Battlefield 2142

Rise through the ranks in... Battlefield 2142

Forget About All the fun stuff like shooting people in the face: if you want all the best kit and the respect of your comrades in Battlefield 2142, you're going to have to put the work in. In MMOGs they call this The grind', but at least here you don't have to hunt rats for hours on end or pay a monthly free for the privilege. BF2142's currency of experience is the career point, the accumulation of which will bestow you rank and unlock better and more diverse weapons and items. Oh, and make you irresistible to women and increase the value of your share portfolio, among other things...

Hungry Like The Wolf

OK, if this is something you haven't quite grasped after reading endless fawning previews and reviews, let's say this one last time: Battlefield2142 is a team game. If you prefer to sit in the corner at this party, you'll likely end up bored and frustrated. So, as soon as you log in, join a squad, even if you have no altruistic intentions. Why? Because you'll get extra career points that you don't get by playing alone. For example, if you kill an enemy during a squad attack on a pinned objective order, you also get an extra point - so the more you do as a team, the more experience to spend on those unlocks.

A little bit of what you fancy

Obviously you need to play on low-ping servers, preferably with a few people on them, but there are a few other pointers too if you want to maximise your fun investment If you're new to the game, avoid the Titan mode for now. Apart from being laggy, the maps can take a long time to learn. Instead, stick to the Conquest mode you know and love, with small maps. Remember, it's your squad-mates who'll help you bring home the points, and less squads on smaller maps means less stress for your commander, which equates to a better chance of winning.

I Like To Move It, Move It

If you find yourself with a squad leader who never gives orders, or keeps giving you 'move to' commands, leave the squad immediately. He may be a supreme tactical genius, but successfully reaching that tree up ahead doesn't gain you any extra experience. You only get objective-financed career points by attacking or defending an objective. Similarly, if you're a squad leader, issue only attack or defend orders (ie, set orders on control points). What's more, if you can do it without having to pull up the in-game map - in others words always have the '3D map' active - all the better.

Command points

Even if you're not a natural born leader, at times you will find yourself squad leader simply because everyone else is too chicken to do it (you'll be amazed how many people there are who fear taking charge). If you do find yourself holding the baton, just go with it. Hie reason is quite simple: squad leaders earn points from all the members of their squad. Each kill that one of your squad makes within a radius of one of your orders is an extra point for you. The trick is to make sure you keep your orders updated and make sure you respond to your Commander. And you never know, you may find that you actually start to enjoy bullying people.

Recon Man

Although the Recon kit can be quite adaptable once you 'skill up', to begin with this character is pretty much only good for one thing - spotting the enemy, and hopefully planting a bullet in them. Once the preserve of the lone wolf, Recon is pretty much the de facto choice for the thoughtful squad leader: someone who can either scout ahead or stay back a little and look for targets, then report back regarding enemy troop strengths. With the right squad Field Upgrades, you can even set up a secret spawn location. One thing you don't want to be doing with this character is storming a front line.

Supporting role

Unsurprisingly, the Support kit is the probably the most popular choice for new players, thanks to the heavy MG weapon - but mostly because you can ignore all those calls for medical aid that invariably fill your headphones. The trick with this guy is to support (geddit) your front line troops. Let the the Assault guys go first as their weapons are far more accurate on the move, and either give suppressive fire from a flank, or, if you're advancing with them, drop and wait for your aim to steady before letting rip. And when you hole up with your squad, always - always - drop an ammo hub and watch the points roll in.

Heal Thyself

The trick with playing the Assault class early on in your career is to know when to be a gun-toting badass, and when to put the nurse's uniform on. If things are quiet and you have a colleague nearby, it makes sense to open up or drop the medi-hub - after all, it's a good way to get cheap experience. Don't get carried away though - without a defrib, you'll find yourself more often than not arriving late with the bandages. Until you get the defrib, be a soldier first and a doctor second. And use short bursts - always short bursts.

Mr Big Gun. Little Gun

To begin with, the engineer is one of the trickiest soldier classes to master, but lie's actually one of the most useful and versatile, with an outdoor at-range skill for crippling vehicles. Plus, against infantry his short-range weapon is just as accurate as the standard Assault weapon (even if it's a bit piddly). The trick is to again play to your supporting role, in this case by fixing machines, which is the best way to bring in the points. The danger though is to always panic under fire. If you're in vehicle-hunting mode, think like a sniper; take your time and always go for weak spots.

I Have To say that the concept of BF2142 didn't fill me with deep love. It seemed a little obvious somehow -a jump of the shark into the realms of its competitors (Unreal Tournament, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars et al) that was far removed from the original ethic of its forbears. Initial hands-on impressions didn't help much either. Its bleak, urban feel of a snowy future meant that the whole affair felt quite sparse and featureless, its colour palette well drained of BF2's grime, sand and sun. But then, as so often is the case, my eyes became more fixed and my jaw began to slacken -and I was once more Battlefield's bitch.

As we've previously reported. Battlefield 2142 is very much the Battlefield: Vietnam to Battlefield 2's Battlefield 1942. It's not a true sequel, but a heavily tweaked engine-pal - only this time dragging along with it an exciting new game mode and air vehicles that you don't need a paranormal degree of co-ordination to fly.

