BF1942 patched to 1.6

World War II obviously enjoyed stunted development, given the subsequent social, economic and moral fallout, but we got there in the end. World War II games aren't much different - in fact some of them are quite similar, and even wind up being reinforced at the same time by eager publishers like EA and Activision.

Battlefield 1942 for example, which has been brought up to version 1.6 this week, bringing us new maps, vehicles, weapons and other useful tweaks, while just-about-rival Call of Duty is patched to add a new multiplayer mode. We've already dealt with CoD, of course, so let's take a look at what DICE have prepared for us now, just weeks before Battlefield Vietnam aims to move the goalposts again.

The first and most significant thing to mention is the addition of a couple of new maps - the Liberation of Caen, and Raid on Agheila. Both add new vehicles and other toys, but only one manages to add a new Army, and that's the Liberation of Caen. Say hell to the Canadians, everyone! They've brought the Sexton SPA and Lynx scout car with them, as well as new skins, flags and voice overs, and they even have their own Assault rifle and Johnson M1941 light machinegun. Obviously keen to even out the numbers, DICE offers incentive for players to side with the Germans by throwing in a new scout vehicle, the Kettenkrad.

Meanwhile, the Raid on Agheila is a perk aimed squarely at owners of the Secret Weapons of World War II expansion pack, with new vehicles, mobile spawn points, stationary rocket launchers, a new tank, new artillery and even an experimental Flettner helicopter. Unlikely to impress Desert Combat fans, but still. (Speaking of which, a DC patch to fix a menu bug inflicted by the 1.6 update is promised shortly.)

DICE has also tweaked a number of existing maps, including freebie the Battle of Britain, which can now be played in Objective mode (even by those who didn't buy the Secret Weapons pack, which introduced it). Invasion of the Philippines has also been revised, with the Japanese Destroyer now facing north to give the Japanese side a better start (with the out of bounds area pushed back to boot), while in Kursk and Kharkov the Russian dive-bomber Ilyushin IL-2 has replaced one of the Yak 9 fighters.

Another significant introduction in BF1942 v1.6 is the addition of Punkbuster support, giving server admins a bit of a chance fending off the growing tide of sub-human cheating scum. There are plenty more bug fixes and subtle gameplay tweaks too, and some overdue presentational changes, like player and map voting via the scoreboard. You can get a taste for them all in the expansive readme file, reproduced over at PlanetBattlefield. The same page also has links to the patch as hosted on FilePlanet, including incremental updates for folks using version 1.5. Don't expect to grab it in a couple of minutes though - all those content additions add up to a 100+MB download.