You know, it's pretty weird to think this game is ten years old now. It's not a bad looking game. Sadly, EA shut down the servers for this about three years ago, so no more multiplayer. At least, that's what they WANT you to think... Talking about "2142" really takes me back. It's been a few years since I'd played it, but I played the shit out of it when I did. I get that we're in a future shooting craze right now, so this might look a little bit run-of-the-mill, but this blew my mind when I first played it. It had 64-player maps, and at that time, the only other game in that setting was "Planetside". At least when it comes to that setting with this scale. And while "Planetside" gets a lot of praise, it's easy to forget that the shooting mechanics weren't really good. So when I heard it came back, I thought it'd be pretty cool to check it out. It might not have held up after all this time. So now that you know where I'm coming from, let's get into it. The game takes place in the next century, in a world where Leo flew his jet liner too much and the world has entered a new Ice Age. The last unfrozen land is Africa. Could be other areas too, but they don't tell us. So it's "Scramble for Africa 2" for the last land on the planet. So most of the action takes place in North Africa and Europe. "Battlefield 2" started with three factions, and it ended with, u-uh... many. But here you've only got two. You've got the European Union, which is the modern EU, just with the United States and Australia thrown into it. It's mentioned they're allied with a Union of African States, but they don't do anything. NARRATOR: "For Sam, it just doesn't add up." SAM: "No..." The invading force is the Pan-Asian Coalition, or PAC. They're made up of Russia, China, Japan, Korea, along with any Asian countries that survived the Ice Age. If you know anything about international relations, this sounds a little bit odd... But, you know, these are desperate times. But this is coming from a company, that didn't include France or Russia as a base faction for a World War I game, so whatever... So the war is on. By the way, this game doesn't have a campaign. All the story is gonna be through loading screens. I don't think these games needed campaigns. But before I get too into things, I should tell you HOW this game is alive again. This was brought back by the community, so it's also free! Which means I saved that box ten years for nothing. [*donk*] All you need to do is register on the Battlefield Revive website, download the launcher and then you're good to go. It even has some nice convenience features built in. Now that we've got the background of the way, let's talk about the game. Let's start with the visuals. Even after 10 years, the graphics look pretty good on the technical level. It wasn't the best of its time or anything, and I remember people complaining about the lighting being bland. It seems odd now, since it doesn't look terrible, but "F.E.A.R." did come out the year before, and that's some pretty goddamn good lighting. [*bang*] There's some good stuff in the visuals, but I also see a lot of things, that I know people hate. This game came out right before people decided to stop using colors in First-Person Shooters, and it kinda shows. Since the game is set in Ice Age Mediterranean, your maps are either gonna be gray, blue, or orange. Because of this, a lot of the game has the whole blue\orange contrast thing going on. This is really obvious in some of the expansion pack maps, where it's supposed to be getting colder, so it gets even more blue. Luckily, there's not a ton of bloom going on, but it's just this really basic color scheme. I kind of wonder, if this is what people meant by not liking the lighting. I don't mind it, but I could see why you wouldn't like it. I do like how even the desert maps are kind of a pale orange, compared to a sunlight yellow. It hammers in the fact that even deserts are cooling down. However, this kind of ties into a map issue. Even though there are cities factories and towns - it's all kind of barren. The low draw distance limits of the time kind of hammer this in. Reminds me of "Morrowind". This is hard to judge fairly, because I know I've been spoiled by more recent games. But "Battlefield 2" came out before and that felt more lived-in and natural. This game feels like fighting on a bunch of "Tiberian Sun" maps. I know it seems odd to gripe about, considering the setting, but they've made it work on a few maps. The smaller city maps have a lot more going on, compared to fields of nothing. And I mean A LOT of nothing. Some maps have points that are a minute apart from each other, and there's not much in the landscape, beside some vehicle wrecks. But then you got the maps where there's tons of interesting stuff around, so it's a mixed bag. So I've talked about colors and space more than Mark Rothko. So, what's actually ON the map? You know... The stuff. There's some mounted weapons scattered around, but nothing dramatic. [*whirr-POW*] [*bang*] What I'm getting to is art direction, and I really like what they've done with the place. Gachi-soldier: "Fuck you!"
