Line #51 VideoGame/Battlefield1942


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bf1942.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Where it all began.]]
3
4	''Battlefield 1942'' is a multiplayer FirstPersonShooter by Creator/{{DICE}} and the first game in the ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}'' series.[[note]]''VideoGame/Battlefield1'' is a much more recent game down the line, "1" referring to "World War 1"[[/note]] It used the Refractor Engine and was released in 2002.
5
6	The game is set during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and its maps recreate several famous battles between the Axis and the Allies in Western Europe, USSR, North Africa and the Pacific. Players have to choose one of five classes of infantry: Scout, Assault, Anti-Tank, Medic, and Engineer. A number of vehicles from the era are controllable.
7
8	The original game spawned two expansions: '''''Road to Rome''''', about the Italian campaign of 1943-1945, and '''''Secret Weapons of World War II''''', which introduced new maps, weapons and vehicles, including some vehicles that never went beyond the prototype stage in RealLife... and also [[StupidJetpackHitler jetpacks]].
9
10	''Battlefield 2'' moved the setting to NextSundayAD. The series later returned to World War II with ''Battlefield 1943'', ''VideoGame/BattlefieldHeroes'' and ''VideoGame/BattlefieldV''.
11	----
12	!!Tropes that apply to ''Battlefield 1942'':
13
14	* AchievementMockery: The Purple Heart, achieved from a 1:5 kill/death ratio.
15	* AlternateHistory: Whenever a side wins a battle it historically lost.
16	** ''Secret Weapons of World War II'' features battles with mass produced versions of vehicles that never went beyond the prototype stage such as experimental jet planes, working anti-air missiles and a mass produced super-heavy American tank.
17	** Speaking of that expansion, the mountain on which the Eagle's Nest[[note]]The Kehlsteinhaus, a Nazi party vacation and meeting mansion not far from UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's home in Berchtesgaden[[/note]] stands has been turned into a fortress by the Germans.
18	* AmphibiousAutomobile: ''Secret Weapons of World War II'' introduced amphibious vehicles -- the Schwimmwagen for the Germans and the LVT for the Allies.
19	* AnachronismStew: The game featured some weapons and vehicles much earlier than their appearance in real life.
20	** ImproperlyPlacedFirearms: German Assault infantrymen using Sturmgewehr 44s in pre-1943 battles (that assault rifle was introduced that year), [=MG42=] machine guns showing up in pre-1942 maps, Panzerschreck anti-tank rocket launchers in pre-1943 maps (also in the hands of ''Japanese soldiers''), Bazookas in pre-1942 maps.
21	** Tiger tanks in pre-1943 maps.
22	** Wespe self-propelled guns in pre-1943 maps.
23	** Sherman tanks in pre-October 1942 maps.
24	** Soviet T-34-85 tanks in pre-1944 maps.
25	** The US Navy having the British battleship HMS ''Prince of Wales'' on the Midway and Iwo Jima maps. Not only were British or Commonwealth forces present for either battle, the ''Prince of Wales'' was sunk two days after the Attack on Pearl Harbour, half a year before Midway and several years before the Battle of Iwo Jima, while the other four KGV-class battleships spent almost the entire war in Atlantic or Mediterranean until two of them were deployed to the Pacific a few days after the Battle of Iwo Jima ended[[note]]Though they did end up providing fire support for US troops during the Battle of Okinawa[[/note]], with the other two arriving around the time hostilities ended.
26	* AntiAir:
27	** 40 mm Bofors gun for the Allies and Flak 38 for the Axis.
28	** Machine guns (either mounted on tanks or standing) work pretty well against planes.
29	** ''Secret Weapons of World War II'' added the Flakpanzer IV "Wirbelwind" for the Germans as well as the Wasserfall, a remote-controlled anti-air missile.
30	* ArtifactTitle: The game is not limited to the year 1942, as it features battles from 1940 to 1945. Particularly true for ''Road to Rome'' as the Allied invasion of Italy started in 1943.
31	%%* ArtificialStupidity: The bots have a notoriously awful AI.
32	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The game lacks of historical realism on many aspects, see the ImproperlyPlacedFirearms and AnachronismStew entries.
