Why is Battlefield 1942 better than Medal of Honor?
Why is Battlefield 1942 better than Medal of Honor?
Firstly, the Multiplayer game style has moved up a notch. MOH had your traditional multiplayer match types; Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Objective. B1942 is more adventurous and goes for a new ticket system style of conflict. The idea is to gain ground by capturing bases (flags) and holding on to them as long as possible. This encourages defensive as well as aggressive tactics. A refreshing change it has to be said, although it does include Team deathmatch for those who do want simple blasting.
Warfare choice
Where B1942 excels the most in beating MOH on the fun factor is in its inclusion and use of WW2 vehicles. In MOH there were no vehicles in multiplayer, and the tank that you did get to use in single player was (in all honesty) handled rather badly in comparison, whereas in Battlefield there are oodles of vehicles, almost to the point of stupidity. You see there are 35 different vehicles in total for B1942, meaning roughly 7 for each side. Sure a few are just repeats of other empires vehicles (i.e. The Jeeps for the UK, Americans and Russians are the same) but in general all look really unique and act realistically on the battlefield.
How do the vehicles in Battlefield work? The best thing about this game is the way the vehicles are handled. You don't request to be a Tank Driver for instance, and then when you spawn you are in a tank ready to roll! If that were the case then games would, undoubtedly, be highly unbalanced, with all players choosing the best weapon platform for each level and getting no variation.
Instead you start a game by defining which class you want to be; Scout (Sniper rifle, and binoculars to call in artillery strikes), Assault (standard foot soldier), Anti Tank (Bazooka), Medic, Engineer (Armed with mines, explosives and wrench for fixing things). Then throughout the map vehicles spawn for you in set bases to get into and use. The idea has its flaws of course, with players waiting around at known spawn points for the use of Aircraft or tanks, whilst meaning the rest of your brave team getting killed and losing while these idiots twiddle their thumbs waiting.
Unlike most games to feature vehicles, there is usually one outstanding vehicle/weapon that once you get hold off your pretty much going to kick severe enemy ass, thereby ruining the feel of the game.
Not so in B1942! Every vehicle in the game has a weakness, and none are deemed too powerful thereby upsetting the overall balance of the game. Tanks for instance, although being incredibly tough, are not invincible by any means! Military tactics to deal with them involve landmines, bazooka's, enemy aircraft, enemy armour, hell even a lowly foot soldier throwing his grenades has a chance of destroying one of these Behemoths!
Graphics
Seeing all these vehicles is a glorious sight to behold indeed. With the right set up, like mine, the game looks lovely. At times it's so awe-inspiring to see so much going on you almost stop to marvel it, quickly realising that if you don't move your going get blasted in the face. Aircraft flying over head, artillery shells landing all around you, troops crossing over bridges with armoured reinforcements, there can be literally so much happening at once it's exhilarating! All combined with good authentic and accurate feeling WW2 sounds, it really is a great experience.
The visuals are generally more realistic than MOH¡'s too (which is a hard act to follow I assure you).
People don't have that trademark comical look about them for starters (unlike MOH¡'s puffy faced people)! Vehicles look, sound and move better. Whereas buildings are handled pretty much on par with MOH, so no lost ground there for either.
Where it also gains some ground also is the huge maps it has to run. Even though they are so massive, there is no loss in visual quality in any fields (if your PC is up to scratch of course)! If you start getting slowdown on those maps, then add a bit of draw distance fog yourself in the options, simple.
Compared with MOH I feel it is so much more fun, when the game isn't running badly online of course (see "Why is B1942 not as good as Medal of Honour?" section), and overall much better looking visually. Plus, putting aside MOH's excellent singleplayer mode for a moment, B1942's multiplayer aspect is a lot more entertaining, varied and ultimately rewarding if you wish it to be.
