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Secret Weapons of World War II is the second expansion pack that EA has released for Battlefield 1942 this year. The first expansion, Road to Rome, brought the Italian theater into the game. Secret Weapons, as the name implies, introduces a host of high-tech toys, many of which were never actually used during the war.
Given that Battlefield has never strived to be all that realistic, I suppose that the developers at Dice felt that they could take this one over the top, although the bulk of Battlefield players I know roll their eyes at the mere mention of jets and rocket packs.
Secret Weapons adds 16 vehicles, 6 weapons, 8 maps, and one new game mode to Battlefield. I was as skeptical as anyone when I installed this expansion, but it turned out to be more balanced and playable than I expected.
The new vehicles range from relatively plausible motorcycles with sidecar-mounted machine guns and amphibious transports, to the rather far-fetched rocket planes and guided rockets. Some of the jets fly so fast that it's difficult just keeping them on the map. Unless you're flying in circle, you will be constantly harassed by the "deserters will be shot" message. With a little practice, however, they can be mastered, and the unguided missiles used by several of these new aircraft are easier to target accurately than bombs. Fortunately, there is also some very lethal anti-air weaponry in Secret Weapons, such as the Flakpanzer, to bring things back down to earth.
The Wasserfall guided rocket is an amusing addition, allowing players to steer a missile into enemy units from a stationary launch pad. Again, it will traverse even the largest maps in a matter of seconds, making it a challenge to control, but its payload is equally deadly against planes and ground troops.
Borrowing an idea from the Desert Combat mod, Secret Weapons introduces the C-47 cargo plane, which serves as a mobile spawn point. Although trying to keep this large, slow moving craft in the sky for more than one or two passes is not easy, anything that cuts down on spawn camping is a welcome addition. I would like to see something like this patched onto the original game.
As for the infamous Rocket Pack, it is surprisingly well executed. It doesn't permit you to zip around like Superman, but rather gives you the ability to make large jumps, reminiscent of low-gravity Quake. You are still susceptible to fall damage, and its volatile fuel will explode upon a direct hit from the enemy, so its strategic value is limited. However, it can prove quite useful for jumping from heights that would otherwise kill you, leap
More believable are the heavy tanks that come with this expansion. The Allies get the T95, which is an armored monster that is nearly unstoppable, especially with a couple lighter tanks backing it up. It has a hefty gun, but the Axis' Sturmtiger packs an even bigger punch with its mounted naval cannon. The Sturmtiger has no horizontal aim whatsoever, so you have to adjust your shot by pointing the tank in the direction of your target.
New weapons include a stealthy throwing knife, the Remington Auto 5 shotgun, a deadly grenade rifle, and the Gewehr 43 semiautomatic sniper rifle, which lets a sniper unleash a whole clip without zooming out. It might have been nice if the grenade rifle had been given to the anti-tank class rather than engineers, who already had a nifty variety of nifty things to use.
One of the best things about this expansion are the additional maps. They are very well thought out and involve a number of missions with a "destroy the top-secret Nazi laboratory" feel, which is a natural fit for the experimental weaponry. The rough terrain in the Eagle's Nest map is quite impressive, and there are an abundance of interesting features like tunnels, bridges, lakes and islands in the new maps.
One of the battles is set in the dark of night for a change. The only disappointment here is that there aren't more of them. It seems like 8 maps are barely enough to showcase the rest of the content introduced, a complaint partly outweighed by the fact that the maps are playable in an entirely new mode.
Objective mode, in which the Allies must achieve certain objectives and the Axis must stop them, is good to see, as it gives the game some much needed depth. Conquest mode, the most widely used type of gameplay in Battlefield right now, tends to be a rather chaotic, every-man-for-himself effort to capture command points. When the game is played in Objective mode, organization becomes more critical to success. Of course, if your team is particularly clueless, this can be a bad thing, as they will ignore the objectives altogether and carry on capturing command points, ultimately losing the match because of it.
Secret Weapons is an entertaining, if not mildly comical, expansion, and it's few flaws are minor ones. Unfortunately, at around $30 the price tag is a bit hard to swallow.
Like the more economical Road to Rome ($20), I can't see too many people rushing out to buy it until they have completely exhausted the original game and the numerous free mods now available for it. There do, however, seem to be more servers running it than the Road to Rome expansion. If you're a hardcore Battlefield 1942 fan and you need more content, Secret Weapons will go a long way toward fulfilling your Rocket Pack dreams.
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