Battlefield 3 beta impressions -"Shiny!"

The Battlefield 3 beta for multiplayer started up yesterday for people that have preordered the game.

As I happen to be one of these select few couple of million individuals with more money than sense, who were willing to put down money up front for a game that has not even been published yet, I am now part of this beta.

Commuters are getting more and more aggressive these days

I have only had time to play for a few hours but I think that I have a good feel of the basics of the game, within the confines that are set in the beta (i.e. only one map and one multiplayer mode)

Below I'll share the good and bad points that have stuck with me so far:




The Good:

• Amazing graphics: Really really really good graphics (I'm playing the PC version and running it on the "Ultra" setting at 1920*1080). This is no doubt the best looking FPS and probably the best looking game that I have ever seen. Especially lighting looks so real you'll feel like putting on shades, when you're running around the sunny park of the beta map.

• Great "crap crap crap I'm in the middle of a firefight" feeling: It's not just the graphics that sell you on the atmosphere. It's also the great sound effects with rounds pinging off walls and the environment being blown to bits (watch out for falling trees. "Timbeeeer!") that really makes you feel like you're in a warzone.

I think I just had an eyegasm

• Nice sense of "weight" to your movements: Compared to Modern Warfare I'd say that your character feels a bit more "heavy" in Battlefield 3. It's very subtle but there is more of a feeling that you're controlling a dude instead of a floating gun that can move effortlessly without any momentum effecting your movements.

The Bad:

• No vehicles: Admittedly this is only a criticism of the beta, but I really think that the presence of vehicles is what sets Battlefield the most apart from Call of Duty and I was very disappointed to find that there is not a single vehicle on the beta multiplayer map. Especially considering the map for Battlefield 1942, Wake Island, which featured a huge island to fight over with planes, jeeps and tanks.

Battlefield without vehicles is like sex in a straightjacket;
Still relatively entertaining and kinda novel for a change, but ultimately frustratingly restrictive

• Some feeling of MW1/MW2 "deja vu": Especially when fighting inside the confined space of the subway station in the beta map you can sometimes feel that you have played this game a couple of times before, at least.

• Long range shooting is maybe a little too strong: Now this may just come down to me being completely horrible at action FPS games (which I am), but it felt like I was getting shot from hundreds of yards away constantly. Fair enough if I'm standing still and taking a moment to think about my place in the universe and the meaning of life, I should get mercilessly sniped. It just seemed like I was getting taken out consistently across large distances, even with non-sniper weapons like machine guns.

Conclusion: 

Overall I am still really looking forward to more Battlefield 3. Mostly though I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some vehicles and engage in some tank fueled carnage.

I hope that we'll at least get to try out one map in the beta that has one or more vehicles in it, so we can get to see a "real" Battlefield experience.