Take command of Allied troops during the hellish battles of WWII as you struggle to wrest victory from the hands of the Fascists.
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For fans of large-scale team-based first-person shooters, Battlefield 1942 scratches precisely where we itch. The game comes with sprawling maps, massive teams, and a huge assortment of player-controllable vehicles up to and including battleships, tanks, and fighter planes--all wrapped up in a World War II setting with authentic voices, phrases, and uniforms. To be honest, I didn't think that Battlefield 1942 could get much better. Being wrong has never felt so good.
The Road To Rome is virtually a Platonic example of what an expansion pack should be. The six new maps are set in Italy, and include the Battle of Anzio, Operation Husky (in Sicily), as well as conflicts at Monte Cassino and Monte Santa Croce. Most of the maps tend to be hilly, which makes for exciting play and presents great opportunities for surprise attacks. There are eight new vehicles, including a tank with two turrets, a large bomber, and a new APC with a heavy gun turret. The expansion pack includes a single-player mode with nonscripted AI, which is useful to practice against when you're learning the new maps and vehicles before heading online--but there's no question that multiplayer is where Road To Rome shines.
It's hard to identify any weak points in this expansion pack. If I had to nitpick though, the multiplayer network code, though improved, still remains a little flakier than it should be. And there are one or two maps that have capture points that one side or the other will be mysteriously unable to recapture once they've been lost. It would help if there was some word from EA on whether those points are set to remain uncapturable by design or are the result of a bug.
There's no excuse for any self-respecting Battlefield 1942 owner to not pick up The Road To Rome. It has more of the elements you enjoyed in the original, conveniently condensed into solid, CD-shaped form. RTR is a shining example of what an expansion pack should be. --Jon "Safety Monkey" Grover
Pros:
Great new maps are both a hoot and a holler
Tons of cool new vehicles
Really, really fun
Cons:
Net code could still use a little work
A few capture points on some maps inexplicably seem to be unable to be recaptured once one side has them
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Love this expansion pack. Just "discovered" 1942 games from a friend of mine and found a whole bunch of expansion packs for it. All of them work perfectly and the prices were fantastic.
Since the second X-Pack (Secret Weapons) is going to be released in about two weeks, I thought it might be interesting to provide my thoughts on the very first X-Pack (Road to Rome) which was released some months ago... Most of the reviews for the first X-Pack on this Amazon page are quite old and were made right after the Road to Rome X-Pack was released. They are positive reviews; but I would suggest that should those very same reviewers write about 'Road to Rome' today, they may indeed have a different perspective on this first X-Pack. As much as I loved the Original 'Battlefield 1942', I was ultimately quite disappointed with 'Road to Rome'. Indeed today, current on-line 'Battlefield' players seldom play the 'Road to' maps anymore and instead prefer to play the original 'Battlefield' maps. The 'Road' x-pack provided inferior weapons, unacceptable map gliches (to be mentioned later), silly placement of defensive fixed weapons (such as AA guns in unlikely defensive deployments), and an overall uninteresting and rather boring gaming experience. As one writer (at another on-line forum) put it, 'why would I want to spend money on an X-Pack that gives me weaker weapons than in the original Battlefield?' Granted EA was trying to be 'historically correct' as the weapons of the 'French'or 'Italian' armies (in 'Road to Rome')were certainly inferior to the armies (US, Russia, Germany, Japan,)found in the original 'Battlefield' game. But 'historical correctness' does not make for a fun x-pack game; especially when your weapons are weaker than the original 'Battlefield' game and are less fun to play or use. Regarding the 'Road to ...' maps, they are beautifully detailed, and richer in devlopment and scope than the original 'Battlefield' maps. Unfortunately, they are also much more boring to play--hence today they are rarely played on the Internet; while the original 'Battlefield' maps continue to be played daily. They 'Road to Rome' X-Pack maps are boring for a number of reasons, some of which I will detail here: 1) Unfixed Map gliches: Of all of the 'Road to Rome' maps, the best map is 'Husky.' Husky however also has a map glitch which renders it almost unwinnable by the Axis Team unless the Ally team is populated by veritable newbies to the game. I speak of course of the 'infamous' wall gliche which allows Allies to sneak around the back of the map by climbing (not x-pack jumping which was even worse until patched, this is a permanent wall glitch)a wall/hill which was designed to be insurmountable. Well, the designers made a mistake and haven't fixed it. Therefore the Ally team wins this map virtually every time (unless newbies are involved). It's really a shame because except for this (albeit huge) glich, the 'Husky' map would be one of the best of any of the maps, including the originals. 2) Poor design and deployment of fixed placement defensive weapons: Well, the AA gun emplacements come to mind. The 'Road to Rome' X-pack seemed to have been designed during a period in which the EA designers were too heavily influenced by 'pilots' on their own staff, or perhaps by game-testers who were too heavily airplane oriented. Thus we got the 1.3 patch and the 'Road to Rome' maps with some very strange AA gun locations which render them almost useless. To give EA credit, they have since tried to rectify this particular issue with the 1.4 Patch which brings the AA gun back into the game by making them more effetive against planes (In essence, they reverted back to the 1.2 patch). Unfortunately the 1.4 Patch cannot help the AA guns too much in the 'Road to Rome' maps as the permanent deployment of most (not all, just most) of the AA guns are too far away from the normal traffic patterns of airplanes and just about everything else. 3) Maps like 'Cassino': I must state that I actually like the Monte Cassino map though I know that most people detest it. The idea was sound, and the map was designed for the (French) allies to win with heavy artillary, ala The Priests. This, of course, requires a strong coordinated effort by a like-minded team willing to work as a team and as an army. Well, unless you are in a clan or you play with a bunch of team players (whom you know), this 'heavy artillary' strategy is rendered in-effective as soon as this map begins. Instead the true 'usable' strategy which has devloped (and works mainly vs. poorer axis players) is to try to sneak an infantryman through the killing zone, sneak to the back of the map, capture the monastery flags and work your way down the hill. Not a sound strategy against truly good players. 3) Santa Croce Map: Well the problem with this map is that it's really just the 'BattleAxe' map (round and round you go capturing and losing flags) only not as fun... In summary, the 'Road to Rome' X-pack just isn't very fun to play and THAT is the first rule of thumb for any game or X-pack. It's gotta be fun. Hopefully the upcoming 'Secret Weapons' will include weapons and maps that are a) fun and b)not inferior to the original 'Battlefield' weapons and maps.