What I'm getting to is art direction, and I really like what they've done with the place. It's a century later, but all the weapons feel grounded. Even "out there" stuff, like the walkers, don't feel silly. They're more like tanks they designed to go through snow or go over obstacles better. Not that I need to have realism or anything, but it would have been jarring to have something like THIS. Plus, even though the height feels like an advantage, it means every other weapon can see you more easily. Which means: everyone who says that tanks are better than mechs in just about everything are still right. It's worth noting that each faction's vehicles and weapons feel very different, even though some, like the aircraft, have identical stats. In this setting, the PAC is actually more technologically advanced than the West. A lot of their weapons use plasma and some of their vehicles use anti-gravity. Like the... Type 36 Hachimoto. No joke, it's probably my favorite vehicle in the game. It hits near-aircraft speeds on land, plus It has a mounted grenade launcher, along with the driver's weapons. It's a blast. The Europeans, on the other hand, still rely on ballistic weapons. Their vehicles and weapons are very angular, compared to the smooth edges of PAC stuff. This makes each side feel unique. Nearly identical vehicles have changes to make them stand out for their faction. This is good design. Others tried less... So design is cool, but how's the actual gameplay? The biggest thing to understand is that this is a TEAM game. I'll get into that later, since there's a lot to cover here, but just keep that in mind. The game has four classes (down from the seven that "Battlefield 2" had). The Assault class is designed around medium range combat, and has an assault rifle as a main weapon. They're essentially the front line soldier, but they also come with some healing supplies, like a box of medicine and a defibrillator. But you have to unlock that one. This makes the class a front line medic as well as a front line shooter. Kind of like a combination between a paramedic and Elliott Rogers. Plus, everyone and their mom uses this gun that's exclusive to the class so get used to it. Since we're here, each class has unlocks they could get through ranking up in matches. So do well. Each tree represents a different aspect of the class, but there's some universal upgrades too. But it's linear, so if you want the nice camo upgrade for your sniper, you have to buy the carbine first. The good news is: you could equip stuff from both trees during a game. So it doesn't limit you there. Now that you understand that, I could talk about the other classes. Recon can act as a sniper, a saboteur, or a little bit of both. [rapid gunfire] One of their more interesting abilities is a cloaking device they can unlock. It's loud, and you can't use anything while it's on, but it's good at letting you sneak around to distracted people. It doesn't do too well in direct light, and when I say it's loud, I mean LOUD. People can find you pretty quickly. I've always found it's the most useful for making escapes, especially from vehicles. If you're daring, you can try and sneak up and put explosives on them. But if they're on their game, you can only hide. With the right positioning, you could bamboozle vehicles all day long. Engineers are all about the vehicles. They fix up your team's equipment and destroy the enemies'. One of their most dangerous unlocks are anti-vehicle mines, which use magnets to pull towards enemy vehicles. They can also upgrade into using anti-air missile launchers, or anti-tank rifles. They can do their own repairs and they could get a detection sonar, that they could stick to just about anything. Including your own tanks. When you're dealing with non-vehicles, both factions have a pretty decent SMG sidearm. There's no upgrades here, so each one is what you get. Honestly, they don't need an upgrade. [rapid fire] The final class is Support, and it's all about the light machine guns. [punchy thumping] You ideally want to put down suppressing fire. If you just run in with the gun, it's not going to work. Your weapons are a lot more accurate when laying down, and you give your guys some breathing room to move around. You can also help by dropping ammunition boxes. If you don't like the idea of being a machine gunner, there's also some shotguns you can unlock. One being a standard semi-auto, the other one can fire sticky explosives. Support unlocks some pretty cool gadgets, like sentry guns, defensive shields and little heartbeat monitors. If you want to try stuff you don't have unlocked, just swipe it off a body. RIDDICK: "You keep what you kill..." With the exception of Recon in some cases, these classes all work better as a group. There's a lot of advantages for joining an in-game squad. If you've never played a "Battlefield" game before, a squad is basically a team inside of a team. So, being in a squad gives more advantages than just having buddies around, so that's usually a good plan. Being in a squad means if you're in sync, you have six players who are coordinating their stuff, rather than running around on their own. Squad leaders can send orders to the group, which are easily seen up in the mini-map there. This makes it real hard to get lost. You can also spawn on your squad leader, or use a beacon that he puts down, if he has it unlocked. Then your squad can drop-pod in. Besides having a team to rely on, you also get extra points for helping out your squad mates and following orders. This means not being in the squad is actually detrimental to your progress. You don't get as many points - you don't rank up as quickly. Plus, if your squad is doing well enough, you could get field upgrades, which are basically unlocks you could get for the match only. It's a good way to try stuff out. At a certain point, squad leaders get access to attack and spotting drones. Now that's an advantage. Being in a squad is so good, that it's practically a punishment for solo players. If you wanna lone wolf it, you're not gonna have as good of a