Multiplayer Yes - Single Player NO

Battlefield 1942 is designed as a pure multiplayer game and should be played just so. The Single mode is, as has previously been correctly determined already pretty bad.
The multiplayer mode makes at LAN parties also only really fun when at least 10 people to play. Otherwise there is a risk to move into the card past each other. After all, most vehicle need more than 1 crew, so beloved of my tank battles with air support among 10 people can not come about.
On the subject of hardware request I would like to say that 256 MB RAM are by no means sufficient. The load times are unbearably long and 256 MB RAM and the game stutters as pork.