Graphically astounding and an audio tour de force, Battlefield 3 does so many things right, but horribly fails in others
I played Battefield Vietnam and Battlefield 2 when they came out. I haven't played Bad Company 1 or 2, so maybe my review doesn't mean much in the eyes of series faithful, but I'm throwing in my two cents regardless. I'm judging this game from the perspective I have. From what I could tell, this game was really hyped up as it grew closer to release, with the obvious MW vs. BF war or words reaching a fever pitch when BF3 was released this week. I try not to make opinions before a game is released. I like to let the metascores and my own experience tell the story when it finally comes out. By all accounts, and from all the pre-release footage and previews, BF3 looked like it was going to be a fantastic FPS that was going to breathe some new life into this decidedly one-sided genre.
I played the beta, and despite the issues, I was intrigued. It was fun and frantic. Guns felt powerful and the combat had a rhythm to it that I really enjoyed. Plus, we finally had a console FPS concept that really stressed teamwork among players, which is very difficult to get lone-wolf 13 year olds to get behind. I like teamwork in games. It shows we're not animals when we're anonymous.
All that being said, I am going to start the review by saying that I DO like BF3. But that's kind of the issue. I like it well enough, but I'm not really in love with it. Not because it's not Black Ops or anything like that, but because I feel this innate sense that something crucial is missing from the game as a whole. The campaign was short and too confining (a LOT like Medal of Honor's campaign). The multiplayer is very focused and realistic, but forces you to rely on people you know for a fact you can't count on. And there are way too many moments where you just have no idea how to do something you're supposed to be doing, whether it's single player or multiplayer, and that just infuriates me. It's a very well made game, with great action, responsive and intuitive controls, fantastic graphics and audio... but something just isn't there that should be, and I can't figure out what it is. It lacks a sense of self. I knows what it wants to be, but it stopped just short of becoming that thing.
Graphically, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better looking game on consoles. Seeing as how the console version is a port of the PC build, I think the game holds up rather well, with a lot of interesting graphical treats that wring a lot of power out of the console. Smoke effects, lighting, character and weapon models all look fantastic and shockingly real. Graphically, this game is a treat that begs to be seen in HD. If you have a 1080p tv, take advantage of it.
The audio is another standout gunshots have a tendency to make cool "snap" sounds when they're near you, just like they discussed in Black Hawk Down. The explosions sound disorienting and impossibly loud. The gunfire sounds almost completely realistic, reverberating differently depending on where you are. The audio was obviously a labor of love for the development crew, and if played with a 5.1 system (or even better- headphones), you won't be disappointed in the auditory realism.
Now on to gameplay. This game is kind of a mixed bag, because the campaign is almost nothing like multiplayer from a gameplay perspective. There are almost no vehicles at all in the single player, meaning you have to literally learn how to fly jets, helicopters, and whatever the hell else you want to use in multiplayer in an online match, where your stats are being tracked, and you have no idea what you're doing. To be perfectly honest, that is one of the stupidest design decisions I have seen in a game in a while. I want to know how to fly a plane or helicopter before I jump online. That's the equivalent of having someone go through residency to be a surgeon without any surgical training, then deciding they're ready to tackle a double bypass on their own.
The campaign will leave you frustrated in some parts. You'll be asked to complete objectives that aren't totally clear, with no exposition to help you figure it out. You'll get killed randomly and without warning, and have no idea what happened. It's little things like this that serve to take you out of the action, as opposed to making your character feel like an extension of yourself. It has a lot of frustrating moments. That being said, it's fun when you get into the rhythm of playing, and while the story is pretty much hollywood schlock, it's entertaining and cinematic.
The multiplayer is pretty much what everyone thought it would be. It's hectic, it's fun, and it's really great to play with friends (when you can). It is pretty glitchy, with shoddy hit detection sometimes completely robbing you of a kill after you pump half a clip into a person ten feet away, only to be stabbed to death. I fell through the floor in one game, forcing me to exit the match. It's not NEARLY as bad as Homefront was at launch, but the game needs a little TLC from DICE. The multiplayer is the primary thing most players will be playing, and for good reason. It's a lot of fun to make ad hoc squads and work as a team. When you're working together as a group, the game goes well, and when people are doing their jobs, it's gaming bliss.
The game is also buggy in a number of ways, and this needs to be stressed. For instance, the opening cinematic is supposed to cut right into the gameplay. Well, it took me about 15 minutes of the opening cinematic repeating over and over again for me to understand that this was some horrible bug. I exited to the dashboard, and then went back into the game, and the same thing happened. It didn't happen again when I selected easy mode for the campaign, then restarted a new campaign in hard mode. It pissed me off, and it was about 20 minutes of time that I could have been enjoying the game.
The final verdict on this game is mixed. I like the multiplayer, and I really admire what they tried to do with this game... I just feel like something is just not right. Something isn't here that should be, and that's what's preventing it from being all it can be.