BF:1942 Road to Rome (RTR) is a satisfying, well-priced upgrade to an already top notch multiplayer first person shooter. Don't be put off by the seemingly few additions to the game. The 5+ maps, additional weapons, and new vehicles add TONS of new strategies, tactics, and of course replay value. You're not just getting re-skinned variants of BF:1942 tanks, planes, and fortifications - you're getting a whole new battleground experience that significantly alters the way you approach each objective. BF:1942 has never been a strong single player game, and this expansion is no exception. Like the original, if you don't enjoy online gaming, this is not something you should buy. There has been some single player "bot" improvement in this expansion, but the game's forte is multiplayer. Gamespy Arcade is included but I would recommend to ignore it and immediately download All Seeing Eye for your BF1942 game matching. DSL and Cable modem users should stick to games with less than 40 players, regardless of Ping, or risk choppy gameplay. This expansion (especially the vehicles) focuses much more strongly on teamwork. Many of the new vehicles are only effective when you have multiple people inside, each manning a position. When on a public server, finally you have a chance of NOT being ignored when you "Request a Pickup". Friendly aircraft camping is still too common, and some vehicles, such as the stationary artillery cannon, look great but have very limited use in most battlefield situations. The maps so far are a mixed bag. All are interesting and have multiple and creative ways to conquer flags. I have noticed that most game outcomes lean heavily on the team that somehow grabs the most flags in the first couple of minutes of gametime. It's far too easy to grab a few key flags, overwhelm the opposing team, and then spawn camp until the rest of the enemy tickets count down. At least half of every new game I've joined has resulted in this overwhelming inbalance - very different from the original BF1942 maps. The number of vehicles available in each map compounds this problem, and it's not uncommon to find a talented and patient enemy team constantly bombarding your only spawn point with two artillery guns, four tanks, and three bombers. It grows very tiresome to wait out a 20+ second respawn on a public server just to be immediately destroyed by campers - who you really can't blame too much, because they currently have no other flags to claim or objectives to meet. Additionally, many flags have a *very* small capture radius, and it sometimes seems like you need to practically wrap your legs around a flag pole for 20+ seconds in order to capture it. RTR's aircraft have been significantly enhanced, while flak and normal hand-held gun damage to planes has been reduced. Most of RTR's aircraft seem to take as much damage as a BF:1942 B-17 bomber, thus making an adept pilot a ridiculously overpowered force. Enemy planes now do more damage to other planes, increasing the need for dogfighting. However, a very common tactic is to continually bomb and strafe an enemy airfield, reducing a losing team's effort to launch interceptors to defend against the bombers. AA guns are also relatively scarce in the expanion maps. Unlike the original game, aircraft are truly a force to be feared. This may sound more realistic, but in the balanced, arcade-style gameplay of BF:1942 it doesn't work well. On most of the new maps, an above average pilot can just devastate the opposing team. Hopefully this inbalance will be addressed in an upcoming patch. Many users have reported sound problems (Audigy cards especially) wth this expansion, and many sounds (and some graphics) have been replaced. Personally, I like the new sounds, but many others in multiplayer do not, and expect to hear them complain. Graphics remain fantastic, and although RtR does not play as smooth (or load as fast) as the recent, 1.3 BF:1942 patch, chances are it will soon. Despite the above listed gameplay issues, you can't go wrong. It's a great priced, solid expansion to a wonderful multiplayer game.
The Road to Rome is an expansion pack for Battlefield: 1942 (BF1942). It covers the Italian campaign. It comes with 6 new maps and two new armies (French and Italians). These armies can only be used on certain maps. The expansion also has an assortment of new weapons and vehicles which again are only for use on certain maps. These includes for the Americans M3 Grant (medium tank) and M3 GMC (tank destroyer/mobile artillery), for the British the Mosquito (bomber) and the 25pdr (stationary AT gun), for the Italians the M11-39 Carro Armato (medium tank), and for the Germans the Sturmgeschutz (tank destroyer),PAK75 (stationary AT gun), and the BF 110 (fighter/bomber). Two infantry assault weapons include the British Sten SMG and the Italian Breda Modello 30. The maps are fun and fairly well balanced. I would also note that even though this is very old title there is still an active multiplayer community. I was able to jump right into a multiplayer game with no lag. However, there are very few servers that actually play the expansions.
The product was delivered on time and in good condition. I was unable to start the game so I contacted the seller and he was able to provide a solution which worked well within a day. I am happy with the product and with the customer service.
