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I just played a viciously competitive round of Desert Combat. I have nary a killing spree nerve left in me. ;)

Older gamers (such as myself, 33) have other demands on their time yet still want to get a quick game in now and then.

I've gotten hooked on Desert Combat, a mod for Battlefield 1942. (I'm aware of Battlefield 2, but I'm on a Mac so this is what I get, I console myself with reports that Battlefield 2 gameplay is not so great hehe) I can hop in, play a map or 2, a couple rounds, and be out in 20-30 minutes. Extremely fun gaming for the time investment, and it naturally ends after each round, during which you have about 2 minutes during level-load/respawn time to reality-check yourself and quit, instead of playing another round.

I do love roleplaying games too (my faves ever are Angband, Fallout 2, Neverwinter and WoW) but I stay away from them lately, as you fire up an RPG and suddenly it's 15 hours later, and I can't afford to have that much time taken away from other stuff.

FPS's are easy-in, easy-out.

PCSX

Works well, last time I checked...

I actually don't feel that much weakness with Mac gaming (other than the occasional Half-Life 2 class game), then again, I play a lot of WoW and Desert Combat, both of which are excellent and fun games (the latter actually a high-quality mod of Battlefield 1942) with lots of replayability, so I suppose that's all I need.

I was very frustrated at the incidents you cite, though. The Halo one was just awful.

Yeah, It seems like every single reviewer has completely forgotten the true prequel to BF2; Desert Friggin Combat, wasn't it mod of the year for two years straight? Any review that doesn't mention it is really lacking any true insight into the game; I saw some that talked about the "New" unit types like support and special ops and never once mentioned DC

I mean just look at this screenshot, http://www.desertcombat.com/navyseals_DCSite.jpg It would be like reviewing counterstrike source and not mentioning counterstrike.

To this day I still play the Desert Combat mod with Battlefield 1942. (Actually, I play this and the Secret Weapons mod the most, but it's great to have them all.) Granted, I have a Mac and this game came late to our table, but it's still a game that is fun as hell. Hop in a bike or dune buggy, zip to a flag, slide-break as you switch to the turret position, rat-a-tat-tat the defenders, surprise the guy camping the flag just inside the building. Hasn't gotten old yet!

If you want modern weaponry and vehicles with the old Battlefield game, I highly suggest you try the Desert Combat mod.

In so many ways, the original Battlefield 1942 and Vietnam came across as an unfinished, unpolished beta. The engine in Battlefield 2 seems very optimized and scrutinized, but the interface still comes across as inelegant. The GP here is voicing a complaint about one of many things that illustrate this rough interface. And it makes no sense that if you've assigned the 'ctrl' key to something in the 'AIR' controls this conflicts with your 'INFANTRY' controls.

One important topic missing from this review is that it doesn't reference the Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat mod which was created by the team that was then bought by EA to create this game. Battlefield2 is more an evolution of that mod than of the original 1942 release.

Seth

I don't think the fighter pilots will be interested in fragging some noobs in RTCW

Nah, they probably prefer Desert Combat...

In my town we have a shop dedicated to LAN games any day of the week & a large public LAN once a month.
Most of those games are never played at LANs I've been to.

The most popular games are (in order of popularity):
Call of Duty
Battlefield Vietnam
UT2004
BF1942: Desert Combat mod

When some of the students in my degree have a private LAN, we play all the above games (except for call of duty) as well as Star Craft: Brood War & C&C Generals: Zero Hour

The player classes don't always make sense, either.

Actually the classes seem mostly taken from Desert Combat. That highly-popular mod gives both healing and vehicle repair abilities to the weakly-armed class called "Support". If you're planning to operate a land vehicle, then you don't actually care about your own weapon strength, but healing the vehicle is important. So Supports acted like the "Driver" class.

Right now, the closest thing to a demolition unit is the one with the missile launcher, which can lay mines.

Likewise, Desert Combat had the "Anti Armor" class, with missiles and mines.