time. Even if you're antisocial, or don't own a microphone, you really should try to be in the squad. If you're not in the squad, you don't get new stuff nearly as quickly and you die alone more often. If you want to go pure solo, I can't really recommend this game for you... Unless you want to play the Commander. The Commander spends most of their time in the map screen, punching queue harder than Sisko. The Commander can get a bird's-eye view of anywhere in the battlefield. They can use this view, along with their abilities, to help out their team. "Supplies" is paradroping a big crate of health and ammo. "EMP strikes" temporarily immobilize a vehicle, giving your guys a chance to take it down. But if you hit an aircraft at the right altitude, it's all over. "UAVs" scan an area for enemies. These things can shift a fight in your favor, but that being said, they can be shot down. "Satellite tracking" reveals enemies for a brief moment, but the cooldown is pretty fast. Finally, some maps and game modes have access to an orbital strike. This is a big artillery strike that can kill you pretty quickly, if you're still in the center. So, you're going to want to hide and wait this one out. Each of these abilities is controlled by a physical building, so if a Recon gets to one blows it up, you can't use it until an Engineer repairs it. So you want to guard your main base. Being the Commander gives you a lot of bonus points, but that's because you have A LOT of coordination to do. They don't expect you to be running around actually playing the game with the other people. Stay in your armchair and look at maps. So it's very reliant on teamwork, got it. What about the Game-modes? Well, there's a few standard ones and The Big One, so let's go over those. You got your standard Conquest mode. In this, each team has a limited number of tickets, and it slowly counts down. Killing an enemy also makes it go down. So, naturally, most of the fights are gonna be over these points, and if you get all the points on the map then you automatically win. Assault has the attackers starting out with more tickets, and the enemy already holds most of the bases on the map. The attacker headquarters can't be captured and they have to get all the points on the map, or kill all the enemies, before the round ends. The maps for these are usually pretty straightforward. Assaultline is really similar and usually played on the same maps. The difference is the defender HQ can't be captured until all the other points are. Conquest co-op is any of those matches with bots. But I don't have any footage of that, because what's the point of playing with bots? So now you get Titan mode, which is THE game mode. To sum it up: there're flying carriers that can be blown up from the inside, or shot down with missiles. Last Titan standing wins. But this is a process. The whole game is spent taking this thing down. So, let me tell you how it works. In this story, no one uses nukes, because that would mess up the land that's left. So the alternative is parking these things over an area. They're an antigravity carrier to launch aircraft from. They can also send infantry pretty far using the drop-pod launchers on the sides. On top of that, they're packing heat. It comes with two AA guns and four cannons. This makes going near it discouraging. To make things harder, it starts with the large shield, so no one can board it, or hit it directly. The Titan can be ordered to move by the Commander, so nowhere on the battlefield is really safe from this thing. If it sounds like a lot - it is, but it can be stopped. Like everything else, this is gonna be a big team effort. Instead of flags, you'll be capturing anti-Titan silos, which fire a missile at it every few minutes. These will slowly chip away at its shields, so you'll need to get as many as you can. Titan mode feels a lot different than Conquest. You've got to stay mobile if you want to make it. If the Titan is near you, you need to be expecting attacks from the air and also people surprising you with drop-pods. A vehicle, you thought was safe, might have a guy land on it and take it. I find this improves the maps over Conquest - you got to stay a lot more aware of your surroundings to win. You never know... "G'a-a-ahh...!" The good news is that all Titan guns need to be manned. So it can't auto zap you, unless someone's watching. Plus, the guns poke outside the shields. So with some time and maybe some friends, you can break them apart and make them repair it. Most of the fights will be around the silos. Fighting over them exclusively is called Stage One of Titan mode. People seem to really like putting explosives and traps on them after they've captured them. So you can still contribute even if you can't aim. No matter what you do, it should be helping the silos. Someone will have their shields pop eventually. When it happens, the shield outline goes away and some numbers pop up. This is Stage Two. You can always play the whole game this way, and keep going silo to silo. Missiles will chip at the hull instead, and eventually it'll blow up. But if you're tired of silos, or just how things are going, there's another option - boarding it. You can do this by dropping out of air transports or using an APC to launch yourself up. Just remember that, because the shield is down, that doesn't mean the guns are down. Not approaching carefully can mean dying before you even get there. There's a good chance you'll have to fight your way inside. This is also the easier part of the boarding. You can drop down inside it from some vents on the top. Or you could choose the loading area in the back. This has wider hallways and you have a lesser chance of running into a machine gun nest immediately. If you made it past all that, the true hell has begun. The Titan is filled with cramped hallways and hidey holes. Plus, they could drop-pod behind you and follow you the way you came in. You should be prepared to die a lot doing this, but it's for a good cause. Every combination of gadgets, campers and corner-dwelling machine guns lives in the