The upcoming Battlefield 1942 expansion, Secret Weapons of World War 2, has been officially announced. A few screenshots have been released, showing off some of the action - check them out in our archive. The release date is only listed as "Fall 2003" (US), so no specifics as yet.

Some commentary, it will be interesting to see what happens with Battlefield 1942 in the long term. Instead of going the "open architecture" that allow many other modern FPS games to remain so popular for so long thanks to the easy addition of user-based content, it is pretty obvious that Dice and EA are keeping this as close to their chest as possible in order to milk the mission packs for all their worth. Mods like Desert Combat are a great example of what people are still able to do with this engine and according to rumours this will probably become a commercial add-on. Will it be another mission pack though?

i don't like the idea of that us plane
looks too modern for a game based around world war 2
but hopefully the expansion will have more to it than the roads to rome, that was a bit disappointing though i have to say that i do like the well made levels in it

more bf1942 godness :D

Shant be buying that expansion. If it's anything like RTR it will be a waste of money.

I'd rather support the modding community seeing as their ideas are alot more interesting than Dice and EA's.

Screenshots look s*** as, wouldnt make me wanna buy it

Cant be that good if they only have 3 pics worth showing...

EA already got $50 of my cash for something that was worth closer to $10. I won't get bitten by them this time.

Sorry EA but you have done any chance of getting more dollars out of me.

yeah I am not buying this expansion either, it has no support so I cant see myself being fooled into buying it like I was with RTR

but it has motocycles!

bah who needs that went you got DesertCombat 0.3!

This seems more worthy of my money than RTR - being able to pilot a cargo plane and use it as a spawn point for your team while in the air is neat.

heh yeah, i got RTR, played it twice and went back to DC.
The cd serves better as a cover for the hole in the wall i made when i realised how bad a i wasted my money on that s***.

I just want to know when they are going to remember that they're were f***ing AUSSIES in the war, not just the f***ing yanks, pommies and surrenders.. err french.

I mean c'mon, they're just about every other nation in every other game ever made.

Does anyone ever include aussies in these?

big fat f***ing NO.

Having Aussies in the game would unbalance the teams. Our soldiers are too good for the rest of the world.

8-)

ok id buy it if hey added in the aussies

Although i dont think it would be very balanced with one team having a lone jeep for their vehicles. haha.

Grr, just sent an email to EA

Y'know, just once, it'd be nice to see some games include Aussie contingents.

remember?

Diggers, slouch hats, .303's, kokoda trail, singapore and many others s***house places were other people from different nations fought?
The french get a mention an they surrendered..

I love the game itself an play it Online here as part of GameArenas ladder with clan RQR. It would be just nice to be able to play a game where your a part of your own nation...

HERMITech
Proud descendant and family member of ANZAC diggers from WW1, WW2, Korea & Vietnam

if you're that patriotic, why aren't you in the army already?

Couple of reasons actually:

1, tried when I was 17 to get into the navy as a gunner (had a lot of merchant navy peeps adults around when I grew up), an get this...

I was a skinny lil bastard back then an got knocked back cus I was under my heights avg weight (guess they thought I'd be too small to stop myself from being somebody's sump oil repository).

2. Opportunity to get into Air force I traded in on a chick who I did my nuts over (yeah, make of that what you want you sick bastards) when I was 19 or 20 (/slaps self in head)

Now, I've just turned 34 an have a f***ed knee. I smashed it up at Darra cement works (1999) during a shutdown that put me outta work for 3 years because of it.

So I decided I had to earn a living somehow si I got into PC's an got a job in IT were I'm now quite happy to be.

seeing as it has no percievable playing value

Then why are you even interested in this thread?

As to patriotic, I don't really give a s*** about "national pride", I'm just proud of my ancestory

I just want to know when they are going to remember that they're were f***ing AUSSIES in the war, not just the f***ing yanks, pommies and surrenders.. err french.

I mean c'mon, they're just about every other nation in every other game ever made.

Does anyone ever include aussies in these?

big fat f***ing NO.

Yeah that pissed me off too, but then I realised that we were actually under the command of the British in a number of theatres.

Yeah that pissed me off too, but then I realised that we were actually under the command of the British in a number of theatres

I wonder if this could be called karma for using the nose of the Sphinx for target practice?

Nice email hermi, its true i hardly ever see any australians in any computer games WHATSOEVER except maybe rugby which were good @ and soccer which were s*** :p

I don't understand why it wouldn't be viable for a company to create an expansion pack for the ANZAC participation in WW2 - there's a sufficient number of gamers in both Australia and NZ combined that it would probably bring them a tidy profit, especially considering most expansion packs cost very little to produce. *shrug*

The one kind of map this game is missing at this stage, is a map with a jungle setting. What could be a more perfect type of map to include aussies in than that.

