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Battlefield 3 - a game review (tl;dr - really this time)
14 years ago
Alright, so I'm stuck at home, because I'm sick. Being sick I also have very little drive to do anything constructive, which just pisses me off more, but I can't help it. So I spent some more time on the newest Battlefield title and figured I'll give you guys a peak of what I think, now that I've also gotten a deeper look into the multiplayer.
DISCLAIMER: I warn you in advance that this review will probably sound very negative and the part about the single player might include spoilers for some of you. You have been warned.
To start it off with the positive stuff: The Frostbite engine is everything it was promised to be. When you first hop out of the back of that APC it's almost like you're actually jumping into the middle east, all that's missing is the feel of the sun baking you in your camos and the smell of grease, gunpowder and kevlar.
Light feels like light, shadows feel like shados and the pyrotechnic effects are amazing. I have to admit I can't fully enjoy the bits of open terrain we get to see because the video-card on my laptop apparently doesn't quite understand what it's supposed to do with the texture on such big areas, but I'm willing to forgive that for the outstanding job the graphics team has done.
Movement also feels very natural, jumping over obstacles with heavy-handed grace and the sound effects, if a little too hectic at times are also very nicely implemented. It all becomes especially cool when you start blowing shit to pieces, which is one of the major selling points here, I’ll attest to that.
I'll also note here that I feel the Campaign mode deserves a lot more credit than it's given. Yes, I'll admit there's a few hick-ups, like it's the French getting it in the ass 'again' and nukes being the central plot device, but considering that Nukes are pretty much as bad as it gets, it at least makes sense for everybody to be freaking out. All things considered though, I'm not asking for a story driven singleplayer mode in a multiplayer game. That being said, this feature has it's up sides and down sides, the latter of which I will address in the negative section.
And the one last thing I congratulate the developers for is to remember that one last round I have left int he chamber. When you reload your weapon without having fired every round in the mag, you slam in a fresh one and have one round more in your ammo counter. This falls flat with the beltfed weapons because you have to recharge the belt when loading, but even so, this is the first game I know that takes this into account.
-HOWEVER-
...this is already the part where we start getting to the bad stuff of Battlefield 3.
As cool as it is to have that one round in your chamber, giving you a miniscule edge in tight spots, Battlefield 3 makes the same mistake as its two Bad Company predecessors, namely counting ammo via rounds, not via clips or magazines.
In Bad Company this was excusable. Bad Company was never meant to be a serious Battlefield game, being far more arcady in gameplay and thus cutting on it's realism value, I can understand one bullet clips, but Battlefield 3 was supposed to be a return to form. At least for me it was supposed to be a come back to the harsh feeling of the BF2 environments where you'd find yourself in a really tight spot really fast if you keep reloading after every two shots you fire.
And this brings me effortlessly to the weapons.
As fun as it is to be able unlock things, there's a limit as to how far it should go in a game like this and what sort of advantages and disadvantages it needs to bring. I'll say this much, it's true that you have to play one class for a long time before you get it's good weapons, but ever since the concept was introduced with BF2, it's blurred recognizability of sides and certain weapons and upgrades make it really tough for newcomers to get in, especially when there's people sick enough to have all the available unlocks within the first two weeks of release.
Another problem I feel is very present in the game is missing characterization of weapons. This is another holdover from the Bad Company series of games. Correct me if I’m wrong, but so far I’ve seen practically every primary weapon kill a player with two or three shots out of the barrel, regardless of distance (exceptions being super short range weapons, like SMGs). Back in the days of BF2 it was really hard to kill someone with a support weapon from beyond 50 yards. In BF3 I’ve seen machineguns put down more accurate fire than sniper rifles, meaning that, especially with the suppression function brought in from the official Project Reality mod, automatic weapons will “always” have the advantage unless I’m shooting from beyond 600 yards, which none of the maps offer you to do (at least I haven’t really gotten a chance). The weapons just don’t feel like they have any character to them, they all just do the same thing while looking slightly different.
It also just doesn’t feel right that you can unlock almost every weapon for both of the two playable factions, US and Russia, because it just doesn’t make sense for US Marine to be handed a KH2002, especially when it’s got nothing to do with either sides combatants.
Which brings me to the factions and the story mode and something that’s very much amiss.
Battlefield 2 was fun as a multiplayer based game in a conflict that didn’t exist, with one faction that had rarely ever been featured before and another that’s completely made up but super fun, namely the Chinese PLA and the Middle Eastern Coalition.
