The Road to Rome is an expansion pack for
Battlefield 1942 that takes the
action to Italy and Sicily (OK, so technically the battles in this expansion
actually took place in 1943 and 1944, but Battlefield 1942 is not a big stickler
for historical accuracy). You get six new maps, the chance to play as the
Italians or Free French, and a few new weapons. What you don't get is a
new campaign, new game types, or any enhancements to the AI for single player
play. Whether or not these additions are enough to justify your purchase
of Road to Rome will depend on how much you enjoy playing Battlefield 1942.
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| An Italian Bf110. |
The centerpiece of the expansion is the new maps, and they are all
well-designed and provide a challenge different from those in the original game.
If there's a central theme to the maps aside from their location, it's
mountains. Rugged terrain figures prominently in all six maps, making the
race to capture the high ground the top priority. Because of the terrain
infantry can sometimes get close to the objectives without being seen too easily,
but it also means that there are plenty of highly defensible positions that will
challenge attackers to pull off uphill assaults. Tank jockeys will need to
maneuver carefully lest they go careening into a gully, off of a bridge, or
stumble into an ambush.
The Battle of Anzio map starts the Allies in the port town for which the
battle is named, while the Axis start in an encampment at the the other end of
the map. The mountainous map is bisected by an L-shaped river that creates
a chokepoint in the middle of the map.
The Battle of Salerno plays like a classic king-of-the-hill match. A
large mountain sits between the Allied and Axis camps and when the game opens
the race is on to capture the high ground. The loser in the race faces an
uphill battle, literally.
Monte Cassino is another map which features a prominent mountain in the
middle. This time the Axis get to start on top of the hill and it is the
Allies that must make their way up the mountain. Their reward for doing
so? Room to room fighting in the monastery that sits atop the mountain.
Monte Santa Croce is an interesting map that places both starting camps near
the north end of the map. Rivers divide the two mountaintop camps and both
sides must race down to the valley and south to a mountain containing all of the
map's control points. As both sides come out of their bases, the armor and
SP guns can lob shots at each other across the valley.
Operation Baytown takes place in the Straits of Messina between Sicily and
Italy. The Allies begin on Sicily and can take the bridge connecting the
land masses, or use the LCVPs to cross the water.
The final map is Operation Husky, which was the code name for the invasion of Sicily.
Allies drop in on parachutes or hit the beach in LCVPs, and their initial
objective is to capture the spawn point on the beach. From there the going
is tough as cliffs line the beach and the Axis are holed-up in fortifications.
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