9 Nov, 2011
Title: Battlefield 3
Platform: PS3/360/PC
Developer: DICE
Publisher: EA
TL;DR: Single-player campaign comes short-handed while the multi-player experience exceeds expectations.
Family Friendly?: Click here to skip the detail and see if this game is right for your family!
After months and months of waiting, Battlefield 3 is finally here. There has been an immense pressure on DICE to create an epic game first-person shooter to try and compete with the Call of Duty franchise. So the question on everyone’s mind surely is, is it any good? Let me try and answer that for you …
Let’s start with the single-player campaign. This is a surprisingly nostalgic and reminiscent single-player campaign in the way it plays. Playing the single player campaign made me recall many scenes from other first-person shooters I’ve played before. This makes me a little worried, as I personally feared that BF3 would not be innovative enough, despite the Frostbite 2 engine. My fears came to life right in front of my eyes as I continued through the single-player campaign. The campaign itself is frighteningly linear, and even Battlefield: Bad Company 2 allowed for more freedom than Battlefield 3 did. I really felt in some missions that I was basically watching the game play itself.
Unfortunately, Battlefield 3’s single-player campaign seems to hold your hand through the game and feels more like a tutorial for the multi-player. You have no leeway in where you can take your character, no option to drive your tank to destroy enemy buildings. From a game haling on its open world engine, it’s extremely disappointing to experience such a repressive single-player campaign.
Of course, the one thing that sets Battlefield 3 apart from the competitors was truly the graphics. I particularly enjoyed the particle and smoke effects, stunning lighting and I’ve never seen an environment react in such a flawless way. The one thing that I didn’t enjoy was the NPCs’ facial animations that were surprisingly stoic considering they may potentially be dead at the end of this mission.
To be fair, this is not surprising in the slightest. Rarely do first-person shooters feel the need to incorporate an in-depth campaign and are really just five-hour tutorials on how to use every single weapon and vehicle in the game properly. It’s a shame because personally, I enjoy a single-player experience more so than the multi-player experience. Nevertheless, Battlefield 3’s single-player campaign is cookie cutter at best.
Now on to the multi-player. Trust me, it gets better. WAY BETTER! After playing the single-player campaign, my expectations of the game were at an all-time low. Thankfully, my expectations were not only met but exceedingly surpassed. This is where the Frostbite 2 engine really comes to play here: there are a ton of unique buildings, huts, towers and trees that all collapse to varying degrees under fire. There is a great mix of vehicles and tight combat areas as well. After a lengthy battle, an area can look utterly devastated, with the game’s urban levels in particular looking like smoking ruins.
The actual combat style has been vastly improved as well. If you’ve been playing Call of Duty, prepare to be frustrated for a bit. In Battlefield 3, guns retain their recoil properties and hit detection is much more accurate. Unlike Call of Duty, where it seems like every gun is super accurate if you just know how to point it, Battlefield 3 really makes you get to know your gun.
There is also a new unlock based progression system. It makes sense in a way but it is annoying when you have to unlock every single little accessory in the game. However, once you do, there does not seem to be a weapon imbalance so nothing is overly powerful which I’m thankful for.
Despite some lag issues here and there (and to be fair, running 64-player matches is tough work) there is so much fun playing Battlefield 3. Just running into your buggy on your conquest to an enemy held point, guns blazing; hopping into a jet and parachuting out into enemy territory; dropping mines in choke points and watch as the enemy vehicles blow themselves up is great fun. There are so many different ways to play this game that it really makes the bad points in the game almost irrelevant.
Battlefield 3 is really a game with two halves. The disappointing side is the single-player campaign. The great and nearly flawless other half is the multiplayer. If you are planning on buying Battlefield 3 for a single campaign experience, you might want to wait for a price drop. But if you’re here for the entire experience, and particularly that of the multiplayer … prepare to be amazed. The feeling of being an involved part of a huge battle is palpable and the huge maps are a sight to behold when a match is in full flow.
Vehicles are extremely fun to ride and infantry combat is very responsive and engaging. There are so many game types that the maps reconfigure depending on player count, always leaving room for a ton of variety in Battlefield 3’s online play. There are a lot of unlockable items to get which will take you forever to get through. Battle Log and Origin are awkward to use, but Battle Log is at least functional, making it easy to find servers with free slots or running your favourite maps.
Long story short, Battlefield 3‘s multiplayer takes the cake here. The single-player is not the most original or even entertaining of campaigns that I’ve played in the past, but the online will definitely keep me coming back for more over and over again in the coming months.
Good times!
- Excellent graphics
- The multi-player experience is something I’ve never experienced before, it’s fantastic
- Great variety in guns, vehicles and accessories
Bad times :(
- Single-player is cookie-cutter and boring.
- Slight lag at times while playing mutli-player
- A.I. is a bit dumb sometimes.
Family Focus
I’m going to go ahead and say this is not a family game. It is mature-rated for a reason. You are playing a real person shooting real people. Also, if you are playing online, you are bound to run into someone who excessively swears and may say offensive things. I would be hesitant to let your child play this game without moderation.
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