In Battlefield 3 we have two entirely separated worlds. We have the story mode, which pitches you, a US Marine called Blackburn (haha, for all those of you who know of the Somalia crisis ‘91, Black Hawk Down for everybody else), against the PLR. Supposedly they are a militia, but they’re armed and armored like a regular army, with solid weaponry, T-90 tanks and the KH2002 running almost like a standard issue with them... now wait a minute though, the KH2002 is the regular service rifle of... uhm.. Iran... and a lot of the game (at least from what I can gather) takes place in Tehran. ...oh wow, how subtle 9.9
The alternate reality of the multiplayer pitches the US against the Russian Federation and now please tell me how exactly this adds up? So Modern Warfare has the Russians become Ultra Nationalists and Bad Company had them go on another post-soviet world-domination power trip, but in the singleplayer we have the russians HELPING to prevent a WW3 and in the multiplayer they’re all of a sudden the bad guys again? WTF?!
I also miss having the multiplayer tell me in what way a specific battle is relevant to the conflict at hand. Admitedly, I had no story to tie it to, but at least I could paint a picture of what the hell it was I was fighting for and a wee little glimps of where I was in the world.
The maps have a massive problem for players like myself too, which I’m pretty sure comes from EA and DICE having it in for snipers. There’s no way to get into good cover or hiding spots. All the stairs that lead up either lead me to rooftops I can’t shoot from when I’m prone or to positions that don’t allow me to fire anywhere where my shots could count for something. This is especially true in my personal nemesis level, the grand bazar, or whatever the fuck it’s called. I run around in corners and come across this corner where I discover a staircase and I think to myself “omg, what a perfect position to cover this flag from.” so I climb up there to find that the ground level where people need to be to take the flag is covered by concrete barriers I can’t shoot through from both floors I can get to AND the second flag I can cover is only barely visible from ‘under’ a massive set of highway signposts. The introduction of IR-scopes is also a massive pain in the ass for me, especially since BF3 doesn’t offer an option to be IR neutral like Modern Warfare does, but that’s another problem. There’s so much cover around that is simultaneously useful and useless, since whether or not something will actually protect you from incoming fire is up to whatever the programmers felt like when they were placing a particular object somewhere. It also means that it’s almost impossible to navigate around your map, especially because it only shows you about 20 yards in all directions of yourself, which is a great help... not <.<
Another point is the kill-cam, or rather killer-cam, which shows you the guy who killed you ad his backdrop. HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO STAY HIDDEN WHEN MY POSITION IS LITERALLY SHOWN TO THE ENEMY IF I MANAGE TO KILL HIM?!?!
A full map of the battlefield has also been completely lost, apparently DICE didn’t think it was necessary for people to know where the fuck they are or what everybody else is doing. Which brings me about to what’s missing from Battlefield 3 and what has been missing since 2142 - Singleplayer Battle Mode.
I realize this is a sideeffect of EA being retarded enough to take the maps and everything related to them online, which is probably the most ultimate dick move I’ve ever seen by them ever, but this is really the one big reason it pisses me off.
BF2 allowed you to play the small 24 player maps in singleplayer against bots, which allowed you to get accustomed to your weapons, each class’ strengths and weaknesses and most importantly, the maps and -ALL- vehicles.
Ever since Bad Company you’ve practically had to learn on the fly how to fly a helicopter or a plane, because those controls have changed (no, I will not accept counter arguments) since BF2, which means you either learn it really fast at the beginning when everybody else is as inadequate as you are, or you get a lot of really mean looks, messages and teamkills shot your way because you just crashed a perfectly good chopper, cuz you’re a newby and can’t practice flying it anywhere else but online, where it actually matters what assets you have. Admittedly, apart from actual people standing next to the helipad waiting for it, a crashed chopper goes unnoticed to most people, which brings me about to the last couple of things I have to say about general gameplay.
It took me a little while to notice this, but EA DICE really have brought all the wrong things along into the Battlefield franchise from Bad Company.
Battlefield 2 had a nice ranking system and you actually had to be around ridiculously long on the ranked servers to become a high rank, which hampered your advancement on weapons a bit, but it at least assured that you had to fucking earn them.
You could be a lonewolf, running around, doing your own thing. You could join a squad or make one yourself and be a squad leader with some other guys and if you had the luck of having a commander on the team you could ask him for all sorts of nifty support options, which not only you or your squad could profit from, but your entire team if you did it right. (I’ll admit, I was probably a lot more pissed off at the enemy commander than anything else, because he did have a couple’ options that were somewhat harsh on ‘mortal’ players, but if you had a good team, you could outmaneuver any enemy commander - still, I played mostly on servers where there were no commanders allowed).
What I’m saying is that Battlefield 2 had a good, solid ranking structure and supported team play. People played with VoIP and more than once I found myself performing tactical operations in what amounts to an arcade environment when compared to Project Reality or ArmA. 2142 not so much, but it was still there.