IMO there aren't any truely infantry friendly maps in the entire game(apart from possibly Berlin and Spamingrad). For the most part all maps rely heavily on planes,ships or tanks. There needs to be a couple of maps that shift the focus abit more onto infantry.

A jungle map with heaps of bush (obviously) would certainly favour the poor grunt on the ground. Plus it would give something to the game that it has been missing from the start.

Surface to air missles which you can control.. WOOOOT

helecopters that can take multiple people around the level.. even better..

Planes that act as a mobile spawning area even better..

We need something to stop those pesky Spawn campers..

Desert Combat has a plane that you can spawn in. Plus it also has choppers as well.

8-)

Yeh but DC dosen't ahve a flying wing... the maps also look good.. a lot like the berlin map.

and the chopper has side MG's

The 262 wasn't exactly flash... very vulnerable during take off and landing, and often overshot targets (because they travelled much faster than their targets...). Then there's the problem of the engines stalling (once they stalled, getting started again was near on impossible).

Nice email hermi, its true i hardly ever see any australians in any computer games WHATSOEVER

WOOT !!

I actually got a reply !!

Apparently, there's an expansion for MOHAA based on the Aussie particpation coming in "Fall 2003"

Unfortunately, I lost the email when the FAT on my machine went skitz....


Something to look forward to at least...

Pity it's for MOH.

But well done on the e-mail anyway.

Aussie MOHAA?

*spontaneous orgasm*

VWD HERMI!

i see the yanks are changing history yet again, germany had a jet fighter aircraft by the end of ww2, not the yanks

the yanks didn't have anything close to that plane they show in the first screenshot and also WTF is that guided rocket doing there???
anti-aircraft guided rockets in WW2??? SIF!!!

but then, it is only a game( and a good one at that).

I thought zee germans were heading down the rocket plane path in WW2?

They did have anti-aircraft rocket lancher thingies in WW2, but they weren't guided, more point and prey. Also the aliies used to have rockets mouted on the wings of Spitfires and Hurricanes that where used as train destoryers, pretty awesome stuff for 1943. And yes both the germans and russians were heaps further ahead in rocket design and use, but early in the piece the russians helped the english develop rockets so to help them f*** with the germans.

The russians ruled as far as rocket technology went, even today the russian *something or another* which was built during the late 60's early 70's but never used is the most powerful and effiecent engine to date. And is currently being tested for reuse some 30years latter to lanch heavy payloads to the space station by the eurospace corp watcha me call it.

Also the aliies used to have rockets mouted on the wings of Spitfires and Hurricanes that where used as train destoryers, pretty awesome stuff for 1943.

IIRC the Spitfire wasn't ever equipped with rockets, though the Hurricane, the Typhoon and it successor the Tempest were.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/ww2htmls/hawktyphoon.html

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/ww2htmls/hawktempest.html

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/ww2htmls/supespitfire.html

As for the Russians being rocketry masters, I think the Germans did better (especially considering both the USA and Russia "coerced" German rocket scientists to their respective camps after the war and during the cold war). :)

I thought zee germans were heading down the rocket plane path in WW2?

They built a few different types but they all suffered from one problem or another (I think one of them used an extremely explosive fuel which had a habit of spontaneously igniting).

anti-aircraft guided rockets in WW2??? SIF!!!

actually Germany had developed primitive examples of guided missiles.

Link: Bottom of page talks about German invention of heat-seeking technology. I have pictures in a book here and i'm trying to find some links....

a primitive page about an anti-air guided missile produced by Germany. According to the book infront of me they produced missiles in infra-red, acoustic and semi-active radar, but only infra-red had any success.

German made Enzian which is a surface to air missile. Which is also the missile in the book, and the 2nd picture on the page is the one in front of me. :)

i see the yanks are changing history yet again, germany had a jet fighter aircraft by the end of ww2, not the yanks

the 'yanks' had the p-80 shooting star which is a jet fighter that was sent to Europe but didnt see any combat.

They built a few different types but they all suffered from one problem or another (I think one of them used an extremely explosive fuel which had a habit of spontaneously igniting).

That would be the ME-163. It used two types of fuel that exploded on contact and propelled the craft to a top speed of 623MPH (about 1000km/hr) a phenomenal speed for the time. Sadly one of the fuels hydrogen peroxide (t-stoff) could melt a man in seconds. The other fuel hydrazine hydrate in methanol (c-stoff) was used as the catalyst.

I think you all missed the name of this expansion "Secret Weapons of WW2". Now, I may be offtrack here, but what that suggests to me is that its a bit of a "what if" scenario, a bit of the "what if guided missiles were developed and nobody ever knew about them?" type of scenario. I dont think its meant to be particularly realistic, just a bit of fun.

its more like a "what if they were actually used in combat" scenario, because most of those weapons were designed and built. This page gives a brief blurb about the secret weapons.