33	** A glaring example is the "Market Garden" map. The battle of Arnhem was fought by the British 1st Airborne Division, yet for some reason the playable Allied faction of the map is American. For obvious balance reasons, Allies are given tanks and heavy artillery on this map, while in real life the British paratroopers lacked such support and lost the battle as a result.
34	** The T-34 tank for some reason serve as both the light and heavy tank for the USSR, even though there are more suitable vehicles such as the IS-2 or KV-1.
35	** Similarly, the [=M10=] Wolverine tank destroyer serve as the USA's heavy tank for some reason.
36	** The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52 is armed with rocket pods and bombs while in reality, it's an unarmed prototype flying wing.
37	** And, of course, NoSwastikas.
38	* BayonetYa: ''Road to Rome'' added a bayonet to the Engineer's rifle.
39	* BoomHeadshot: Played straight. Sniper rifles are a one-hit kill, and other small arms deal more damage when fired at the noggin.
40	* BottomlessMagazines:
41	** Played straight for standing machine guns and AntiAir guns. Machine guns never seem to run low on ammo, they just over-heat.
42	** Standing next to an ammunition crate is basically this.
43	* CarFu:
44	** It's possible to deal massive damage simply by driving into an enemy vehicle at full speed. One common tactic is to drive jeeps straight into tanks, kamikaze style. This can be made deadlier with the use of remote explosive charges.
45	** Of course, any player can also man any portion of the vehicle - just hotswap, and you can gun down people pestering your tank. This can also lead to certain planes' (such as Stukas or Junker 88) pilots swapping seats in midair in order to fire the mounted machine guns, though that's ''way'' more dangerous.
46	* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: The bots are badly hit by ArtificialStupidity in general... except with artillery. They are ''deadly accurate'' with artillery at long distance, way moreso than players can be.
47	* CrewOfOne: [[UniversalDriversLicense Everyone]] can at least drive or fly any vehicle, though some vehicles require another player to fire secondary weapons (main weapon for self-propelled guns) --typically mounted [=LMGs=] (also known as "the best way to die by sniper fire"). Some vehicles can carry passengers.
48	* CripplingOverspecialization: The "anti-tank" class suffers from this. The ability to attack vehicles from afar comes at the price of being horrible at fighting off infantry.
49	* DoNotRunWithAGun: Present in the game. The amount of spread largely depends on the size and weight of the gun.
50	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Being the first one in the series, the game lacks squads and ranking, which make it hard to emphasize squadplay in any form, and lacks player voice making it more simplified than maybe even ''[[VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany Bad Company]]''. Still, it's a UrExample for wide scale combined arms games.
51	* FacePlant: The game will automatically put player-characters in a head-down skydiving pose if they fall from a certain height. If you don't deploy the parachute in time, this results in an invariably fatal faceplant.
52	* ImproperlyPlacedFirearms: Some of the weaponry used by various sides gives the impression that developers were kind of lazy and didn't modelize more accurate weapons.
53	** All Allied engineers use Lee Enfield rifles, which are further just a reskin of the existing Mauser Kar 98, and only have half their real capacities. The Americans get their famous M1 Garand...in the early pacific missions.
54	** For some reason, Soviet tanks are equipped with either Allied Browning machine guns or German [=MG42=] machine guns.
55	** All Axis and Allied handguns are a reskin of the base Walther P38 model, which will be either the [=P38=] or the [=M1911=], depending on whether the kit is from an Allied or Axis nation. This occurs despite only the US and Germany fielding these handguns in significant numbers. In fact, until the ''Secret Weapons of World War II'' expansion, which introduced the Bren and the Browning Auto-5 (and a new variant of the Sten, first introduced in ''Road to Rome''), British and Americans carried ''identical'' weapons, their voice acting being the only significant difference from a gameplay standpoint.
56	** Japanese machine gun nests, tanks and bunkers are also equipped with [=MG42=]'s, while Japan was certainly not known for buying a lot of them to Germany. Japan and Italy both use almost exclusively German weapons, despite both nations having very distinct weapon sets in RealLife. Though they both have their own unique assault class weapons (the Type 99 for the Japanese and the Italian Breda Modello 30), the non-German Axis armies still borrow most infantry arms from the Germans; Japan in particular use reskinned stick grenades (despite having their own hand grenades), and bizzarely, the [=MP18=], an early German SMG dating back to the tail end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI that Germans don't use in this game.