With Battlefield 3 it’s all just become a clusterfuck. You join a server ‘somewhere’, play on ‘a map’ in ‘some conflict’ on ‘some faction’, you unwittingly join a team?... or a squad? of ‘someone’ with whom you go do ‘something’ and shoot ‘someone’ over there, with no idea where you’re going, because you have no world map to orient yourself on and you have shit going off in your face every five seconds and everybody runs ALL-THE-TIME because sprinting is unlimited (at least I haven’t found a limit yet). It doesn’t really matter what class you play, because all the classes have weapons that have properties suitable for all ranges and all roles, with the exception of bringing down tanks, but then killing vehicles in BF2 wasn’t a piece of cake either when you weren’t an AT class, but that’s beside the point.
The HUD is so ungodly fucked up I wonder if they placed a blindfolded visual amputee with Parkinsons infront of the screen with only a mouse and the shapes selected at random. Every text message takes up almost a quarter of your right side peripheral vision because some idiot thought it would be a good idea to give all text a semi-transparent backdrop. You get to have a big fat icon right above your targeting reticle whenever you’re capturing a flag, so all the unattentive little retards who can’t glance in the lower left corner for a half second can be absolutely sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do and no offence, but playing as a recon I need my field of vision as unobstructed by shit that doesn’t interest me as it can possibly be. And wtf is up with having my health bar and my ammo counter in the same exact spot. Apart from the fact that neither of them are designed very well, unless I divert my full attention to something I need to know in a split second, because I’m hiding around the corner from a firefight I need to lay into to help my team members ‘somehow’, I can’t tell which is which.
I don’t know if EA and DICE have just lost track of what Battlefield is, or rather, what it used to be, or if it’s because they feel they have to compete with Modern Warfare, but BF3 just isn’t what I thought it was meant to become. I’ll admit that the Battlefield spirit is in there ‘somewhere’ and I did preorder it for the ‘Back to Karkand’ Expansion pack which will at least bring back some of the most awesome maps from BF2 and I’m hoping I’ll at least get to enjoy those, if only in nostalgic character.
All things being equal, here’s my futile little wishlist for EA: Stop trying to change shit. Seriously. It’s okay to want games to evolve, but you don’t do that with game series’. Never. Ever. Evolution is to game series’ what salt is to a snail, it’s pure poision. I guess it’s a little too much to ask from you to learn from your mistakes, I mean you just kept destroying the C&C franchise when it’s real fans were already broken, bruised and battered from Generals, but I thought Battlefield being your own franchise you’d show at least a little more respect to it... guess I was wrong.
I’ll obviously remain a fan of Battlefield, or at least Battlefield 2 and it’s additions and I’ll play that and Project Reality until everybody else loses interest in it, but I’ll be very, very careful about buying any new Battlefield releases, unless I hear they’ve returned to the BF2 formula.
Yeah, I can see comments coming in here scolding me for wanting things to stay the same, that I should embrace the new ways and let the past be the past. EA knows what they’re doing, right? It’s not like they became a multi-million dollar company for nothing, right? Well, you know what? Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, because you are the same kind of pop-culture obsessed moronic sheep like the ones who buy an iPhone just to have one for the next time they meet their friends at Starbucks to talk about how Lady Gaga was hitting on Justin Bieber at the Oscar Nominations.
DISCLAIMER: I warn you in advance that this review will probably sound very negative and the part about the single player might include spoilers for some of you. You have been warned.
To start it off with the positive stuff: The Frostbite engine is everything it was promised to be. When you first hop out of the back of that APC it's almost like you're actually jumping into the middle east, all that's missing is the feel of the sun baking you in your camos and the smell of grease, gunpowder and kevlar.
Light feels like light, shadows feel like shados and the pyrotechnic effects are amazing. I have to admit I can't fully enjoy the bits of open terrain we get to see because the video-card on my laptop apparently doesn't quite understand what it's supposed to do with the texture on such big areas, but I'm willing to forgive that for the outstanding job the graphics team has done.
Movement also feels very natural, jumping over obstacles with heavy-handed grace and the sound effects, if a little too hectic at times are also very nicely implemented. It all becomes especially cool when you start blowing shit to pieces, which is one of the major selling points here, I’ll attest to that.
I'll also note here that I feel the Campaign mode deserves a lot more credit than it's given. Yes, I'll admit there's a few hick-ups, like it's the French getting it in the ass 'again' and nukes being the central plot device, but considering that Nukes are pretty much as bad as it gets, it at least makes sense for everybody to be freaking out. All things considered though, I'm not asking for a story driven singleplayer mode in a multiplayer game. That being said, this feature has it's up sides and down sides, the latter of which I will address in the negative section.
