back to article Battlefield 3

Even the staunchest opponent of all things games would have been hard pushed to avoid the determined advertising campaign waged on us by EA of late. TV spots, billboards, websites, magazines, sides of buses, newspapers, even logos on tanks in one recent London stunt, all liberally displaying brand Battlefield. To say the war …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    " then look no further! - what, don't wait 7 days until MW3 is out to see how the reviews for that are?

  2. Bailey
    FAIL

    Epic Suicide on the servers this weekend, EA...

    ... but the 13 killstreak I achieved with an RPG, a tight corridor on Tehran's Highway and a gaggle fuck of noobs just about made up for it last night.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    No commander option

    Why oh why did you remove the commander option Dice? You could have kept it for the PC version.

    1. Trokair 1
      Pirate

      Don't know

      I liked being Commander every once in a while too.

      That being said I didn't realized that there wasn't a commander option until I was hit by a mortar and wondered where it came from. I'm not sure it is something that will be missed from many people as it basically had one player on each team staring at the map for the whole game. And if you didn't have someone doing that it could be a major drawback for your team.

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Maybe it's because nobody listened to said commander in BF2 ?

      Because when I played BF2 on public servers way back when, the commander was expected to do one thing : use the artillery. For the rest, he could put all the targets he wanted on the map - nobody cared a whit about complying.

      Oh, and you could be certain of two things on a public server : the most obnoxious players would rush to be the commander, and the ones who lost would spend the rest of the round spamming for a removal of the guy who got the place.

      All in all, a frankly annoying string of events that happened with a regularity that I prefer to forget.

      1. Citizen Kaned

        didnt they?

        i admit i missed bf2 as i was working on a mod for UT but i did get bf2142 and the commander was vital for co-ordination.

        its so hard now to tell where you are needed and ends up 32 headless chickens running around. it doesnt help nobody seems to understand squads any more either. i still wish 6 man sqauds were in!

      2. Danny 14
        Go

        really?

        We had a server (and have a BF3 server - gtfogaming) we used ventrillo and played properly and used the commander. Dont play on crap pub servers.

  4. thecresta

    How about...

    ...some screenshots?

  5. DaeDaLuS_015
    Thumb Up

    It's awesome..

    Hands down an awesome game, they need to patch some stuff up (mainly a server side lag problem EA/Dice intends to remove next week) but it doesn't detract from the gameplay which is awesome. If you come from BFBC2 it's basically bigger and better (+ the damn shiny visuals).

    One thing i think the review didn't say but i noticed was that in this as compared with BFBC2 the classes seem to be even more differentiated (seems my combo of an automatic shotgun + recon is no longer viable). They all play quite a bit differently.

    I've played about 4 or 5 of the missions in single player, is a load of "meh", nothing special if SP is what you want i'd go with MW3, they'll do it properly but if MP is what you are after, BF3 is that good that activision may aswell have just dropped the MP from MW3 if i am honest, especially with the new counterstrike on the way, the middle ground isn't the place to be. There's not room for all of them!

    1. Spearchucker Jones
      FAIL

      I wouldn't go as far as awesome.

      Average, more like.

      No arguments about multi-player - it is brilliant in-game. The part that totally negates that piece of awesomeness for me are the loooong load times, and - even worse - the fact that you can only quit the game in-game, and not between game sessions. WFT?!?

  6. Piro Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    I would say a few things against it

    The 360 version looks unbelievably bad without the texture pack - we're talking N64 quality textures in places, just checking out review sites.

    The PC version doesn't have LAN play or bots, and requires EA's shite.

    Because of the above, pass.

    1. Danny 14
      Stop

      no different from 2

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > no different from 2

        Except that BF2 had LAN play, bots and didn't require Origin....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So not as good as Uncharted 3 then..

    However I know which one will pick up the lions share of the sales from idiots that just buy what they know.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'm sure Uncharted 3...

      ....will sell very well indeed, but you won't be able to directly compare the sales figures as Battlefield 3 is out on both major consoles and the PC, unlike the PS3 exclusive title.

    2. Vit

      Not everyone wants to have to buy a PS3 to play a game.

  8. Jay 2
    Happy

    Frag Fodder

    I picked this up at the weekend for the PS3. Am suitably impressed with the multiplayer so far (haven't bothered with the campaign yet). I've got some favourite maps already (Caspian Border and Seine Crossing). Though to be honest I'm pretty naff at online FPS and have the stats to prove it!

