Battlefield 1943 - Discount War
By Jamie Love - July 2nd, 2009
I rarely tip my hat in EA’s direction, but even I can’t deny that Battlefield 1943 is on track to set a new standard in giving gamers bang for their buck. Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and the Coral Sea have been redesigned from Battlefield 1942 using DICE’s Frostbite engine. Fly planes, drive tanks, and get your FPS aggression out from either side of the war for $15. That has to be the cheapest price on bullets anywhere. I tried to find something to complain about, but couldn’t - I have failed you.
The Corel Sea map will initially be locked as part of a community challenge to achieve 43 million kills on both Xbox LIVE and PSN, which should do a fine job of gauging how many people agree about the value on this one. The LIVE and PSN release has just been revealed for July 8 and 9, with the PC version trailing behind this fall.
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To play devil’s advocate for a moment. (Thankfully not the same devil whose advocate tried to suggest that Chinatown Wars got mixed reviews… ;) ).
Is it a great value, or is it them charging you $15 for 3 maps (Corral Sea is not so much of a map, as it is just a bunch of water :p) that you already bought 7 years ago? At that price ($USD) the 16 original maps of 1942 would clock in at around $80.
So paying $80 to get a slightly “updated?” (there are actually less classes in this one then the original) version of the same game you’ve already bought, could viewed by some as pretty low bang for the buck.
Personally a new pretty engine, destructible buildings and at only $15 a chance to revisit an old friend (it is very hard to go back to a 7yr old game) seems worth it to me. But if it does become the success that early indications seem to suggest, so that they end up selling us all of the original game back piecemeal. Well, then maybe that “devil’s advocate” might not be so far off afterall.
Biggest Question: Can I wait till September for the PC version? Or will I have to cave and get the 360 one (Shooter controls on PC > Console - personally) to play during the summer, and then also PC in the fall. !!
I suppose if development costs have been frozen for 7 years you might have an argument there. Perhaps DLC will come to the rescue - but in the meantime I’d still maintain it’s $15 well spent given what other DLC and online games are costing - particularly successfully selling games from 20+ years ago with no significant changes whatsoever.
“Corral Sea is not so much of a map, as it is just a bunch of water.”
Classic Adam.
Give the man some nudity in there and the $15 will be well spent.
Note that I didn’t say female nudity. Just nudity.
In my defense Jorge, you really should have affixed that towel a bit tighter around your waist. I didn’t *mean* to look, it all just happened so fast!
And to be fair, I think the advocate does have a fair point. While obviously developing this game was not free, it’s not up to the consumer to subsidize the employment of the games industry. Even a *shitty* game, that gets reviewed low, still had to pay a team of people to make it. Just because it had a cost to make, doesn’t mean that game is necessarily “worth” the $50 or so it sells for.
We as gamers (and most certainly as reviewers) generally encourage and often expect a game to bring something “new” to the table. Innovative or “novel” are often words we use to describe the things we want out of games. “Just another generic shooter” is a criticism that pops up all the time. If a game doesn’t bring enough new to the table, why bother playing it?
From the above perspective, largely the same game with virtually the same maps could be argued to be sufficiently “re-hashed”.
What determines the difference between rehash and re-make? In the case of Left 4 Dead 2, I think time plays a big factor. If that is the only case then the 7yrs since BF1942 should certainly be enough of a grace period.
I guess if we can get Shaun playing this game, then it should be considered a success regardless of the cost!
My bigger concern is that you’ve been appointed to determine how much each feature in the original game is worth in order to come up with your fiscal rating. Maybe if I could see the pie chart that displays what a class costs and what each map is worth I could be swayed further.
Probably not though.
Yeah well fuck you guys.
And seriously, Jorge. It’s like you were asking for that towel to fall off.
Holy crap, Adam.
Air quotes much?
Fine. Next time I’ll use a bigger towel without a hole in it.