And the one last thing I congratulate the developers for is to remember that one last round I have left int he chamber. When you reload your weapon without having fired every round in the mag, you slam in a fresh one and have one round more in your ammo counter. This falls flat with the beltfed weapons because you have to recharge the belt when loading, but even so, this is the first game I know that takes this into account.
-HOWEVER-
...this is already the part where we start getting to the bad stuff of Battlefield 3.
As cool as it is to have that one round in your chamber, giving you a miniscule edge in tight spots, Battlefield 3 makes the same mistake as its two Bad Company predecessors, namely counting ammo via rounds, not via clips or magazines.
In Bad Company this was excusable. Bad Company was never meant to be a serious Battlefield game, being far more arcady in gameplay and thus cutting on it's realism value, I can understand one bullet clips, but Battlefield 3 was supposed to be a return to form. At least for me it was supposed to be a come back to the harsh feeling of the BF2 environments where you'd find yourself in a really tight spot really fast if you keep reloading after every two shots you fire.
And this brings me effortlessly to the weapons.
As fun as it is to be able unlock things, there's a limit as to how far it should go in a game like this and what sort of advantages and disadvantages it needs to bring. I'll say this much, it's true that you have to play one class for a long time before you get it's good weapons, but ever since the concept was introduced with BF2, it's blurred recognizability of sides and certain weapons and upgrades make it really tough for newcomers to get in, especially when there's people sick enough to have all the available unlocks within the first two weeks of release.
Another problem I feel is very present in the game is missing characterization of weapons. This is another holdover from the Bad Company series of games. Correct me if I’m wrong, but so far I’ve seen practically every primary weapon kill a player with two or three shots out of the barrel, regardless of distance (exceptions being super short range weapons, like SMGs). Back in the days of BF2 it was really hard to kill someone with a support weapon from beyond 50 yards. In BF3 I’ve seen machineguns put down more accurate fire than sniper rifles, meaning that, especially with the suppression function brought in from the official Project Reality mod, automatic weapons will “always” have the advantage unless I’m shooting from beyond 600 yards, which none of the maps offer you to do (at least I haven’t really gotten a chance). The weapons just don’t feel like they have any character to them, they all just do the same thing while looking slightly different.
It also just doesn’t feel right that you can unlock almost every weapon for both of the two playable factions, US and Russia, because it just doesn’t make sense for US Marine to be handed a KH2002, especially when it’s got nothing to do with either sides combatants.
Which brings me to the factions and the story mode and something that’s very much amiss.
Battlefield 2 was fun as a multiplayer based game in a conflict that didn’t exist, with one faction that had rarely ever been featured before and another that’s completely made up but super fun, namely the Chinese PLA and the Middle Eastern Coalition.
In Battlefield 3 we have two entirely separated worlds. We have the story mode, which pitches you, a US Marine called Blackburn (haha, for all those of you who know of the Somalia crisis ‘91, Black Hawk Down for everybody else), against the PLR. Supposedly they are a militia, but they’re armed and armored like a regular army, with solid weaponry, T-90 tanks and the KH2002 running almost like a standard issue with them... now wait a minute though, the KH2002 is the regular service rifle of... uhm.. Iran... and a lot of the game (at least from what I can gather) takes place in Tehran. ...oh wow, how subtle 9.9
The alternate reality of the multiplayer pitches the US against the Russian Federation and now please tell me how exactly this adds up? So Modern Warfare has the Russians become Ultra Nationalists and Bad Company had them go on another post-soviet world-domination power trip, but in the singleplayer we have the russians HELPING to prevent a WW3 and in the multiplayer they’re all of a sudden the bad guys again? WTF?!
I also miss having the multiplayer tell me in what way a specific battle is relevant to the conflict at hand. Admitedly, I had no story to tie it to, but at least I could paint a picture of what the hell it was I was fighting for and a wee little glimps of where I was in the world.
The maps have a massive problem for players like myself too, which I’m pretty sure comes from EA and DICE having it in for snipers. There’s no way to get into good cover or hiding spots. All the stairs that lead up either lead me to rooftops I can’t shoot from when I’m prone or to positions that don’t allow me to fire anywhere where my shots could count for something. This is especially true in my personal nemesis level, the grand bazar, or whatever the fuck it’s called. I run around in corners and come across this corner where I discover a staircase and I think to myself “omg, what a perfect position to cover this flag from.” so I climb up there to find that the ground level where people need to be to take the flag is covered by concrete barriers I can’t shoot through from both floors I can get to AND the second flag I can cover is only barely visible from ‘under’ a massive set of highway signposts. The introduction of IR-scopes is also a massive pain in the ass for me, especially since BF3 doesn’t offer an option to be IR neutral like Modern Warfare does, but that’s another problem. There’s so much cover around that is simultaneously useful and useless, since whether or not something will actually protect you from incoming fire is up to whatever the programmers felt like when they were placing a particular object somewhere. It also means that it’s almost impossible to navigate around your map, especially because it only shows you about 20 yards in all directions of yourself, which is a great help... not <.<
Another point is the kill-cam, or rather killer-cam, which shows you the guy who killed you ad his backdrop. HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO STAY HIDDEN WHEN MY POSITION IS LITERALLY SHOWN TO THE ENEMY IF I MANAGE TO KILL HIM?!?!