Also, I'd rather see a dedicated medic class.

Dedicated medics are only good if they can revive incapacitated people, rather than merely restore health-points to someone who's perfectly active. (Compare the value of a medic in RTCW with bf1942 to see what I mean)

I bought UT2004 recently on DVD because of Alien Swarm and Red Orchestra mods. I didn't care about its regular UT2004 game. The playable demo didn't impressed me except the pretty graphics. The mods were the big stars for me.

I bought BF1942 for its game mostly, but I was surprised to see mods coming out like Forgotten Hope, Battlefield Pirates, Desert Combat, Galactic Conquest, etc.

I hope the same is for DOOM 3 for mod support. I would love to see Aliens-type of game with DOOM 3 engine and with co-operative play. How about System Shock 2 type of game? I loved that game! It was scary.

I sold Quake 3 Arena a few days ago and uninstalled Half-Life a few months ago because it was time to leave their engines and their mods.

Desert Combat is a really good Battlefield 1942 mod. We've had a lot of fun playing it at school, LAN parties and such.

Agreed. I am enjoying FarCry and looking forward to HL2 and Doom3, but I absolutely love playing Desert Combat when I get a chance. To me a game like Battelfield/DC is the evolution of the FPS.

I've also been playing this game since the demo. About half of the community has moved to Battlefield Vietnam (as you can see at Gamespy's stat site), but many of these players also play BF1942. The gameplay is very fun, and I remember laughing so much in the beginning when I saw those bodies flying up in the air when hit with a shell from a Chi-ha on Wake Island. The conquest gameplay type is engaging, and there are many community mods, chief among them being a modern desert warfare mod "Desert Combat".

Desert Combat is a BF1942 mod built by a bunch of people that surpasses the gameplay of the original by miles. Since DC is so much better then vanilla BF1942 EA hired those people and now they are working on the new game. CS has the same type of history.

EA mentions the Middle Eastern thing because DC had the Americans fighting the Iraqis.

Desert Combat has a U.S. versus Middle East theme.

Easier to play than AA (and much better, IMHO) is Battlefield 1942, particularly the free Desert Combat modern warfare mod you can download for it.

There are very few (useful) cheats, and the latest 1.6 patch includes PunkBuster and that's almost eliminated all traces of cheating. Even before PunkBuster, cheats were pretty rare, especially if you play on "pure" servers (which is most of them).

Not unlike the awesome old Team Fortress, BF1942 has a variety of classes you can play (assault, anti-armor, medic, engineer, scout, etc.) so there's a spot on the team for everyone, even those without the experience or trigger-happy twitch fingers.

And, very much unlike all other FPS games, there are vehicles. Planes, tanks, battleships, humvees, helicopters, motorcycles, artillery, etc. This, to me, add so much to the genre that I have trouble playing other FPSs without getting bored quickly. Vehicles can also be a good equalizer -- no matter how twitch fast that enemy is, if you're in a tank, and he's on foot, he's toast.

As an added bonus, you can find 64-man games pretty easily, which makes it even easier to get along without a lot of expertise. You can play a support role (engineer, medic) effectively with little practice, and so you'll be able to help your team win even while learning your skills.

You can pick up a copy in the stores for about $35-40, or online for $20 or less. There are two "offical" addons: Rode To Rome ($15) and Secret Weapons ($20), but neither are required to play. And, if you gravitate toward the DC mod (as most have, based on recent server stats), the add-ons are totally useless.

Oh, and the number one most important thing you need to work on to be good at FPS games is your config. That is, how you assign your player functions to your mouse and keyboard keys (please resist any temptation you may have to not use your mouse for looking around). Think about this carefully before you just slop something together. Otherwise you'll get used to a bad config and have trouble switching from it later when you realize that you need to be able to do action A and B together a lot, but you've got them both assigned to keys that use the same finger.

looking for free games? or retail games($)?
Me, personally, I've been playing Battlefield 1942, which just got Punkbuster added to it. Then there's the free Desert Combat mod for it. Also been playing Call of Duty. And Battlefield : Vietnam should be out within the next month or so.

