Hands on with the eagerly anticipated Battlefield 2142. Just what does the future hold for BF fans?

It’s fun to shoot – in FPS games that is. And it’s even more fun when you know that there are real people in front of the screens.

So there was no doubt that I just had to get in when they asked for volunteers for a game of BF2142 during the EA Studio Showcase. The people from DICE gave me a spot even though I initially asked if they were playing Quake Wars (doh).

I Don't Know Squad

I got the last spot in delta-squad – and I’m not sure if my squad leader has stopped crying yet. When I sat down the game crashed after 30 seconds. Not my fault, nor the game’s. These things happen. But as you know, the BF games aren’t exactly known for letting you quickly into the game again when a crash has occurred, so when I finally got back into the game I was kind of lagging behind.

Of course I forgot to rejoin my squad so I spawned on our own Titan, which is pretty far from silo no. 1 where my squad leader and his companion were putting up a good fight (the two journalists were apparently used to playing BF with each other so it was clear that the rest of us had better just shut up and take orders).

Crashed Again

Fortunately the helicopters in BF2142 are easier to control than their real life counterparts so I managed to make it to my team. Then the action got going until my machine decided to crash once more.

It’s a good deal of bad luck to have your machine crash twice in 20 minutes, but it turned out I had gotten the machine that also suffered problems during the initial configuration. A little later I was back in the game again this time alongside my squad who was busy crippling the remainder of the other team’s shield.

Stay On Target

After that you are supposed to go to the enemy Titan, but I unfortunately didn’t get into the transportation thingie that my squad leader flew the team in (I had a nasty firefight with an enemy walker and some grunts).

The important thing to do for the squad leader – according to the folks at DICE - is to set up a spawn point on the enemy Titan, which makes sense as you’ll then be able to bring your assault right to your opponents’ front door. Too bad that my squad leader (and his mate) had forgotten all about this and was instead concentrating only on destroying the enemy core. Needless to say time ran out and the mission failed.

The future brings flying cars

I only got my hands on around 20 minutes of gameplay but I found the game promising. It seemed very similar to BF2 which is not bad at all but the question is how much of a difference new weapons, vehicles and game modes will make. I’m optimistic of the game’s potential and I’m pleased with the faster loading times of intro screens and game initializations.

BF2142 is scheduled for release in Q4 this year.

Interesting......