These days, with high-speed broadband, first-person shooters are mostly about multiplayer and the truth is - it's no fun playing with yourself. There is something about going out to virtual war with your favourite weapon and handing faceless randoms their butts on a platter or dishing out a virtual "teabag" on your dead enemy. Battlefield 2142, EA's latest multiplayer first person shooter, takes over from Battlefield 2's modern day combat, providing a futuristic take on what war might be like 150 years down the track.

The basic storyline is that by the year 2142 the Earth has become mostly flooded by polar ice caps melting or some crap (insert science lesson here) and now land and food are at more of a premium than ever. Driven by their own greedy lusts and grumbling stomachs, the nations of the world have decided to join together against each other in two massive super-nation coalitions; the EU (European Union) and the PAC (Pan-Asian Coalition). Why everybody couldn't just learn to get along together and share their rice is beyond me. But now we can all rejoice in the fact that they didn't because we can take pleasure in killing all our fellow human beings for the sake of stealing their land and rice... mmmmm rice *drool*. Basically, there isn't much to the story except something that sounds like a weak science fiction novel, but the introduction movie does do a fantastic job of setting the scene for some brutal massacres.

Now before we go any further, there is something I need to get off my chest. Even though 2142 may be built using the same basic engine used for Battlefield 2, contrary to public opinion this game is NOT just a mod. The graphics engine has undergone a significant amount of optimisation and cosmetic improvements to overhaul the look of the game and try to make better use of system resources. To what extent the optimisation provides benefits is a debatable argument, although ultimately it is an improvement on the previous game. On the eye-candy (or 'candeh' if you will) front, the lighting and special effects have been reworked and overemphasised to match the game's futuristic setting and the engine does a nice job of conveying the atmosphere. Even the best BF2 mods available will never look as good as 2142 graphically, neither will they contain as much new content or the fundamental changes to game-play that you will find in this game. If you think that because you made Lieutenant General in BF2 that you can walk into 2142 and dance all over the massed graves of evil n00bs then think again, because this is a different beastie altogether.

Along with the individual 16, 32 and 64 player servers 2142 offers a new game mode called Titan mode (original name hey?). The new game mode offers a bunch of new strategies and slightly different objectives but at the end of the day you can still run around and cap silos (think flags) to your heart's content if that's all you want to do. With the new game mode there are also a bunch of bonus awards and points available that are all oriented around either defending your Titan or attacking the enemy's. Conquest mode is still here to stay and to most people this classic game mode will offer a more familiar experience - with of course the modern style that is 2142.

In Titan mode, each team starts the round with no silos and a Titan which is essentially a massive floating fortress complete with shields, guns, launch pods and a hangar bay for vehicles. The commander can control his team's Titan and either defensively keep it safely tucked away with the other assets or move it forward into an offensive position where it can be used to deliver death from above to the helpless ground-pounders fighting below. The ultimate goal of each team is to control the silos across the battlefield in order to launch silo missiles at your enemy's Titan and then use a number of different methods to pummel the crap out of it and turn it into a fiery scrap heap. Maybe if they'd spent more time recycling their scrap metal rather than building weapons of mass destruction they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place and where did they get the resources to build these things when they don't have enough food to feed anyone? But these minor details don't concern you, all you need to know is how to take that Titan down so you can conquer the land and enjoy some more rice pudding.

Essentially, there are two main methods that you can use for blowing up the Titans and these methods can be used in combination. Once you've used the silos to disable the enemy Titan shield you can still hammer the Titan's core by continuing to hold silos and ultimately destroying it. The alternative is to try to board the Titan with your squad and proceed to blow up consoles which lower internal force fields. Once all the consoles are out, you make your way to the core where you can finish the job off then run like all buggery to bail off the edge of the Titan and avoid the massive explosion that follows.

Like its predecessors, 2142 is a game that has a strong focus on teamwork to win each round. Find yourself a good squad with a squad leader who sets orders and not only will you reap the benefits of squad points towards temporary unlocks you're also much more likely to be successful in achieving objectives and killing the enemy. Each kit is designed to complement the others with its strengths and weaknesses and a squad made up of the right kits will dominate any lone wolves. To compliment the teamwork EA have worked hard to try to provide a good balance of the vehicles and strategies available. To the best of their ability, they have tried to engineer the game so that people won't have to suffer the utter dominance of one particular strategy like the jets in BF2. This shows throughout the game and although it sometimes leaves you feeling clunky and slow it has helped to provide a more evenly distributed play-style across all of the available kits and vehicles. The shields and force fields in Titan mode also help to address a lot of the spawn camping and base raping issues, which is good news for all.