57	** The Soviets zig zag between using American, British, and even ''German'' weapons in the case of the Medic, simply re-using the [=MP18=] rather than using something like the PPSH SMG. In fact, the only Soviet weapon that makes an appearance in the game is the Degtyaryov DP LMG for the Assault class.
58	** In what may be one of the greatest examples of this, the Midway (specifically, the multiplayer version) and Iwo Jima maps give the US Navy HMS ''Prince of Wales'', a ''British'' battleship, complete with giving it a US flag. No British ships of any kind were at either battle, nor does the ''Prince of Wales'' resemble any USN battleship[[note]]The ''Prince of Wales'' was a King George V-class battleship, notable for having quadruple gun turrets (four guns per turret) as part of her main battery, an extremely rare design which no US battleship ever had (going all the way back to the first American battleship, USS Texas), nor did any other British class of battleship other than the KGV-class[[/note]]. It should also be noted that the ''Prince of Wales'' only appears on those two maps, and the British do not have any major naval maps in the game.
59	** Speaking of Midway, the Japanese carrier is a Shokaku-class carrier, which weren't present at the battle (in fact, the Battle of Midway was pretty much the only major naval action of the Pacific War that they didn't take part in), and the Japanese submarine is a German U-boat Type VII, which the Japanese didn't use (they did use a number of Type IX and Type X U-boats). Similar to the ''Prince of Wales'' situation, the Germans don't have any major naval maps, and the Type VII only appears on Japanese maps.
60	* InvisibleWall: The game makes you take damage when leaving the map, while playing a radio message telling you that deserters will be shot. If you are forced to eject from your air vehicle in a no-zone, you're as good as dead.
61	* ItsRainingMen:
62	** That UniversalDriversLicense comes with a parachute.
63	** Some spawn points are set ''in the air'', obviously in the "Market Garden" map.
64	** ''Secret Weapons of World War II'' adds the Douglas C-47 for the Allies, which is basically a mobile air spawn point parachuting players.
65	* LastStand:
66	** The Berlin map is this for the Germans in the original game, against the Red Army.
67	** ''Secret Weapons of World War II'' adds some AlternateHistory with the Eagle's Nest, a mountain fortress built around UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's vacation home. Americans besiege it with super-heavy tanks.
68	* MagicTool: Used by the Engineer class to repair tanks, clear mines, etc. A few turns of the wrench could even rebuild a 200m long bridge if it had been destroyed.
69	* NoSwastikas: The German flag is the one from UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany instead of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, only with an Iron Cross inside.
70	* OneManArmy: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Pretending to win the war by yourself in multiplayer WILL get you killed in very short order, not to mention pissing off your teammates.
71	** It ''is'' possible to work effectively while alone, but the key is not to be in this mindset. Skilled players, especially Scouts, can be very effective at harassing enemy spawn points through careful use of hit and run tactics, and can also make themselves useful by spotting enemy vehicles.
72	** It's definitely possible to be this when playing in solo mode against bots thanks to maps with well-placed ambush sites (near ammo crates) and the [[ArtificialStupidity AI's limits]].
73	* PlayerGuidedMissile: The ''Wasserfall'' missile (mainly intended as AntiAir though it can work against ground targets as well if the player has good reflexes) is the first such example in the franchise.
74	* SoftWater: Sort of. While you'll take less damage falling into water, you'll still die (or go into "critically wounded" mode) if you hit water from a high enough height.
75	* StupidJetpackHitler: ''Secret Weapons of World War II'' added various German planes that were planned but never saw mass production, such as the Horten 229 flying wing or the (notoriously dangerous to pilot) Bachem 349 rocket plane. It also featured ''[[JetPack actual jetpacks]]''. For the sake of balance, this is also inverted with the use of many Allied prototype weapons and vehicles.
76	* UrbanWarfare: Several maps such as Stalingrad, Berlin and half of Arnhem.
77	* UniversalDriversLicense: Anyone can drive any vehicle.
78	* YouALLLookFamiliar: The game only had 3 different faces for each side.

Context VideoGame / Battlefield1942