A full map of the battlefield has also been completely lost, apparently DICE didn’t think it was necessary for people to know where the fuck they are or what everybody else is doing. Which brings me about to what’s missing from Battlefield 3 and what has been missing since 2142 - Singleplayer Battle Mode.
I realize this is a sideeffect of EA being retarded enough to take the maps and everything related to them online, which is probably the most ultimate dick move I’ve ever seen by them ever, but this is really the one big reason it pisses me off.
BF2 allowed you to play the small 24 player maps in singleplayer against bots, which allowed you to get accustomed to your weapons, each class’ strengths and weaknesses and most importantly, the maps and -ALL- vehicles.
Ever since Bad Company you’ve practically had to learn on the fly how to fly a helicopter or a plane, because those controls have changed (no, I will not accept counter arguments) since BF2, which means you either learn it really fast at the beginning when everybody else is as inadequate as you are, or you get a lot of really mean looks, messages and teamkills shot your way because you just crashed a perfectly good chopper, cuz you’re a newby and can’t practice flying it anywhere else but online, where it actually matters what assets you have. Admittedly, apart from actual people standing next to the helipad waiting for it, a crashed chopper goes unnoticed to most people, which brings me about to the last couple of things I have to say about general gameplay.
It took me a little while to notice this, but EA DICE really have brought all the wrong things along into the Battlefield franchise from Bad Company.
Battlefield 2 had a nice ranking system and you actually had to be around ridiculously long on the ranked servers to become a high rank, which hampered your advancement on weapons a bit, but it at least assured that you had to fucking earn them.
You could be a lonewolf, running around, doing your own thing. You could join a squad or make one yourself and be a squad leader with some other guys and if you had the luck of having a commander on the team you could ask him for all sorts of nifty support options, which not only you or your squad could profit from, but your entire team if you did it right. (I’ll admit, I was probably a lot more pissed off at the enemy commander than anything else, because he did have a couple’ options that were somewhat harsh on ‘mortal’ players, but if you had a good team, you could outmaneuver any enemy commander - still, I played mostly on servers where there were no commanders allowed).
What I’m saying is that Battlefield 2 had a good, solid ranking structure and supported team play. People played with VoIP and more than once I found myself performing tactical operations in what amounts to an arcade environment when compared to Project Reality or ArmA. 2142 not so much, but it was still there.
With Battlefield 3 it’s all just become a clusterfuck. You join a server ‘somewhere’, play on ‘a map’ in ‘some conflict’ on ‘some faction’, you unwittingly join a team?... or a squad? of ‘someone’ with whom you go do ‘something’ and shoot ‘someone’ over there, with no idea where you’re going, because you have no world map to orient yourself on and you have shit going off in your face every five seconds and everybody runs ALL-THE-TIME because sprinting is unlimited (at least I haven’t found a limit yet). It doesn’t really matter what class you play, because all the classes have weapons that have properties suitable for all ranges and all roles, with the exception of bringing down tanks, but then killing vehicles in BF2 wasn’t a piece of cake either when you weren’t an AT class, but that’s beside the point.
The HUD is so ungodly fucked up I wonder if they placed a blindfolded visual amputee with Parkinsons infront of the screen with only a mouse and the shapes selected at random. Every text message takes up almost a quarter of your right side peripheral vision because some idiot thought it would be a good idea to give all text a semi-transparent backdrop. You get to have a big fat icon right above your targeting reticle whenever you’re capturing a flag, so all the unattentive little retards who can’t glance in the lower left corner for a half second can be absolutely sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do and no offence, but playing as a recon I need my field of vision as unobstructed by shit that doesn’t interest me as it can possibly be. And wtf is up with having my health bar and my ammo counter in the same exact spot. Apart from the fact that neither of them are designed very well, unless I divert my full attention to something I need to know in a split second, because I’m hiding around the corner from a firefight I need to lay into to help my team members ‘somehow’, I can’t tell which is which.
