2142: The Next Big Thing?

“Remember all those good times we used to have, before you left in a HUFF?”

Remember that game DICE released between the incredible deliciousness of Battlefield 2 (Don’t you remember the FUN?!) and the ultimate disappointment that was Bad Company? Remember how we took a passing glance at it and turned our collective noses up? Remember that? It was about three years ago.

Well, I was in GameStop the other day, scrounging around for something I might’ve missed in the last five-or-so years. I happened upon this little gem. I remember reading good things about it and playing the demo and ultimately enjoying myself. Well, I decided to give it a looksie, and I am shocked. Utterly SHOCKED.

Battlefield 2142 is, as its predecessor was, scrumptious. An all-around substantial improvement over BF2, it is an intriguing proposition for ButTech to capitalize on. I mean it.

There are a number of really valuable improvements that DICE decided to insert into a seemingly (almost) farcical retooling of BF2, NAMELY:

• Improved Squad Management/Execution: Specifically, there are many more ways to get directly into the action, primarily concerning vehicles. Because this is “the future”, APCs and Dropships have the ability to allow players to spawn directly into them, even in mid-flight or parked somewhere on the battlefield. You still have the ability to spawn directly next to your Squad Leader, but this kind of thing adds new (strategic) options.
• L-PODS (!!!): ODST-style drop pods that are used in all manner of situations. When exiting a flying vehicle, you automatically hurl yourself to the earth in this rocket-guided missile, painlessly delivering you anywhere you would fancy going to (Literally, you can steer them in-flight). These can also be launched from APCs directly, shooting you up into the air (Say, in a situation in which your truck is under heavy attack and is past-due to be annihilated) and guiding you safely down to cover or just a more strategically advantageous position. Additionally, Squad Leaders have a special Beacon (More on these sorts of things later) that can be set up anywhere on the battlefield to allow his squadmates (And himself, should he need it) to rocket from orbit to the beacon’s location upon respawn (These only go away if they are found and destroyed by the enemy). Fantastically useful.
• TITANS: The new (Read: old) Titan game mode is, contrary to popular belief, actually cool. The gigantic ships are pilot-able and aside from being the end-targets of the match, are also powerful assets that can be used to cover ground troops. These matches are large, with lots of vehicles. This is pretty much the way Battlefield is meant to be played.
• Customization and Gadgets: There were, back in the (bad) old days, some small offerings in terms of unlocks in BF2. A new gun after 50 million kills, basically. 2142 takes that old idea and includes a LOT more of it, a somewhat dated version of CoD4’s persistence system (But way cooler stuff!), with a ridiculous amount of gadgets and wing-wongs that can be incredibly useful in the game (Such as the aforementioned L-Pod beacon). Everything from a shotgun attachment (A-la Splinter Cell) to your rifle, to a combat drone that follows you and fights with you! (!!!)

Of course, being that this is an EA-published game there are some (slight) problems that I have been trying to work around. Primarily, the single-player and co-op offerings are scant at best, with only small 16-player bot matches available out of the box, and the mild problem of starting with absolutely nothing unlocked, which can be a major drag when just starting out. Fortunately there WAS, at one time, a mod community for this game and most of those problems have been remedied by the player base. Now I just have to figure out how to work these damn finicky mods (Specifically, you can only run one mod at a time, and that’s a real problem when you have two mods that fix all your problems when piled on top of eachother).

Regardless, I highly recommend we investigate this. I hold that the fun we could have with it will be moreso than in the olden days of yore when we would drag our rigs somewhere and enjoy BF2. It can be picked up (or possibly warez-ed) for less than $20.