Battlefield 3 – Playstation 3 Reviews

It’s now been almost two weeks since BF3 has been released. And after playing the campaign 1.5 times and logging in about 24 hours worth of MP, I feel that I can give a rather honest assessment of the overall game.

SP:
The fact that the campaign has such gloriously awe-inducing high spots makes its overall failure that much more bitter. It’s been noted that the SP is downright dull. I have to agree with this, generally speaking. It’s like, there is a great 2 hour campaign in there with 2-3 hours of filler. Telling the story via flashbacks from an interrogation just feels too… unoriginal. The story could have moved at a great pace had we actually been in the action in the present. Instead, you know you’re going to live, and you have to put up with these two d-bags that are hounding you for information in the form of Good Cop/Bad Cop. There are lots of unanswered questions.

I played the campaign on Normal mode for my first go through, and I actually died far more than I anticipated. Often, stray bullets that seemingly came out of nowhere would kill me. Or, my favorite, I would be hiding behind cover, look over and shoot a couple times, and then duck back under the cover and crawl to another side of the cover, only to be shot immediately upon poking my head out. So, there is no split second where they don’t know where I am. Also, your brothers in arms don’t seem to draw much fire. It’s like the enemy is solely out for you.

The .5 in the “playing the campaign 1.5 times,” was played on Hard. I wouldn’t even suggest bothering to play it on hard. This mode is full of what I consider cheap death upon cheap death. Dying before you can even react, having to army crawl through entire areas–which, while possibly realistic, is terribly boring–and having every enemy seemingly snipe you from across the map, all of these things lend to the overall feeling of not really being challenged… Basically, the Hard difficulty isn’t more challenging or requires additional skill… it just requires you to sit patiently behind cover and poke your head out to pop off two shots, and in the process get immediately shot until you either die or are quick enough to go back to hiding. Not the best, in my opinion.

There are many high points to the SP. The paratrooper mission is great.

MP: Lots of issues. Could be great. In as few of words as possible: bad hit detection, I am NOT the type to whine about something like this frequently, but I genuinely feel that it is an issue in this game, either that or it takes far too many bullets to kill your enemy; a process I can only describe as being able to sink into walls/floors when you are prone, thus making the enemy only have a partial target (which is incredibly cheap); creating a squad of friends does not always work, sometimes you’ll end up on separate squads or even opposing teams when the game starts; the weapons are fantastic and feel weighty-which is great; driving vehicles is not super easy, and I absolutely appreciate that; the maps are beautifully rendered.

The maps: Oh, the maps, how you are a bittersweet mistress. I cannot help but feel that many of the large maps needed to be scaled down quite a bit to be truly enjoyed. It is not a lie when people say that you can go 10 minutes without seeing anyone, sans someone flying overhead in a jet, in some of the largest maps. It’s not really an issue, but it does detract from gameplay when you can’t find anything at all to do. That being said, I love many of the maps and find them balanced. There are small maps with intense ground forces combat, and there are maps where using the vehicles is mandatory for victory.

Lastly: I know that it seems like I have listed a lot of negative things, and I suppose I have, but many of these things could be remedied.

A great game and a great community. Especially after the team deathmatch crowd leaves for MW3.

EDIT: 11/8/11: The lag appears to have disappeared almost completely. There is even a scrolling text message on the main game menu from EA/Dice stating as much. This alone would have changed many reviewers’ negative reviews, had it happened a week ago. Game is shaping up nicely. See y’all on the Battlefield.

I was going to review this yesterday when I bought it after playing for several hours, but I never got to it in time so I decided to write my review today. I was initially going to give the game 3 stars because of a gameplay bug that I felt made the entire BF3 experience broken. Then to my surprise, they released an update today that fixed (or at least diminished) the problem significantly. The issue was input lag. To see an example of the problem, watch this video […]. The movements and aiming didn’t feel percise with the slight delay, but they patched it, so it’s not bad anymore. It could be fixed before the patch if you turned the resolution down to 480p, but then the graphics were awful! Overall, this game is great and it just keeps getting better! But it isn’t as good as MW3 in 2 ways. 1) The campaign in MW3 is better. 2) The co-op in MW3 is better (especially survival mode!). But as for multiplayer, BF3 takes home the gold hands down! And since that’s what most people only care about. The clear choice between the two is BF3.

Also to all you “noobs” on BF3. There is a steep learning curve with BF3 multiplayer. So you’re having trouble, don’t give up, watch some youtube videos for tips or look up pro advice on google. This isn’t COD where you can simply run around and shoot everything, that’s how you die! Stick with your squad and spam the SPOT button (“select” for PS3 users). This is a team based game, so leave that lone wolf stuff behind and support your team in anyway possible! I’ve noticed there’s a sad lack of Assault classes online. If you’re new you should try it out, you can revive and heal players and get MAJOR points while doing so.

What can be said about Battlefield 3 is that it is a great looking game. What cant be said about it is that its not a full game. ITs been said many times before but I will repeat it; the single player is worthless. It is frustrating at the best of times and the story has been done before and has one of the worst endings I have ever seen. However, that being said what the single player doesnt do the multiplayer makes up for several times over. The visual environment in the multiplayer is fantastic. I do wish there were more destructablity with the various buildings but overall I find that it does not detract from the overall experience. I love the different vehicles you can try. There is a learning curve with the helicopters and fighter jets. Once you get them you will love them but it is frustrating. A map where you can practice flight would have been a nice addition. Also just like past Battlefield games this is a FPS that is about team work. You can lone wolf but that does not mean that you will win the game; you have to play for the goals. The various modes, conquest (capture the flag), rush (attack/defend objectives) and team death match are more that enough to come back time and time again. This is not a run and gun game and shouldnt be compared with one. Matches are much slower but are much more rewarding when you work together for the win. On a side note I am happy that DICE is working to keep cheaters out of the game. So my final words; great looking game, terrible single player, one of the best team based shooters out there.