Walkers are some of the coolest vehicles in the game, provided you can get one.

It appears that single-player supports only the traditional conquest gameplay mode, where the goal is to seize and hold various outposts on the map until the other side runs out of respawn tickets first. Since single-player is limited to 16-player maps, there's not enough room for the new titan mode, which tasks both teams with assaulting and destroying the enemy's titan, or floating aircraft carrier. Still, single-player conquest did let us see maps that we hadn't seen before. This includes Belgrade, a frigid urban level set in the Serbian capital, and the Fall of Berlin, another urban level set among the gleaming office towers of the German capital. Then there's Cerbere Landing, which is set in the last EU stronghold in Europe in 2142. A port city, Cerbere Landing doesn't have the sleek towers of the previous two maps but instead feels more like a traditional European town. Finally, for a warmer setting, we saw Suez Canal, which, as you might expect, is defined by the titular waterway that cuts through the level.

One thing that we were able to appreciate fully for the first time was just how good Battlefield 2142 sounds. The musical score that accompanies the level load feels inspired by the bombastic tones of Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer, but everything else sounds cool, too. Weapon fire is distinctive and quite a bit different from the regular gunfire we've heard in so many other games, while the thud of orbital artillery landing in the distance makes you want to smile at the pounding the enemy is receiving. (Of course, when you're on the receiving end, it's not so much fun.) There's a ton of voice dialogue, as all orders are verbally issued, and you'll even hear Russian being uttered by the PAC forces. The EU troops, on the other hand, speak with clipped English accents, so it's easy to tell sides apart. A word to the wise: Learn the Russian word for "grenade" as soon as possible.