    So why B3? I had CoD4:MW some time back and put in enough time to get to level 55 (just the once!) but I found it a bit of a slog. Sometime later I got Battlefield 1943 which I find to be quite fun given the different roles you can play and of course the vehicles! Based on that I decided to take a punt on B3 rather than CoD:MW3 as if I can get points/XP/whatever from doing things other than shooting people then that's a good thing for me.

    Maybe with a few more kills that laser sight might just make a difference...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Too bad no information was given about the necessity to install spyware on your computer to play Battlefield 3. Origin scours the computer to see if it can find any personal data to peruse.

    1. Bailey
      Devil

      That is true about Origin

      But strong rumours persist that we'll see it on Steam within the month...

      1. ph0b0s

        @Bailey

        Great, so you will have to load the Steam client and then the Origin client to play.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Which is why you play on a console where you've already signed away all rights to the data it can get hold of.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Yep

        I can play safe in the knowledge all my personal details inc my Credit Card number are already floating around the internet.

        Cheers Sony

  10. I understand now

    Just looking at the screenshots, I can see this game will fulfil your yearly quota for lens flare/bloom

    1. Citizen Kaned

      agreed....

      i turn hbao off on PC but its still too bright in many places. i hope they tone it down. snipers just sit infront of the sun and you cant see them.

  11. Dick Emery
    Unhappy

    Dice is a pain

    Dice is a pain in the arese for anyone wanting to use a game controller on the PC. It insists on hitting certain keys on the keyboard in single player mode. I am trying to get it working with Pinnacle for my controller but thus far it's not been very successful. Why do I want to use a controller rather than the keyboard? A fractured humerus means limited motion for me sadly. Ya boo sux!

  12. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Sorry but I won't be buying this one

    At least not until LAN play is once again on the table.

    EA has been continuously constraining the Battlefield franchise. In BF 1942 (the first title), you could have your LAN server, with bots if you wanted (ie not all human players) and you could choose among whatever factions were available for fighting on the map of your choice (one size).

    This situation remained in the series up to and including BF Vietnam (the last patch of which controlled the foliage option for the bots and made the game a real pleasure). Then we got BF2, and the options diminished.

    In BF2, you could choose map sizes to correspond to your number of players. A great option, until you found out that said option was not available for LAN players, only for official (pay-for) servers. LAN servers (ie your server) could only run the small maps for 16 players.

    That was corrected by some community map makers who did a bang-up job of saying "screw that" and made the huge 64-player maps available for LAN play, with bots.

    Then, of course, there was the progression system, not available for LAN players at all because you had to be on a public server to be able to use it. In itself, it was not really a problem, except that your LAN server would not allow you to play with stuff you hadn't unlocked on public servers. So you had the incredible situation of being forced to use the basic (lame) weapons on your private server. Why not the best ones ? To force you to play on public servers, of course.

    So the community once again rolled up its sleeves and birthed a personal ranking server for BF2. Then the war started. With each patch and major update, EA did something that would break the personal server functionality, and the intelligent people behind said server would toil day and night to produce a patch to the ranking server in record time.

    In the end, it became simply ridiculous.

    Finally, with BF2 gone was the time where you could choose the factions for the maps. They were hard-coded into the map rules. Sure, there is certainly some very good explanation for that, but let's be realistic, hmm ? If they could do it in the previous versions, there really isn't any technical problem with making such freedom of choice available in BF2. I think it was to avoid certain "political" issues, like peoply whinging over the fact that some public server had Euro forces fighting against US Marines.

    Now EA has entirely removed the LAN option. Maybe it's temporary (because that happened in BF2 as well, and EA relented with a patch), maybe it isn't. But one thing is certain : EA is once again doing everything it can to lock down the game and prevent people from enjoying it the way they want to. And I do not want to be subject to the mind-numbing amount of griefers and morons that infest public servers like lice.

    With BF2 I did the resistance thing. I installed the official patches, and went hunting for the private ranking server patches. My friends and I played BF2 and the patch game for over two years. We had loads of fun, even though 58 out of 64 players were bots. Maybe even because of that.

    I will not submit to the same shenanigans again. If EA does not open up BF3, allow LAN parties and private ranking servers, then fine. What it means is that BF3 is not a game for me and I will not buy it or play it.

    The promotional material is stunning, for sure, but my friends and I have other games that are fun to play and don't limit us on purpose.

    We'll find the Frostbite engine in some other game that is more gamer-friendly anyway.

