Okay so the game itself actually came out just about 2 weeks ago. Big deal. I’m just getting to putting up my thoughts on it now. And on the eve of MW3 I guess I won’t have much time to do it in the near future.
So to begin this wasn’t my first go around with the Battlefield series. I was big into Battlefield 2 online back when the PS2 was still king. This game offered such an in depth online mode when compared to Call of Duty at the time. In fact almost every online FPS was better than CoD until MW1 but that’s a different story. But as I was saying, I enjoyed BF2 back in the day. And when DICE released both Bad Company games I made sure I played them as well. However, both Bad Company releases fell short of what my online expectations were for a Battlefield game. BF3 was such a nice change from those two games.
I will preface this by saying that anyone who tries to say that BF is better than CoD or vice versa is an idiot. I realize that EA and Activision will do what they can to out sell the other, but the bottom line is that both series are drastically different styles of play. That being said, BF3 was pretty damn good. And it all starts with the new Frostbite 2 engine that DICE specifically built for this game. To put it simply, the graphics are mind-bendingly awesome, even on console. Character animations are extremely believable, lighting effects are stunning, sound effects are ridiculous, and when all of these things come together, you feel like you are right in the game. The final piece of the puzzle for Frostbite 2 is the destruction. You can literally blow a hole in 99% of the structures in the game. Understandingly the graphics are toned down a bit for the online part of the game. But for the most part the game still looks down right stunning online.
Unlike most, I chose to finish the single player campaign before jumping into the online portion. For wanting to be a CoD killer, the BF3 campaign needed to be awesome because Infinity Ward knows how to craft a great story. And try as they might, DICE fell short of a MW single player campaign. It was a good story, but not fantastic. However, the pacing was good, there were good vehicle sections, and even some dramatic twists. I will leave out the details in case people still haven’t finished it.
Undeniably the major selling part of the game was the online multiplayer. As I said earlier, the graphics were toned down a little for multiplayer but the sound and destruction were still there in full effect. The maps were just as I remember from BF2, huge. And what made them even better was that for each game mode, the playable area changed. If you play Rush you get to experience basically then map in its entirety as the game needs a gigantic area. Conquest games generally took place in the center of the map as a whole. And deathmatch games took place in a small area of the map that promoted close quarters gun fights. The vehicles online are a huge draw for most players of the series. To hop in a tank, helicopter, or jet and just blow shit up is pretty gratifying. And luckily the maps are big enough for the vehicles to not feel overpowered.
If you are a CoD player who just wants to give BF a try remember some things. The gameplay is a lot slower than you are used to. The domination of objective game modes means that team work is also an essential tool to winning. While guns aren’t as powerful as in CoD, the slower game speed helps to balance that out. Also, be prepared to be picked off by sniper rifles quite a lot. They are powerful and easy to shoot follow up shots with. If you will be using a sniper rifle, make sure you account for bullet drop at longer distances. Every projectile drops in this game making distance shots more difficult to line up.
I’m getting tired of typing so I’ll just sum up. If you are a fan of BF, you’ll love the game. It’s multiplayer is fun with huge maps and good vehicle gameplay. If you are a CoD player you might not enjoy as much as most, but it’s definitely worth a chance. All in all it was a fun game. And if all of my friends would play both that and CoD I would have kept it. But tonight when MW3 comes out, all my time will be spent with that.
