Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome – PC – Review

This multi-player focused expansion pack gives you more of what you demand
from the original Battlefield 1942, including more maps, vehicles, and fighting
forces. The Road to Rome focuses exclusively on the key Italian and Sicilian
campaigns of WWII. Each map comes with highly detailed environments such as
Italian houses, Mediterranean trees, and even the Monte Cassino Monastery.

Here is a brief description of the new six maps.

Battle for Anzio: The Axis are attacking the American base at the
beginning of a canal. There are six strongholds to try and capture and plenty of
planes and tanks to use.

Battle for Salerno: A king of the hill type of map where the forces start
at the bottom left and top right of the map. Even if you take control of the top
of the hill, you cannot spawn there. Making that point is strategic because
there are plenty of stationary artillery and anti-aircraft guns ti fire on the
enemy.

Monte Cassino: The Axis troops are dug in deep upon top a hill with an
old monastery. The Allies attack, and try to hold the five strongholds. The
Allies use a lot of tanks for their upward battle, while the Axis fight back
with anti-tank cannons and a few tanks.

Monte Santa Croce: This one has a canal that runs like an
upside-down Y. The Axis and Allies fight over the seven strongholds at the
bottom. There are plenty of planes, tanks and long-range fighting.

Operation Baytown: A map with a ton of water. Both the Allies and the
Axis have three strongholds, which make up their bases. All of them can be
captured. There are many possible strategies due to the geography and the amount
of planes and tanks.

Operation Husky: An assault on Sicily where the Allied forces paratroop
on a beach and push and try to capture three strongholds using planes, tanks and
snipers.

New vehicles at your disposal are:

Allied Vehicles

British Mosquito: A single passenger twin-engine bomber with light armor
and a large payload.

US M3 Grant: A Medium armor tank with two positions: A main cannon
and an anti-personnel turret.

US GMC: This is an M3 Halftrack modified with an anti-tank cannon. It can
carry up to 3 passengers, including a rear machine gunner. (I found that gun
only useful if fleeing from a firefight…my personal opinion.)

British AT 25 Pdr: Field gun used by the Allies as a stationary
anti-tank cannon.

AXIS Vehicles

German BF-110: A dual engine bomber with a large payload and additional
rear gunner position. German Strumgeschutz: A medium armor tank-buster
with an additional machine gunner position.

Italian M11-39 Carro Armato: A medium armor anti-infantry tank with a
main cannon and anti-infantry turret.

German Pak 40: The Axis stationary anti-tank weapon. (Works great on
blowing infantry to bits as well)

Italian LVCP: The Italian version of the Higgins boat.

Weapons

Breda Modello: An Italian assault machine gun.

Sten SMG: A French medic sub machine gun.

Rifle Bayonet: All engineers on R2R are equipped with a bayonet on their
rifles.

Okay, with that all out of the way, Road to Rome supports up to 64 gamers (on
select maps), playing as several infantry classes, controlling many weapons
available to the Axis and Allies, and commanding numerous land vehicles, ships,
and aircraft. Much like the original BF 1942. I noticed that the maps do seem
larger than that of the predecessor. The Road to Rome’s large maps are clearly
laid out to encourage both tank and infantry skirmishes. The maps have many open
areas to travel across, which makes having a vehicle very nice to get you to the
action quickly. On the other side, there are plenty of smaller enclosed areas
like bombed out villages that make the infantry battles quite fun. Those broken
down buildings make great spots to set up an ambush or pick off men from afar
with a sniper rifle. There also seems to be more of the stationary guns like
machine gun nests and anti aircraft guns to go around.

The key elements to this new expansion are the new maps, vehicles and
weapons. Unfortunately, if you like the campaign side of the game, there is
nothing really new here. There is a single-player mode that has the 6 new maps
in a battle style format. There is no scripting involved so each new game should
be a bit different. The main reason for getting this title is plain and simple.
New maps and toys for the MP games. It does come with the 1.25 patch to get you
up to speed on some bug fixes in the original, but low and behold there is
already a new release 1.3 at the

Battlefield 1942 website.  So if you have already downloaded that,
which I’m sure any true fan has this patch on the CD means nothing to you. But
for a MSRP of 20 bucks, you really can’t miss.

All that being said the quality of the maps are fantastic to say the least.
The Refractor 2 engine does a superb job of rendering the action. So if you are
looking for quality and not quantity, I’m sure any fan will be satisfied.
Personally I like both! Not to say that I am not happy, quite honestly I love
the expansion, I just want more. So I will be looking forward to another
expansion if one does come out! My personal feeling is that looking at the big
picture on what you are really getting in this expansion, it could have been
easily downloaded like the newest patch is. I would gladly pay top dollar for a
game that would continue to grow rather than keep paying for additional
expansions. Again for 20 bucks, it’s still worth it especially if you take
advantage of the online play.

This review was on the expansion and not the entire game. If you are new to
BF 1942 head over to
Kevin Krause’s review to get the skinny on the game. I did not want to
restate what he has already said in his wonderful review.

The original Battlefield 1942 game is required to play The Road to Rome.

Reviewer’s Scoring Details

Gameplay: 8.5
Nothing really has changed form the original. The game itself is a lot of
fun, but still glitches in smooth gameplay. I would have hoped the patch would
fix this but not so true. What I found a bit odd is that actually sometimes the
game played smoother on Multiplayer than it did in a single player game, go
figure.

Graphics: 9.0
The graphics are very nice. You get close to the trees and they don’t turn
into green criss-cross blobs. The proprietary Refractor 2 engine delivers
exquisite graphics that are probably the most realistic of the genre.

Sound: 8.5
I was very fond of most of the sounds in the original. I was fortunate
enough not to have some of the sound card issues that were experienced in the
original by other players. To my understanding the patch has fixed this.

Difficulty: Medium
You can toggle the difficulty settings quite a bit and adjust CPU time
devoted to the AI. The hardest part of the game is definitely taking on other
gamers in Multiplayer. That is where the game really shines.

Concept: 9
I absolutely love a FPS that not only allows you to command various
vehicles, but to actually do the same in Multiplayer games…Very Cool.

Multiplayer: 9
Staying true to the Battlefield 1942 massive multiplayer legacy, The Road To
Rome will support up to 64 players (on select maps). Keep in mind that you
really need a broadband connection to really enjoy these games. 64 players on a
dial up modem on any game, just doesn’t work well. Playing as several infantry
classes, gamers can control many weapons available to the Axis and Allies and
command numerous land vehicles, ships and aircraft. The expansion doesn’t add
any new play modes to the original game. The main modes are still deathmatch,
team deathmatch, capture the flag, and conquest. Conquests, in which players on
opposing teams attempt to capture and hold control points on the map, remains
the most popular mode in multiplayer play.
In my opinion it really is probably the most
challenging and fun of all 4 game types.

Overall:  8.5
The new maps and vehicles are worth the 20 bucks. An Italian or French
campaign would have been nice but the battle maps are quite fun. If you like the
Multiplayer games this is a must have.