Titan Quests

My first foray into the Titan mode saw me spawn aboard a massive platform floating above the frosted mins of a future city - one of the Titans granted to both factions in every bout. The idea runs that players take to bulletexchanging lielow the hovering goliaths while attempting to take control of missile silos on the ground - each of which fires off a salvo of death at intervals of two minutes. Missiles are aimed at the Titan of the opposition of whoever is in control of the silo - the ownership of which sways far more wildly than the slow-raising and lowering flags of Bf-old.

The map I played had three of these silos, and the start of my game very much revolved around their offence and defence. Or it did for everyone else - much of my personal time revolved around constant futuristic death - by mech, by tank and by the knife of a tricksy backstabber. Hie pursuit of the latter, interestingly enough, granting my killer a pair of personal dogtags - a new medal for the cabinet that DICE are proffering knife-killers, to make braggers on the Internet that much more insanely irritating.

Another new feature, meanwhile, is the way that the game lets you customise your kit on-the-fly - thereby reducing suicide rates map-wide. Once you've unlocked a certain piece of equipment -be it active camouflage for snipers (a Predatot -style cloak) or a magnetic vehicle mines, you can select and use them instantaneously. Indeed, the whole kit customisation now allows you to branch out far beyond the rigid classes of yore -or at least that's the current masterplan.

I'm Not Very Good

While I had been busy dying, however, the enemy had knocked out the shields on my Titan - and boarding and conquering was on the agenda. The enemy Titan was manoeuvred into greater proximity (they're not static you see, they can be piloted by the Commander - giving him a much greater battlefield presence) and jet-pods containing solo players and various enemy aircraft began their airborne infiltration. I was then cast into a purely defensive role, despite being there, if I'm being honest more of a human shield capacity than anything more pro-active. In the bowels of the Titan, and feeling more than a little nostalgic for my many months of PlanetSide addiction of times past it was up to us to defend four terminals -the destruction of which would leave the ship's core exposed and enemy victory conditions open for the taking.

Needless to say we lost, failed, choked and buggered it up - there was no Ice-Age endangered land won for the Pan Asian Coalition that day. I did, however, come away with a growing awareness that a future-set Battlefield isn't such an inherently bad thing after all. I mean, I even managed to fly without crashing gg in flames to the delighted 'lol's of my team-mates - what with the future clearly having provided techno-stabilisers for the flight-inept.

BF2142 isn't some delightfully escapist future jaunt (it doesn't come equipped with jet-powered rocket pants, previously unseen outside the fictional serial 'Robbie Rocket Pants'), and has more than retained the grit, grime and occasional, unintentional, inanity of its predecessors. Count me as converted then. Roll on the 22 nd century.

Remember when Activision put Call of Duty into the distant future with Infinite Warfare? Do you also remember how people lost their minds and planned boycotts and fires and so on? Ok so maybe not fires, but people were not happy. The funny thing is that Dice actually did this with their Battlefield series over a decade earlier with Battlefield 2142.

The Really Cold War

One of the things that is really cool (in fact ice cool) about Battlefield 2142 is the setting. The Earth has gone through another ice age and resources are at an all time low. Humanity has divided into two main factions. The European Union and the Pan Asian Coalition. The story is actually really cool and while this was released as mainly a multiplayer experience I do love what they have done here and wish that they had expanded it a little more.

Prepare For Conquest

Like the previous three Battlefield games that came before Battlefield 2142 Conquest mode returned. Like before you would need to capture spawn points and then defend them from the opposing team. Dice did change things up by adding different variations to Conquest mode. These were Head On, Assault, Conquest Assault, and No Vehicles. It was fun to play around with these different modes and like previous Battlefield games, picking the right role and playing your part for the team is key to your victory.

Behold The Titan

You may think this is a rip off of Titanfall, but Battlefield 2142 beat that game to market by many years. The big draw of Battlefield 2142, as well as the futuristic setting, is the inclusion of titans. The Titans are these massive and overpowered ships that cause a huge amount of damage. More often than not the first team to get their titan up and running will win the match. The team's commander can move the Titan around the map and there are anti-titan missiles around the map which if you can get to them you can use them to try and destroy the Titan. You can even get on board the Titan and try to take it down from the inside. The Titans made Battlefield 2142 feel like no other Battlefield game and it is one of the main reasons why so many people have such fond memories of it.

Stay Classy People

Like past Battlefield games, Battlefield 2142 has different kits that you can use to make your own dream class. It is picking the right kit for your playstyle that will dictate how valuable you are to your team. Even with the more sci-fi approach to war, Battlefield 2142 is still at its heart a shooter that requires teamwork. Working as a team and doing your role and doing what needs to be done over just getting random kills is the way you will earn a victory. The different classes have plenty of things for you to unlock and playing around and giving each class a try is the way to find what one suits you best.

Battlefield 2142 really was an excellent game, looking back now it does feel like a game that came out in 2006. Dice did support it well with some updates and great DLC, but I really do think this is a game they should remake or at the very least come up with another sci-fi futuristic first person shooter as they really nailed this one. While the official servers went offline a few years back, hardcore fans have kept the game alive so if you hunt around you can still play it online.

7.5/10

Pros:

• The new ice age setting is awesome
• Futuristic weapons and vehicles are fun
• The Titans!!!!!
• Lots of classes for you to try out
• A real thinking person’s shooter

Cons:

• Could have done with a more in-depth single player mode
• Official servers are shut down