Blast From the Past is one of our new regular features at Completexbox, it’s a chance to look at a game from the yesteryear era that’s featured on Xbox at some point, that may be via original Xbox Console, The Xbox 360, or via Xbox Live Arcade. The one thing that is key to this feature, is that game must be available to play via backward compatibility on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One Consoles respectively.
In this walk down memory lane, we will be sharing our views of the game, our memories, lots of screenshots, and of course a link from the Xbox marketplace, so that you can add it to your game collection if you wish.
One thing we do hope, is that you enjoy the nostalgia, and the look back at the game of choice, maybe you can suggest a game for us to look at in the future that fits the bill of this feature.
Today’s Blast from The Past
This week’s chosen game is Battlefield 1943. Another classic game from the 360 era, and still fully playable to this day. A multiplayer action game, with the key battlefield mechanics at it’s core. A truly fantastic experience that any multiplayer warfare fans will adore and come to love. A true cult classic that deserves to be replayed.
The game is available to play via backward compatibility on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles respectively, and you can download it here (it’s also part of EA Access and Xbox Ultimate Game Pass) – Buy Battlefield 1943™ | Xbox
Battlefield 1943 Features
Multiplayer-only – enjoy the thrills of pacific WW2 battles!
Pick your path – be it as a rifleman, a steel fisted tank commander, or ace fighter pilot dog fighting to protect the skies.
Play as Lone wolf or with your fiends – coordinating to turn the tide of battle
The Game
Battlefield 1943 is a classic-based first-person shooter developed by DICE and published by EA. In this world war II first-person shooter, players can choose from three classes, and drive or pilot four vehicles: a jeep, a landing craft, a tank, and an airplane. All of which are faction specific.
The game features two gametypes, Conquest and Air Superiority. A new feature called the bombing bombing run allows the player to directly control three medium bomber airplanes (American: B-25 Mitchell, and Japanese: GSM Mitsubishi) that can be guided to an enemy area to conduct Carpet Bombing.
Battlefield 1943 utilises the 1.5 version of the Frostbite Engine, improving upon destructible environments and allowing entire buildings to be destroyed.
Battlefield 1943 casts players as either being Marines with the United States Marine Corps (USMC or the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) with up to 24 players on three maps: Wake Island, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima. After all players collectively reached 43 million kills, players received access to an additional Coral Sea map.
GamePlay
Like Battlefield: Bad Company, 1943 features the Frostbite Engine for its environmental damage. The game only features the series’ signature Conquest mode and a new game type called Air Superiority which was unlocked when the online gaming community reached a combined total of 43 million kills in Conquest. Similar to Battlefield Heroes, 1943 features only three classes: Infantryman, armed with an SMG and anti-tank rocket; Rifleman, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and rifle grenade; and Scout, armed with a scoped rifle, pistol, and dynamite. Each class has an unlimited supply of ammunition. Explosive ordnance, however, does take time to replenish. The game also features a regenerating health system.
There are four types of vehicles in the game; fighter, tank, car and landing craft. Each team’s main base has two one-man fighter aircraft, with A6M2 Zeros for the Imperial Navy and F4U Corsairs for the United States Marine Corps. On every map there is also an airfield for either team to capture where a third plane can be used to a team’s advantage. Each airplane has four machine guns and can also drop bombs. Tanks can accommodate two players, a driver who can use a tank cannon and a coaxial machine gun, and a passenger who can use a mounted machine gun. Cars can accommodate up to three players: a driver, a gunner in the back who operates a machine gun, and a passenger who can fire their own weapon. Landing craft (boats) are used to deliver troops from the carriers to the beaches. Players can also use air raid bunkers to attack with three bomber aircraft to clear an area of a map. To operate these, the player must enter a bunker with a large spinning dish on top. Planes can be shot down by fighter pilots and anti-aircraft guns, reducing the amount of bombs that the air raid can deliver, or destroying it entirely.
Development History
According to the game’s development team, accessibility and value were the main reasons the game went digital as opposed to an ordinary retail launch.
At the time of the Xbox Live Arcade version’s release, issues with server joining and statistic recording functionality were reported. DICE’s Gordon Van Dyke and EA responded to the situation, noting that the player volume was much higher than expected and server capacity was exceeded. To remedy the issues, EA and DICE added more servers. Van Dyke also noted that there were problems with players having trouble using their EA accounts. Despite launch problems, DICE reported that after the first day of release players had accumulated 29.45 years worth of game time and over 5 million kills. In 2011, DICE announced that development of the PC version of the game was cancelled, in order to focus on Battlefield 3.
At Sony’s conference at E3 2011, Sony announced that a copy of Battlefield 1943 would be included on every disc of Battlefield 3 for the PlayStation 3, but upon release it was not included. EA stated through Battlefield‘s Twitter account by telling a customer that “In lieu of [Battlefield 1943] being available on [disc] for [PlayStation 3] customers, EA has made all [Battlefield 3] expansions available early to [PlayStation 3] customers.” Ultimately, EA decided to honor the pre-order announcement.
Overall Reception
Battlefield 1943 has earnered some impressive review from industry critics
- Metacritic, the game has metascores of 84 for Playstation 3 and 83 for Xbox 360.
- GameRankings, the game has scores of 85.76% for playstation 3 and 84.90% Xbox 360.
- GameSpot gave the game 8 out of 10, “The balanced classes, diverse vehicles, and dynamic maps provide the kind of variety and replayability that is the hallmark of the most engaging online shooters, making battlefield 1943 well worth the asking price”
- IGN gave the game an 8.5 out of 10, saying “You won’t find anything new in terms of gameplay, but the seven-year old Battlefield formula remains a lot of fun today. This is a streamlined game that does one thing and does it well: online multiplayer battles.”
- GameVortex gave the game a 9.3 out of 10, saying that “The guys at Dice have taken what could have been a full priced retail game and offered it as a digital download. I think it paid off big for them because now that it sits on my XMB every time I turn on my PS£, I have to fight the urge to jump right back in. Battlefield 1943 follows in the footsteps of Warhawk and any fan of shooters on the PS3 needs to own this game.”