Review by Roger Hargreaves - It's easy to forget just how revolutionary Battlefield 1942 was back in 2002.

Online gaming was already well established on PCs, but it tended to be a very solitary and selfish experience, no matter how many other people were playing in the same game with you.

Battlefield made teamwork a necessity and without the dedication needed of hardcore games like Counter-Strike.

Although newer gamers may recognise the Battlefield brand only from contemporary spin-offs such as Bad Company, it popularised the idea of vehicles in a first-person shooter.

It was basically the 21st century equivalent of playing with Action Man and his full garage of conveyances.

Realism was never a goal though, the game just wanted you to have fun blowing up and running the enemy over.

With all the disparaging talk of download-only games lately in the Inbox, this is a perfect example of a game that wouldn't exist if it could only be sold at full price at retail.

Bad Company 2 is due out next year and we're sure it'll turn out very well.

This though is a purposefully simpler, more streamlined alternative - with no single-player mode or nannying modern military technology to get in the way.

Set in the Pacific theatre the game is vastly more attractive than the old Battlefield, but otherwise plays largely the same as it ever did.

Rather than just attacking randomly, over-running and retaining control points is the only way to win the larger battle is and a great way to encourage teamwork and co-operation.

It's a system reused by many other games, but this is where it started.

You could perhaps complain that the game goes too far in its purposeful simplification - there are now only three character classes and ammo replenishes automatically.

But there's no arguing that this greatly aids the accessibility, which is clearly the game's main aim.

In the end, the only real issues are the awkward aircraft controls and the apparently lighter-than-air grenades.

One could also take umbrage with the fact that none of the three initial maps (another is unlockable) are new - just re-purposed from Battlefield 1942.

Given the price, this is less of an issue, especially as they're such well-designed maps - again illustrating just how good the original was.

We just hope the appalling unreliability of EA's online servers won't ruin the game's long-term appeal.

IN SHORT: A triumphant back-to-basics return to WWII, for the original vehicle-based multiplayer shooter.

PROS: Superbly balanced weapons and vehicles and equally well-designed levels to try them all out on.

CONS: No single-player mode and not even AI bots. Reuse of old maps is a cheek and servers are very unreliable.

SCORE: 8/10 Out: Now (Online)