Titan. It's going to be rough for both sides, but defence definitely has the advantage. You're here to blow up two consoles. Like I said, this was a PC exclusive. Anyway, each console powers a shield to another console. They're at the end of long hallways, that look like this: I'd like to take this time to remind you that this is optional, and you can keep doing silos. But if you have overwhelming numbers, or a good squad, or being led by Buzz Cut Psycho, you can do it. You just have to keep boarding and going for it. Once the last console is down, the reactor opens up. Hitting the reactor damages the hull. You can deal tons more damage here, than waiting on missiles. If you thought defense was rough before, imagine all of it packed into one room. But if you get the room secure with the right team inside, it's all over for them. Once the reactor is destroyed, you only have a few seconds, before it explodes. This is the time everyone leaves. The only way out is through the cargo area, and if you want to make it, you've got to sprint. But once you've made it, you've won the game. Plus, your KDR looks just a bit nicer for escaping the Titan. Yeah! Or you could capture flags... You're seeing probably my biggest problem with this game. Compared to Titan mode, the other game types are just variations of Conquest. I noticed that the more I played, the more things kind of blended together. The faction weapon variation is cool, but once you get upgrades, it starts to matter less. Eventually, only your sidearm will make a difference in a kit. There's a lot of map variation, but they're all either grey, white, blue or orange. The game types are either Titan or some kind of Conquest. Conquest isn't bad, but Titan has so many layers and thought put into it. If I wanted Sci-Fi Conquest I'd just reinstall "Planetside 2". This didn't set in immediately - it took about at least 10 hours. That's pretty short for a game like this. I put tons of hours into this years ago, and I still find it fun. I just don't know. I feel kind of bad, cuz I can't throw out the exact reason I feel this way. Is it because I played a ton before? Is it because some games have done things better? Honestly, I can't trust myself on this. Everything is solid. It's a great team-based game, with fantastic art direction and sound design. But for me, with the exception of some Titan matches, things started feeling really samey. I absolutely recommend for this to be tried out, because it's good and it's free, but I can't tell you how long it'll grab your attention. I know if you bring a group of friends in with you, it'll last a lot longer. "2142" holds up in a ton of ways and, really, I can't believe it's over 10 years old looking at it. My issue is how repetitive it starts to feel. If some revived servers start using new maps and game modes, I'll be sure to check it out. Even now there are people working on mods and I wish them luck. If you like Star Wars, check out First Strike. It's a total conversion mod. It got brought back to life along with the main game. Unless EA sniffs it threatening "Battlefront", then it'll die again. As for the main game, I've seen some server hiccups, but no major bugs. I went into this expecting to be disappointed, but honestly, I'm really glad I picked this up again. It's not something I could get super invested in, but I'll be playing this on and off for sure. Unlike another snow-related FPS I'll be picking up again soon. Unless I end up doing a different game. I do still have that list. An updated list... I chose "Battlefield" based on comments. So let me know what the next one should be. If you don't think that's working, just scream at me on Twitter. I almost forgot to mention: guns are easy and fun to use, but when it comes to knives, it's a little bit harder to kill people than modern games. You should know that. Thanks for watching! ♪ Vigilante! ♪ ♪ Dippin' and dodgin', swervin' and curvin' ♪ ♪ Fighting for what's right, while trying to stay alive ♪ ♪ Vigilante! ♪ "Swim, Batman, swim..."
This is easily my favorite Battlefield game.
The squad and team mechanics are amazing. The commander as well as the squad leader can issue orders. Playing in a squad gives bonus xp and temporary unlocks (up to 1 level in each category). You can request drops and artillery support from the commander who can accept or deny them. Meanwhile the commander can spot enemy soldiers manually from his top down view. I hate that they didn't expand on this. Another great thing were the artillery strikes. They were still dangerous, but only the commander could trigger them and there was always a short warning sound when you were about to get hit by artillery... A lot of newer bf games gave artillery to all snipers and they just killed you instantly.
All of the vehicles have cool activatable abilities as well. Most of them have temporary shields. Cars have a boost. The mechs can sprint and duck. It's also possible for them to fall over. Apcs are incredible with tons of weapons like an emp launcher, a burst fire grenade launcher and the people it is carrying all get guns as well as drop pods. They also all have weakpoints, so mechs can even get damaged by hand guns if you shoot the air vents.
Wow, that Titan gamemode looks amazing. A mode like that in a game today would blow my mind, and this was 10 years ago.
Battlefield 2142 Revival Project
2152 would have completely killed Titanfall 2; considering the same horrendous release window.
BF3 and 4 should have been one game...
This game was great. I miss storming through deserted refugee apartments as an infiltrator. It's a shame the game was so buggy.
They fucked up the series now by making you able to spawn pretty much anywhere you want. This made the games a chaotic frag fest.
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Still my most favorite multiplayer shooter of all time. I actually did play some of the revival project version just before BF1 released and it was a blast. Playing Titan Mode again was such a blast from the past and it holds up.
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