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Genre: First-person shooter

Format: DVD

Developer: Digital Illusions CE

Mac Publisher: Aspyr Media

Minimum System Requirements: 867MHz G4/G5, Mac OS X v10.3, 256MB RAM, 32MB 3D graphics acceleration (ATI RADEON 7500/NVidia GeForce 2 or better), 56K modem or Local Area Network (LAN) for multiplayer

Review Computer: 1GHz Powerbook G4 12" 768MB RAM, 32MB GeForce FX Go 5200, full version of Battlefield: 1942

Network Feature: Yes

3D Support: Required

Price: $29.99

ESRB Rating: Teen (blood, violence)

Availability: Now

Official Website: [url=http://www.battlefield1942.com]http://www.battlefield1942.com[/url]

If playing Battlefield 1942: Deluxe Edition is like playing with little green Army men, Secret Weapons of World War II is like adding some Legos to the mix. However, just as in real life, mixing the two isn't always quite cool as it could be.

Secret Weapons is the second BF expansion pack; the first one, Road to Rome, shipped for the Macintosh as part of Battlefield 1942: Deluxe Edition. Where Road to Rome added six new maps set in Italy, several new weapons and a few new vehicles for $20, Secret Weapons ships with eight new maps, set in the mountains, coastlines, small towns, and several other exotic locales for $30, along with the requisite new weapons and other implements of destruction.

The vehicles are probably the most notable additions. While some of them are pretty tame, like an armored car (though for the record, this bad boy can drive on water, too) and a motorcycle, each sporting a machine gun, most of them are worthy of a gawk or two. The standard American Sherman tank now comes packaged with a very intimidating looking missile rack (the T-34 Calliope, on the secondary seat), and the Germans get a spiffy flak cannon tank, called a Flakpanzer, and a portable artillery tank, called a Sturmtiger, which is essentially a naval cannon set on top of a Tiger tank. The aircraft set on both sides got a fairly significant upgrade, too; the two stealth bombers (Armstrong Whitworth AW-52 (Allies) and the Horton Ho 229 (Axis)), besides being extremely effective weapons, have the added sex appeal of making you look like you're cruising around in giant Boomerangs of Death. Other aircraft additions include a light plane on each side, and a C-47 Cargo Plane that provides your team with a mobile spawn point. Thankfully, these vehicles, while the guns just keep getting bigger, don't feel quite as gratuitous as the additions in Road to Rome. In general, the tactical options provided by vehicles like the C-47, Sturmtiger, and the light planes make the vehicular combat in Battlefield 1942 seem more nuanced—almost to the point of a real-time strategy game—than it ever was in earlier versions.

The other additions don't seem to flesh the game out nearly as well, which is perhaps less of a surprise than one might have thought; after all, Battlefield 1942 has always been all about the vehicles. However, there are a few other notables; in certain maps, engineers might be equipped with shotguns, one-hit kill throwing knives, and even a rifle-based grenade launcher to replace the standard rifle, combat knife, and TNT packs, and some even have a jetpack that allows brief moments of flight to confuse and obfuscate the enemy. There are new artillery sites, too, the most prominent of which is the V2 rocket site, which allows the player to remote control a rocket to his (or her) intended destination. However, while the rocket site and jetpack are incredibly cool, the rest of the additions don't significantly change the way the game is played.

It's the maps that end up carrying the expansion past mediocrity. Battlefield 1942 and Road to Rome both featured landscapes ranging from Pacific islands to valleys in France and African desert battlegrounds. Fortunately, Secret Weapons manages to provide an equally interesting variety of locations. Some maps are set in mountain research labs and towns, others along the coast, still others in lush, green foothills. The variety doesn't stop there, either. Six of the eight available levels have special objectives for those of you who are too good for Conquest mode. The map design also tends to be substantially less linear than previous levels, providing for much more interesting tactical situations.

Ironically, the only highly significant downside of Secret Weapons has nothing to do with the actual content of the game. Despite Secret Weapons' generally solid quality and stability, it just hasn't proved to be that attractive a product to most of the online community, many of whom are playing older maps or mods like Desert Combat. Considering Battlefield 1942 is very much a multiplayer game, as good as Secret Weapons is, there aren't many low-ping, highly populated servers out there, even though it's been out on the PC side for a good two months or so. Perhaps this might be because the $30 price tag ends up being closer to Blizzard's price point for expansion packs; $30 is pretty steep for eight maps rather than a true expansion pack that changes every facet of the game.

Ultimately, Secret Weapons of World War II is a decent expansion pack with a few good ideas that falls short for reasons outside the developers' control. If anything, they are victims of their own success. While any diehard Battlefield fan would probably want to pick it up, the unfortunate fact is that $30 is too much for eight maps that are (as of this writing) poorly populated online. Grab it only if you're desperate for a Battlefield fix that the mods can't satisfy.