Although there is a strong emphasis on teamwork, 2142 is largely driven by the persistent scoring system. There are a large number of awards available for soldiers to earn, including the run-of-the-mill badges, ribbons and medals. A new type of award is available called a "Pin" which has no limit on the number of times you can earn it. Most of these awards in 2142 count towards your career score which is the sum of your global score and any other points earned from awards and squad points. Your career points count toward earning unlocks for your player and the various kits as well as that special warm fuzzy feeling known as the e-penis factor.

As I mentioned before this game has a stack of new content, the majority of which is delivered to us in the shape of weapons, vehicles and unlockable tools. While many of the vehicles resemble similar items from previous games almost all of them have some new features which make them unique in their own right. For example, initially the air transports seem to be a re-skinned Blackhawk but they also have the handy ability to be used as a mobile spawn beacon, which is great for landing on your enemy's Titan. Other vehicles worth mentioning are the new APCs equipped with EMP grenades and some nice missiles, Gunships that are essentially a cross between a jet and a chopper, Hover-tanks that have the ability to strafe the open spans of the battlefield, and my personal favourite - the Walkers. The Walkers are like a small Mechwarrior robot - effective against pretty much everything; you'll need a smart and well equipped squad or a few well placed mines if you're thinking of taking down one of these suckers.

The class system has been revamped with the choice of kits being cut down to four (Recon, Assault, Engineer and Support) and each kit starts with only a few basic abilities - everything else has to be unlocked. There are new toys for the infantry with a few old favourites being enhanced and some altogether new ideas added. The motion mines and EMP mines are both examples of reworked ideas with different flavours; motion mines only awaken for detonation on enemy movement whilst EMP mines are stationery but disable the detonating vehicle with an EMP explosion. Recon players will love the new cloaking device, which is great for sneaking around in order to get that precious knife kill, while Support players will be making good use of Sentry guns and deployable shields so they can camp, camp, camp! All in all, the new toys and the ability to customize the four different kits makes for more varied styles of game-play and enhances the replayability of this game.

While everything you may have read so far may have you thinking that you must rush out to buy this game just read on and hold that thought for a moment. In typical EA/Dice style, this game has been rushed out of development for sale and this has resulted in some major flaws. The initial release had a host of issues relating to compatibility and Punkbuster and while most of these have been addressed to some degree there are still some issues that will probably remain forever (See: BF2 red-blue bug). There are a bunch of lovely in-game bugs that will see you rushing into the battlefield only to find yourself dead for some unknown reason - but the most annoying thing of all is the lag. The introduction of moving Titans into the game has obviously resulted in a massive increase to the number of physics and positional calculations when enemy players board the Titan, and the end result is nothing short of a disgrace to online gaming. Standing onboard an enemy Titan and not even moving you will still be able to see the "chug chug" effect as everything around you seems to move around like cardboard cut-outs flinging back and forth on rubber bands. Conquest mode doesn't involve the Titans and consequently doesn't suffer anywhere near as much with lag but on a 64 player server you can still expect to get that seedy feeling in a tightly congested area. Although the game has already seen a few patches, with more on the way to attempt to fix some of these issues I can't help but ask the question "Why?" when this game underwent substantial BETA testing. Then there is the issue of some neatly placed in-game advertisements and associated "spyware" that collects data for EA to determine which ads would best be displayed for you. Even though in-game advertising appears to be an inevitable future for gamers, the arguments surrounding that particular subject are outside the scope of this review so I shall leave you to form your own opinions on the matter.

This title has already been quite largely successful in the short time that it has been released but when it comes down to wether or not this game is for you then I think the most important phrase to consider should be "quality finished product?". If you've been a great fan of the series and have put up with the crap that has ultimately tainted previous games then you will have no problems putting up with some more crap in what is otherwise a good game. However, if you're one of those bitter and twisted BF2 fans (1.3 Patch anyone?) or someone who has only has a limited amount of hard earned cash to shell out on games, I suggest you look elsewhere for the Holy Grail of gaming. Who knows, maybe Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will actually be released next quarter and then EA might have some serious competition in the genre of strategic team based FPS.