have a clan system and your PSN buddy list so that you can find your friends and join their game. Battlefield does allow for private games that work off the buddy list of anyone invited into the game... but it seems to require a minimum of 15 people to start a private game (because all games are apparently ranked). This can create problems in finding the minimum number... or the reverse of inviting too many people and having no room. There is also a squad option where you can invite friends to your squad. Unfortunately the game doesn't seem to distinguish who is actually playing the game vs who is simply "online". The squad option also seems limited to only 4 people.
Warhawk is simply more flexible and all the maps have multiple variations that change the gameplay quite a bit and can accomodate as few as 4 players to the maximum of 32. Battlefield accomodates 16 to 24 players. Voice chat in Battlefield also seems limited to the 4 person squad... which creates problems in forming a truly "team based" game environment. Warhawk works on either open mic or a push-to-talk system and chat is with the entire team. Overall, Warhawk is a far superior game for clan or group based gaming. Battlefield seems better suited to just jumping into a random game. It should also be noted that Warhawk has split screen online... so up to 4 couch buddies can be playing in an online 24 player unranked game.

8) Sea. Warhawk really is a land and air battle. Battlefield brings in a new element with boats and also the ability to swim. I have to admit that I giggled like a schoolgirl when I took my little boy-toy out onto the beach and tried to drown him... when suddenly he started swimming! Ok, minor point... but pretty cool! :)

My first impressions of Battlefield are very positive. At half the price of Warhawk, you get pretty much half the game - but that's sufficient for many people. The basic FPS controls are excellent with options available for inverted view and switch sticks for leftys. The basic controls are similar to most other FPS games out there and people will adapt quickly. The game itself is a lot of fun, though the learning curve does seem much steeper than Warhawk for the flying. I think that for beginners to this genre, Warhawk offers an easy learning curve, though a steep curve to getting "good". It also offers more longevity and more flexibility. I suspect Battlefield has a much steeper initial curve, but likely levels out fairly quickly without the intricacies available in Warhawk, and unless they add more modes, the gameplay will eventually get stale. Most Warhawk ground pounders will enjoy this game - the differences add to the enjoyment. Those that love the flying may find the difficult controls too much of an adjustment.

These are just my first impressions of Battlefileld 1943 and my impressions may change as I play the game. So far, for myself, Battlefield 1943 will not replace my weekly Warhawk game. Warhawk is a game firmly grounded in team based play and relies on that team coordination to win, Battlefield just isn't set up for this. My first impressions are that Battlefield 1943 however is a solid game and will have a place beside Warhawk and Killzone 2 in my weekly schedule.

In addition to playing a truly team based game (Warhawk), and playing just to kill other people (Killzone), it's good to have a game where you can swim and blow shit up! (Battlefield 1943).
:)


Warhawk - PS3