I don’t know if EA and DICE have just lost track of what Battlefield is, or rather, what it used to be, or if it’s because they feel they have to compete with Modern Warfare, but BF3 just isn’t what I thought it was meant to become. I’ll admit that the Battlefield spirit is in there ‘somewhere’ and I did preorder it for the ‘Back to Karkand’ Expansion pack which will at least bring back some of the most awesome maps from BF2 and I’m hoping I’ll at least get to enjoy those, if only in nostalgic character.
All things being equal, here’s my futile little wishlist for EA: Stop trying to change shit. Seriously. It’s okay to want games to evolve, but you don’t do that with game series’. Never. Ever. Evolution is to game series’ what salt is to a snail, it’s pure poision. I guess it’s a little too much to ask from you to learn from your mistakes, I mean you just kept destroying the C&C franchise when it’s real fans were already broken, bruised and battered from Generals, but I thought Battlefield being your own franchise you’d show at least a little more respect to it... guess I was wrong.
I’ll obviously remain a fan of Battlefield, or at least Battlefield 2 and it’s additions and I’ll play that and Project Reality until everybody else loses interest in it, but I’ll be very, very careful about buying any new Battlefield releases, unless I hear they’ve returned to the BF2 formula.
Yeah, I can see comments coming in here scolding me for wanting things to stay the same, that I should embrace the new ways and let the past be the past. EA knows what they’re doing, right? It’s not like they became a multi-million dollar company for nothing, right? Well, you know what? Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, because you are the same kind of pop-culture obsessed moronic sheep like the ones who buy an iPhone just to have one for the next time they meet their friends at Starbucks to talk about how Lady Gaga was hitting on Justin Bieber at the Oscar Nominations.
ANSWERED
Love the last paragraph.
In short, I'll probably end up getting it regardless of my opinion because of how amazing it looks and the fact that I can run it on my laptop <3
The game I played in the truck was NOT what I got when I got home with my full copy.
The campaign was mediocre with levels at times that were ridiculous even on the easy setting if not down right impossible due to the fact you couldn't see fuck all due to dust or darkness.
Multiplayer was inferior in every way to Bad Company 2, from the poorly made map and visual recognition to the shear uselessness of most weapons.. let alone the fact most games I played were won from base capture, NOT killing (last match I played before uninstall: 1000 tickets ither side, 16 people on each side. by the end of the match only 16 kills had been done, NOONE could find anyone, and even if you did you couldn't see them)
My biggest regret with this game was buying limited edition. I should have waited for MW3
1)In hardcore, snipers like the SV98 (one of the most powerful snipers in the game) still take at least 2 shots to kill. To me, that is not realistic or hardcore at all. All other weapons to a ton more damage though.
2) When spawning in, there is a good full 2-3 seconds that it takes for your screen to fade in from black. I find this one of THE most common causes of me getting instantly killed after a spawn. I am practically blind and helpless yet with no spawn protection. The fade in is purely to make the game look that much fancier but in reality it serves no practical purpose and only negatively affects my gameplay.
I was very disappointed; it's visually great, and it's got cool things like the fluid vaulting, but they don't have the basics quite down. The game feels more like CoD; it feels... lazy. They add all these bright fancy new features, but not only do they not improve the core gameplay, but they actually make it worse (compared to earlier BF games). BF2 had very team-focused, squad-focused gameplay. It was highly satisfying, even if the game is a bit dated now. They basically tore the team/squad elements out of the game, and as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the things that makes BF2 so great. You have a squad, you have objectives, you have a team. BF3, it's you vs. them, with a bunch of randomly-moving spawn points that are labelled as your "squad."
Rant rant rant. I'll probably buy it when it goes on sale, just because the only other alternative is CoD, pretty much.
Battlefield 3 isnt perfect, and I'm sorry to hear you less than pleased with it, but some of the things like 'ammo rounding per bullet instead of per clip' would just be really damn annoying, imho. Save that stuff for ArmA, project reality, Socom. I'm glad BF series suspends reality for these points because honestly, it's not supposed to be realistic.
I'm not saying evolution is bad for games in general. I would willingly invest in innovation in video games, I have some ideas myself, it's not like I don't like new concepts or gameplay options. But EA made a very clear distinction between the standard Battlefield series and the Bad Company series of games and they've removed this distinction now. Frisky mentioned in his comment that BF3 is really more like Bad Company 3, just without the characters and I honestly have to agree. Bad Company was a counter contestant for the Modern Warfare franchise and I'll accept that, but Battlefield is supposed to be a stand alone game and to be honest, I can't really tell the difference between the classic Battlefield Conquest mode and the Modern Warfare territories mode these days.
Evolution is meant to happen in games, but if you've established a certain game series to be something you don't make it something else all of a sudden. I don't listen to tool because they swap music style with every album, I listen to tool because I can count on them having consistency and that's what I ask for in games as well.