As for free... How about America's Army? I haven't played it in a long time, but I loved it when i did play it. There's also Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory.

It's a mod on Battlefield 1942, and offers modern weapons and vehicles. It also has a fairly gentle learning curve - you can start off just play infantry, move up to Humvees and Tanks, and then work on the planes and helicopters. The gameplay is the best I've seen in any FPS that includes vehicles.

It's also a teamwork game - nothing like flying a blackhawk full of guys through a city, having two guys on the chainguns mowing people down, and the rest paratrooping in to take a base.

I've been playing it for a few months now, and it keeps getting better with every new release.

Once you get the hang of it, get the Desert Combat mod. Updates the weapons, vehicles, and maps to present day.

So is this modern day version just going to be the retail release of the mod Desert Combat?

Desert Combat. I wonder if Iraqis would be offended to play this mod.

I'm a big fan of Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942, seems as though the designers/coders have formed their own company headed by founder Frank Delise. This seems like a great way for mods to break into the gaming scene, release an amazing mod for free, then start a company, then PROFIT! (sorry..). I'm really looking forward to see what these guys are comming up with next.

I used to play Desert Combat a lot a while back. I started playing with a clan (to get the whole 'teamplay' experience) who were involved in gaming league. During these games, there would be two spectators present, one on either team. These two specs would do a play by play of the game, both in contact with each other at the same time, and they would shoutcast these matches to the masses. These broadcasts also had a slight time delay to avoid cheating by either team.

One of these shoutcast groups is Team Sports Network you can listen to live games, or download past matches.

The only reason is because of the artwork and graphics. (...)Art and graphics and such take a lot of time, effort, work, etc. Nobody who has the ability to do that stuff well is going to do it for free and release the rights to it in a GPL style license.

Have you ever seen the Desert Combat and Eve of Destruction mods for BF1942? They look waaaaaayyy better than the BF1942 game itself, and they are free. OK. I know, BF1942 is not GPL-ed. And there is already an existing graphics engine. But many skilled people have worked hard to create an immersive graphic environment.

der Joachim

In order to add, it would first have to meet, then somehow exceed the current offerings.

That sentence makes no sense at all. I guess it's just a weird reach for some clever rhetorical hook. If I join a football squad, but can't beat the current striker, I'm still an addition to the team.

Maybe if the squad was already at full capacity, adding me doesn't supply anything new, but that's exactly what the poster was suggesting.

And when there's a question of if a new contender is good enough to be considered, it should be held up not against the best of the others, but the worst- for that's the one who'd be displaced first.

introduced into genre ruled by Battlefield 1942

BF1942 currently has 9000 players online, a huge chunk of them in the non-WWII Desert Combat scenario*. Meanwhile, the Activision's Quake-engine games (forked throughout several variants) have 16000 players total.

*It's really funny how the success of Desert Combat has undercut EA's future plans for the "Battlefield" franchise. They were plainly intending to step through 20th century wars in a commercial series, starting with Vietnam, and now a free mod to their own game is becoming suffocating competition to their new releases.

Wait, that doesn't make sense. While it's true that in America's Army you always see the other team as the terrorists, the win-lose ratio is always the same. In each and every round, one team defeats the "terrorists", while the other team is defeated by the "terrorists".

Yes, I know it always displays the Army as the good side, but it certainly doesn't show the Army always winning. Unrealistic, yes, but necessary for game balance. For another example of sacrificing realism for balance, see Desert Combat

[pc gamer rant mode, pissed at Mac users for whom I have no sympathy when it comes to lack of software on their platform]

Buy a fucking PC and stop it with the "I'm so artsy and better than you because I use a Mac" crap. When you get a PC you'll be able to play:

* Battlefield 1942 (plus the excellent Desert Combat modification)
* Planetside
* Tribes 2
* Counterstrike (ancient but goodie)
* Half-Life (superb for straight-out deathmatch)
* Half-Life 2 (when it's out and kicks ass in a few months)
* Unreal / Quake / Doom anything ..or many other shooters among the thousands of fine videogames that you can buy for the PC.

