Battlefield 3 Review - Stop Playing With Yourself

Battlefield 3 is the last in the long line of modern day military shooters, which was popularized by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
It's been hyped as the new king of the hill, and EA has very deliberately positioned it up against Call of Duty, with the marketing tagline being "Go beyond the call" (Subtle, guys. Real subtle).

It's here!

Now the game is here, ready to impress us with gorgeous graphics, a compelling campaign and orgasmic multiplayer madness.
Or that is what the hype would have you believe at least. Read on to find out if Battlefield 3 is going to leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling of delight, or the unpleasant buzz of frustration.

With the PC being my gaming weapon of choice, buying Battlefield 3 has meant that I have also had to get EA's new Steam competitor, Origin.

Origin has gotten a lot of hate from the general gaming community, and I feel that a lot of it is really just knee jerk reaction hate towards not being able to get your games from Steam anymore.
But I will say that Origin does not feel as fully thought through as Steam does. After downloading and installing Battlefield 3, I got a nice little shortcut icon on my desktop.
Clicking on that shortcut however, does not simply launch the game and take you into the world of crashing jets and fragging newbies.
Instead Origin starts up and goes into your game library, where it then automatically starts up Battlefield 3.
Then you are taken to the "Battlelog" page, which is the browser interface that Battlefield 3 uses to present your multiplayer stats, and which you will also use to select singleplayer, co-op or multiplayer.
That process seems a bit fiddly, but I do actually like the easy tracking of all your stats that is available from Battlelog.

Battlelog itself is actually not a bad interface

I started out with the campaign.
From the clips that Dice have been showing off, it looked like the campaign was going to offer a great thrill ride, letting us drive tanks in the desert, participate in a large scale attack on Teheran, and generally feel like we were in the middle of a war zone. Something that has been the trademark of the Battlefield multiplayer experience ever since Battlefield: 1942.

So have Dice managed to create the next step in military shooter campaigns?
In one word: No.
In a few more words: Not even close, buddy.

Now, the game looks amazing. Really incredibly fantastic, if you're playing on a fairly beefy PC. And for the first couple of campaign missions you'll be too busy drooling over the visuals to really notice that nagging sense of deja vu that slowly starts spreading from the back of your head.
But soon it becomes all too apparent that the campaign of Battlefield 3 has nothing to offer you that we have not already seen in Modern Warfare 1/2.
In fact I would say that the Modern Warfare series does a better job of creating interesting set pieces that continually makes you go "holy hell that was cool!".
The campaign in Battlefield 3 has too few of these moments, and ironically my favorite moment, launching off an aircraft carrier in a storm, is actually not even a sequence where the player has any control.

The tank mission in the campaign is one of the highlights

Oh, and then there are quick time events. Terrible terrible quick time events.
They feel horribly forced down into the throat of the game, and stick out like a transvestite with a beard at a girl scouts meeting.
The sequences usually last maybe 20-40 seconds, and through that time you may be required to press anywhere from one to three buttons, so it's really just watching a (bad) cut scene with the occasional button prompt.

One positive note on the campaign is that it does a great job of showing off many different environments, from the open deserts to the cramped city streets, and through lush fields and forests.
It helps keep some variety going and at least you are looking forward to seeing the next level, just for the sake of seeing the setting.

Overall then, if you're playing alone, then there is little reason to pay any heed to Battlefield 3.

But any long time follower of the Battlefield series should know that the heart of a Battlefield game is in the multiplayer.
And this is certainly also the case with Battlefield 3.

There is another attempt at stealing Modern Warfare 2's thunder by implementing some missions that you can play co-op with a friend.
These drops you into various scenarios from the campaign, with a small tweak, and lets you work together to try to complete the scenario.
It is certainly more enjoyable than the singleplayer campaign, but it's still not really anything that is going to set your world on fire (unless you're prone to spontaneous self combustion, in which case you may want to don your asbestos underwear).

Where Battlefield 3 is head and shoulders above the competition, however, is the competitive multiplayer modes.
For my money, there is simply no better FPS experience than the one you find in Battlefield 3.
The Battlefield series has a proud tradition of making players feel like they're really on a..erm... battlefield.

The sense of destruction and chaos that Battlefield 3 manages to convey in the multiplayer matches is just incredible.
You'll be ducking in your chair as you sprint across an open field, running for cover while you hear bullets whizzing by you and explosions from tank shells kick up dirt and smoke uncomfortably close to your feet.
This is made all the better by the patented "Holy crap!" moments that Battlefield multiplayer games are so full of.
Like driving towards an enemy objective and suddenly seeing two jets pass by overhead, one of them taking a hit and crashing into the ground 50 meters in front of you in a giant ball of flame and smoke.
Or sniping at a hovering helicopter and getting a lucky headshot on the pilot and seeing the whirlybird crash magnificently into an oncoming enemy jeep.

Getting strafed by jets in multiplayer is a pretty harrowing experience

These are moments that never cease to bring a grin to your face, and in Battlefield 3, you'll probably experience at least one in every match.

There are several different multiplayer modes to test your mettle in. From the capture and hold gameplay of "Conquest", to the objective based "Rush", and the straight up killing frenzy of deathmatches. So no matter what your preferred multiplayer experience is, there should be something in Battlefield 3 to tickle your fancy.

Of course, being a modern multiplayer game, there are plenty of unlocks and leveling to do in Battlefield 3's multiplayer, so if these insane moments of awesome aren't enough to keep you coming back, then maybe the promise of a new unlock will be.

Wrapping up, I have to say that Battlefield 3 is both a tremendous success and a big failure.
I feel that EA tried very hard to market Battlefield 3 as both a compelling singleplayer and multiplayer experience, and the game falls flat on its face in that regard.
It appears that Dice are simply not that good at putting together a singleplayer experience, and I almost wish that they had skipped the campaign entirely and focused on multiplayer only.
The campaign is not completely atrocious, but it's bad enough to give people a bad impression of the qualities of Battlefield 3, and I think that is a shame.

The multiplayer is a roaring success, though.
This is the next step in modern military multiplayer experience, and I think that the imminent Modern Warfare 3 is going to have a very hard time changing that.
Battlefield 3 is possibly the most fun you can have with your PC and an internet connection. At least the most fun that requires both hands on the controls.

If you have a passionate hate against playing with other people, then there is nothing in Battlefield 3 that you really need to see.
But if you have even a passing interest in multiplayer FPS games, then I implore you to buy Battlefield 3 and join the war. You will not regret it.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some chopper pilots to snipe..




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