I'll have to admit that I don't play ArmA for a different set of reasons, mainly because the AI frequently sees me through cover I couldn't possibly spot anyone through, but that's beside the point. What I'm saying is that Battlefield has lost its defining touch as a bridge between ultra realistic tactical shooters and super hectic arcade busters and it's drifted off into the arcade section a little too much to be entitled to its own brand name.
Judge me if you will, but if "make BF2 again with better graphics and engine" is wrong, then I'll be happy to be wrong for the rest of my life :/ in my opinion, EA has just robbed me of 60€ of hard earned money
Again, just my opinion, you have a good one of your own, don't get me wrong, I feel you!
I'll agree that the unlocks in BF2 took forever, but that was poor judgement on the developers part on how players would advance. Can't agree that Battlefield retains its chaacter though, I just feel it's trying too hard to be a competitor game :/
But hey, it's all just subjective opinion here. In the end, I'm just disappointed by the results . Just means I'll be keeping a careful eye on whether or not I keep supporting the series :3
Actually I think you miss the obvious answer of "Counterstrike, and Counterstrike Source. The balance fo counterstrike of the maps and weapons was nearly perfect. , so Source just updated the graphics , and the soon to be released "Counterstrike Global Conflict", will be similar, just with better graphics, and an incremental evolution in maps. Valve , unlike the careless EA)I knwo I worked for them once), Is taking pains to tune CS:GC properly with input by the hard core grognards, as well as making it accessible to new players. EA has messed with what made BF-2 fun, I played a LOT of BF-2, and enjoyed the hell out of it, and loved the huge maps. The changes made by EA/Dice on t he new one sounded like a producer with a swaggering ego, pissing on it to make it his, rather than respecting the franchise.
Scott
Valve too, has seriously destroyed some of their games (team fortress 2 im looking at you), but I see where you're coming from, and I know EA surely had a hand in changing the series. I guess all I'm saying is "they can't go back, so I try to live with and appreciate what I get", that's all.
I dont see a point aruging which is better, I -can- enjoy both.
- the unintuitive HUD with important info too small and useless crap covering most of your screen (giant chatbox, SERIOUSLY, WTF?!)
- the lack of navigational help. Yes, I'm looking at you, Mr. Battlefield Map. Wtf is that little box in the corner, anyway? It doesn't even show where your area of operation ends... Unless you know the map like the back of your hand, there's gonna be alot of turning around aimlessly.
- Accuracy of support weapons being on par with scoped sniper rifles when firing across half the map.
- Vehicle Unlocks... nothing against the handy gadgets you get later on, but seriously, atleast give the jets and choppers their standard weapons so you, as pilot, aren't a complete and utter piece of useless crap in the sky... unless you've practiced enough. Which usually isn't the case, given higher-ranked people have a higher priority on claiming the jets and are actually useful to the team.
I can forgive most other shortcomings, but these hurt me alot.
:(
...*goes back to playing Batman: Arkham City*
I never have been into Battlefield or CoD. So I can't say anything.
Still, a very fun game if you have a few RL friends you can Skype with and join a server together!
I'm not sure about the problem you have with weapon accuracy.. cause in bc2, you can, and I would, snipe with an assault rifle, or LMG, or even an SMG. For me, in this game, engagement ranges are much much less than in bc2. As a sniper, I have not nearly as much trouble being shot from distance by people with anything other than a sniper rifle, as I did in bc2. And as for not being able to snipe 600yards, my longest shot thus far with a sniper rifle, is with the m40A5, 734 marksman bonus. So thats 734yards, from the last two objectives on operation firestorm, to the top of the hill above the original attackers base, when you first start that map on rush. Did it while standing too! Cause I didnt have the bipod at the time for that gun.
The PLR(People's Liberation and Resistance Army) in bf3, is your completely fictional force you were looking for. Its an Iranian militia force, that has taken over the Iran government. The PLR here are more or less a combination of Hezbollah/Hamas(which alot of people believe Iran gives these groups support in various ways, so they are an ideal enemy), as a military force, with uniform and standard issue of weapons and materials. They are an extremest group being used by Solomon to acquire nuclear weapons from a rouge Russian(not sure if hes a scientist, or a military person, his attempt to bribe Dmitri "Dima" Mayakovsky leads be toward him being a scientist, or politician or something cowardly.). They never truly flesh out Solomon's reasons for wanting to nuke Paris and New York, specially being as he is an agent of the US government. We hope the Back to Karkand expansion will have something for the campaign to finish this broken plot line, as well as tie up whats going on in mutiplayer, that is a VERY bad way of doing things, yes, and I kinda rip BF3 a new one in my own journal.. but I can still hope.