In conclusion: Stop whining. Anyone with a Mac is a lemming for buying into an overpriced, overhyped proprietary system that's way back from the bleeding edge when it comes to technology (just like the upcoming "64-bit" Macs can't actually run 64-bit code and will be stuck in 32-bit mode; older PC graphics cards being rebranded and resold for $100 more because it has the Apple name on the box; lack of letting companies produce Apple clones, etc, etc.)

If you want to blame anybody - blame Apple for keeping such a tight grip on their platform that nobody can do anything interesting with it.

Can't use a computer? Get a Mac. Want to play games? Get a PC. Think PCs are too complicated? You're buying into Apple's FUD. They aren't too complicated for millions of people. (What are you, retarded? - get a Playstation 2 or an Xbox and shut the fuck up).

[/end rant]

The people modding this game (eg., Desert Combat) had very little docu to work with, and have done a superb job in almost all areas - models, textures, etc. I can only imagine some of the grief they went through to get things like center of gravity right. I hope the DC guys get jobs as a result of their effort - if that's what they are looking for.

I will definately try this one out.

try this

I did. The Mozilla mirrors were tanked out, so I got it off Kazaa lite. I've also used Kazaa to get the latest versions of BF1942 Desert Combat, as well as various versions of GNU/linux. I do have some "illegal" copies of music, but I only keep the stuff I intend to buy. Everything else gets deleted. If the RIAA wants to sue me, they can f***ing try it. I live in Canada - the loser not only pays the court costs, but the burden of proof is on the plaintiff (IIRC from 10th grade social class). In either case, the RIAA must HATE people like me. I only buy music if I can hear the WHOLE disc. Same goes for movies: I have a collection of about 100+ DVD's, and the vast majority of them I downloaded bootlegs before I bought them. As for the movies I downloaded and DIDN'T buy? I deleted them. If they ain't worth the scratch to own legit, they ain't worth the drive space.

PS: There is one notable exception where I kept music from an album I did not buy - it was a Chris DeBurg CD a friend of mine wanted VERY badly for her birthday. I looked EVERYWHERE for a copy (including HMV custom orders, independant stores and Amazon), but it had been out of print for years. Needless to say, Kazaa was the only place I could find that stuff.

PPS:I still wonder exactly WHY a 19-year-old girl wanted a Chris DeBurg CD, but mine is not to question the hot redhead...

If anyone were paying attention, they'd know that modders are already making games based on the war.

Another happy BF1942 User! :)

You may be interested in a mod that can be activated within the game called 'Desert Combat'. Information on the mod can be found here

In this mod, you can fly helicopters, jet planes and there's whole new classes of soldier modes.

The important part, is there any new gameplay?
From scanning the guide I'd say yes. I am looking forward to playing as "Covert OpS", I always liked blowing up enemy sentry guns in TFC.
Besides from that, I must say that Desert Combat is providing a lot of new fun stuff too for BF1942, although in alpha stage and team strength/weapon balancing still are a bit off, and some strange errors, it's nice to see that we can expect more from the bf1942 platform that has many cool features but the original WW2 concept is getting old.

I'm not entirely sure, but some companies, such as id with Quake III, have released SDK (Software Development Kit) in order to help players create their own maps and stuff (see e.g. this Linux Quake III SDK). But other companies, such as EA with Battlefield 1942, haven't released any SDK for their game engine. But many mods have been created for BF1942 without an SDK: Desert Combat, Black Hawk Down, Soldier9's Realism Mod, and others.

If you do a search on Google for 'battlefield 1942 mod', the first thing that appears is this petition :-)

Desert Combat .3 is out. Now you too can expierience the fun of a Gulf War! The helos rock, so does the C-130 mobile spawn point.