I’m a big fan of EA’s Battlefield games. Of course they’re not much cop in single player mode but online they’re a lot of fun indeed. Battlefield 1943 gives you a bite-sized, simpler version of the original 1942 game and it’s available to download for a budget price.

The game lets you play in the Pacific theatre of battle as the Japanese fight the Americans. Not only can you play on the ground over three maps as infantry, a rifleman or a scout, you can also fight from above over the Coral Sea in a big dogfight as you all attempt to shoot each other down in planes.

Vehicles on the ground include tanks and jeeps as you attempt to capture and hold checkpoints around the map in order to win the battle. Up to 24 players can get involved in each arena and if you’ve played the other games you’ll notice some changes.

As I said before there’s only the one game mode and three maps to run around in, but you also have infinite ammo this time around to keep the action going. You’ll also notice the game has a lighter arcade feel to it – it’s almost cartoonish which does feel a bit odd as your fellow soldiers get blown up by a frag grenade. If you’ve also played Bad Company then you’ll also recognise the level of destruction on offer here as you carve chunks out of the landscape, knock over trees and bash holes in the walls of buildings.

It would be nice to employ proper tactics when you join a squad of four people but to be honest, there’s rarely any time for this due to the faster-paced nature of this downloadable version, however, if you want some team-based action and you want instant action, you could do a lot worse than download this onto your hard drive.

Battlefield 1943 gets a very good 7 out of 10.

Get Battlefield 1943 now
New: Buy Battlefield 1943 from Amazon.com
Rental: Rent Battlefield 1943 – free rental trial from Gamefly.com
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Related: Call of Duty World at War review, Battlefield Bad Company review, Youtube Battlefield 1943 review

Tags: Battlefield 1943, Battlefield, 1943, Xbox360, PC, PS3