Cover, the maps, and kill cam are all shit. But at least the IR scope is only 1x zoom, so its a closer range sort of affair. That said, it still works better than the iron sights, and some scopes at any distance.
All tank/truck/helicopter controls have changed AGAIN(I learned how to fly, after a week of playing with the control settings and trying to learn), and theres the problem with learning to fly in an actual game.. There also, no such thing as ROLL on a chopper.. theres roll on the ones in bf3 tho.. cause apparently, choppers are fixed wing planes that can hover. And over all choppers are very irreverent other than fast transportation.
Over all, I dont like the new bf.. but, for alot more reasons than you have, alot more fundamental ones, in how the game works.
You don't have to explain to me what the PLR is, I'm well aware of what they are and they don't count as the fictional faction for two very simple reasons.
1. As you said, they're based on the Hezbollah/Hamas factions, which actually are factions in real life, even if the PLR behave more like an organized army than anything else. So they have a counterpart in this world, hence they're not entirely fictional.
2. I don't get to play as them. A faction that I don't get to play in a Battlefield game does not count as a faction.
I wont start to argue about the weapons, because we play on two different platforms and even though I wouldn't believe it myself a few years back, I have come to realize that aiming is something very, very different between a mouse and a control stick (besides the obvious points of stick being able to go continuous unlimited and the mouse having to lift, set back down etc.).
I wont argue your other points though. Bottom line is, I'm just thoroughly disappointed with how the gameplay from Bad Company has come into the actual Battlefield now :/
Point #1, most all fictional made up armies need inspiration. The Chinese PLA for example... that right out says that it is Chinese. And the MEC is just every middle eastern army.
Point #2, is a very good point.
As for the weapons... I dont know.. alot of them are crap, and some of them are good... and then some of them are only good, cause all others in that class of gun, are the crap.
And I liked alot of what BC was, it was simple. And entertaining. Not to mention, people would teamwork on it. BC had two clear factions, always, and the story was entertaining. BC1 was comic gold, literally, and BC2 was your more serious war game. What you need to do with BC, is realize that it is a cartoon, in various stages of maturity, DICE's venture unto the world of BF. The weapons, while few, all had rather clear characteristics, with spread patterns for full auto, and while moving, their own bullet drop, damage... honestly, I could tell them apart very well, and known which ones I liked the most for what sorts of situations. BF3, only some guns can you truly tell apart from the others.
So, why's this dustbowl worth a re-visit?
I've yet to own BF3 myself, so I can't really form an oppinion yet but as far as the beta went, I enjoyed it.
The single player that is, I hate MP on games like this.
I hardly even played MP on Crysis 2 and that MP was fantastic.
TF2 is still better by a long shot.
They also explain why you invade Iran.
About sniping, I've always thought the game needed to be a bit balanced out so sniping isn't as easy as it used to be. Just parking your belly and keeping on firing isn't realistic behaviour for a sniper anyway, so the killcam should be plenty of motivation to move your butt every now and then.
Yes I'll say it, please don't kill me: ^^ I think snipers in Battlefield games are an annoying pest and were better left out entirely. That's because -- with a game full of snipers, getting from A to B is too much YAY-I-got-LUCKY lottery. Will I arrive? Of course not! Because a strangely motivated player is hiding for 15 minutes straight in a bush half a mile away, not helping his or her team, not making this fun, and usually being all self-righteous about bush wookie squatters rights when asked nicely to please participate more meaningfully in the game. Please don't take any of this personally. There's good scouts out there.
Weapons are .. well, all over the place. So is the conflict. It doesn't even try to say who's doing what for which reason in Multiplayer. It's just an excuse to fight. Fine by me. ^^
While I'm not a fan of the battlefield series, I haven't really played any of them much at all.
I can, however, empathize with the irritation of forcing a franchise to 'evolve', whether because some asshat thinks they need to keep things farmer's-market-fresh or because the suits want to try to topple that franchise over there. Pushing something into a game because it's "the newest thing! Kids love it!" is the best way to get people to not only drop the game in disgust, but get vocal about how idiotic the company is being, which is something I wish more people would do.
So! Thank you for posting your irritation. It gives me warm fuzzies to know there are still people out there that don't put up with companies shitting all over their favourite games.
Being able to pilot a heli, tank, jet, or jeep was the big seller to me. That and I kinda find it easier to play a sniper in these having such an open area (granted the camera thing can be a pain in the ass if you have some easily spotted background behind you). I've always had a hard time playing snipers since MW1 which includes Black Ops. They just don't seem sniper friendly. I always end up playing a LMG, pretty effectively on the norm.
Granted the realism could be altered a bit more closely to such, but it may end up making it less fun in the end. Some of it's intended to keep one class from dominating the game, some of it's just meant to keep the pace quick and entertaining.