    1. Head
      Thumb Down

      Hmmm

      +1 to all of that. No lan server? DRM? what a joke.

      next thing you know there will be ads throughout the entire game

    2. Citizen Kaned

      again, agree

      to me its being dumbed down a lot over the years.

      i still find bf2142 the most fun game of the series. great teamwork, fun weapons, great gadgets (shields and emp nades! :)), very few snipers (so planty of action), titan mode (still possibly the best fps game mode ever) and of course the walkers were great.

      so many people thought it was too futuristic without playing it. in fact it wasnt close to halo future and was all feasible stuff.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    2142

    I played 2142 and found it to be a right blast, pwnage was bestowed upon many.

    In fact I remember it with such fondness that i was thinking of getting BF3. I was rather hoping it would be a worthy replacement. That is, until I read about all this Origin cruft. I don't fancy that much, so I'll give it a miss too, no one's forcing me after all.

    Still, having made my comment here, I'm sure that EA will take due note and see past the superficial nature of the record breaking sales they have made so far, give more focus to the "hardcore" of their customer base and make the game what I want it to be without further delay.

  14. Jon H

    Could be better

    I don't play many games these days but BF2 was for a long time about the only one I did play (only stopped when I changed to a new PC and the game disc wouldn't work any more to re-install). I loved the wide open playing fields, even the city maps allowed you to see in the distance, run miles, be a sniper, need to find a vehicle... Never really been keen on the COD style everything crammed up close, can't turn a corner without being shot.

    So I bought BF3 thinking I'd prefer the style over COD, but what's happened, it's turned into COD!

    Oh and what's with all this Origin software and web based game launching? I just want to click an icon on my desktop and play the damn game!

    I don't like the constant water marks on the screen either (you can see them in a few of this article's screen shots). Very annoying.

    But I must say, for under 30 quid, it plays very well with 560ti graphics card and installed to an SSD! Those poor console owners! Ha!

  15. Citizen Kaned

    the consoles are basically the same as the PC running on low settings. on ultra they do look outstanding... im glad i wasted £350 on a 580GTX and was happy that my overclocked q9550 quad core @ 3.33Ghz didnt need to be updated.

    the game is good fun. but it somehow feels like a step down from my fave FPS of all time: BF2142. that was a much more intense game and even though bf3 can do 64 players in conquest mode it often feels like you are searching for enemies rather than running into 20+ enemies with your squad and having big fire fights.

    im not sure if the cowardliness of modern gamers is to blame or the lack of teamwork. squads have been crippled with silly little 4 man squads again and very few options to create and join etc. also, there are still too many snipers IMO

    i guess teamwork action gaming is dying out, brink was massive fun but seemed to die quickly :(. people seem to prefer to camp and get easy kills than use skills to kill. its a shame.

  16. Tony Barnes
    Mushroom

    It will be a while before I can review the single player...

    ...because as long as my internet connection is working, it would take an awful lot to drag me away from the multiplayer!!!

    I am surprised that your review failed to spot that the matchmaking system is, as it stands, dire - 1 mate, sure, easy enough, 2, gets tricky to find a game, 3+ = complete nightmare - 10 minutes of looking at a crappy screen before you give up.

    That said, the MP is without a doubt the most immersive experience yet on the 360 for me - the sheer scale of the maps, the interaction (blowing up) of the buildings/cover, the large selection of vehicles with their own strong/weak points - brilliant.

    COD has a big problem on its hands...

  17. Trokair 1
    Thumb Up

    Not for the Single Player, Mulitplayer Gold

    Like the article says, if you want an immersive single player campaign then this game is not for you. I have never finished a Battlefield single player campaign even though I own 4 of them.

    This is THE game for mutiplayer combat on extremely detailed maps. And the vehicle aspect is almost perfectly balanced in this iteration (being Engineer myself I like to see tanks blow up a little quicker but that may be bias). The huge maps very clearly define the "anything goes" attitude of the game. Seriously, if you bail out of a jet at the wrong part of the map you have a really long walk ahead of you. At the same time the smaller maps are filled with nooks and crannies to explore/get your face shot off from. 15 thumbs up, this game (multiplayer) rocks.

  18. doveman
    FAIL

    I loved BF2. Hate BF3. Looking at Armed Assault OA or AA3 instead now.

  19. gard09

    No teamplay makes me sad

    Does anyone else notice how no-one, absolutely no-one seems to spot? It's hands-down the most frustrating aspect of the game for me right not. Totally selfish and un-team orientated. Which is the whole point of the Battlefield games - teamwork. Does anyone else find it a massive annoyance or is it just me?

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