Battlefield 3 ... you won't want to play it alone
For the better part of a year, EA has been hyping Battlefield 3 as the game that will bring down Call Of Duty. This approach has doubtless provided an awareness boost for DICE's military shooter, its advertorial wagon hitched sturdily to the zeitgeist surrounding Activision's mega-selling shooter. "Above and beyond the call," claim the billboard ads that currently clutter major US cities.
Thus, nearly every single CoD: MW3 feature and preview so far has had to address EA's game in some way. The only way you could not be aware of Battlefield 3 is if you have no interest in video games, or if you've been locked in an isolation ward for the past year and a half.
Of course, all of EA's Activision-baiting can't help but impact negatively on Battlefield 3 now it's been released. To wit, there is now the expectation among some gamers, whether fair or not, that Battlefield 3's success depends, to some degree, on it beating CoD at its own game.
This was never going to happen. While there are similarities between the two franchises, they couldn't be more different in the one area most shooters rely on to keep the affections of the faithful tightly in their grasp – the online multiplayer.
With Battlefield, the multiplayer was present and correct long before CoD's sales figures became the brass ring to shoot for. It's not surprising, then, that this mode is Battlefield 3's strongest asset – and is indeed one of the strongest examples of this mode in the medium. DICE has taken what made the franchise great to begin with in the seminal Battlefield 1942 and then refined and polished everything until it gleams with a diamond-tipped edge.
More than any other online multiplayer shooter (with perhaps the exception of MAG), Battlefield 3 makes the player feel like they're engaged in an ongoing ground war.
Arriving in the conflict zone via a spawn point or parachute, players are immediately aware of the size and scope of the battle zones they'll be traversing. They could drop in right in the middle of a gun-battle, or land near a couple of vehicles and have to cross some distance to pick a fight.
The action, when it comes, is eerily realistic; players are advised to take in the contents of their surroundings when the echoing pops of gunfire sound off, as tactics, cover and high ground can all be crucial factors in establishing supremacy in any gun battle.
That said, while reality dictates that the most organised and skilled teams with the best working knowledge of the terrain are more likely to be victorious in Battlefield 3, players aren't a forced into a style of play they don't like.
This isn't CoD, where a fast-paced, close-quarters run-and-gun fragfest is the order of the day. This is the Battlefield experience gone widescreen; it's an open, realistic affair where teamwork is encouraged, vehicles are available and maps are meticulously constructed to allow different styles of play to coexist.
The only real rule of thumb in the multiplayer is that of common sense; desert your teammates and run obliviously out in to the open, and you'll find yourself dying and dying and dying some more.
The modes and class systems have received a couple of tweaks and tucks and there's still an RPG element in which players are rewarded with new upgrades, gizmos and promotions.
The principal draw in online, though, has less to do with soldier classes, match types and unlockables, and more to do with creating your own moments of brilliance – either solo or with your teammates – in the combat zone. The sense of freedom and potential for improvisation is the best thing about Battlefield 3.
We haven't been furnished with a PC copy to review, but we can point out a couple of disparities between the console and PC versions from several hands-on previews we've attended. Firstly, up to 64 players can take part in BF3's online wars on the PC, but console owners are limited to 24-man battles.
PC owners will claim that as a rule their platform has the edge over consoles in all games, but with BF3, the difference in quality between PCs and consoles is less pronounced in the multiplayer than it is in the game's campaign, provided players load the HD install available for the Xbox 360.
While the lighting and sound in Battlefield 3 was uniformly excellent across the modes on the modes console copy we played, the campaign experience was frequently marred by visual kinks and bugs.
In the time we spent with the game, we witnessed anomalies such as floating corpses, troops that sprinted at snail's pace and one instance in which our entire platoon entered a combat area by walking through a closed fire-escape door.
EA has told us that it is aware of these glitches and that patches and updates are forthcoming. But for now, we have to note that, due to the fact that Battlefield 3's overall experience puts such a premium on realism, it's alarming how often the game we were sent to review pulls the player out of the proceedings with glitches that break the fourth wall.
Whether or not DICE is working to remedy all of this is beside the point, though, as it won't improve the experience of playing the campaign, which is Battlefield 3's big weakness.
It's a short, bland affair shot through with an uninteresting story – which seems bizarre when you consider it's about missing nukes and marines searching for terrorists in the Middle East. There are a couple of note-worthy levels – a gun battle on the streets of Tehran, which escalates to Michael Bay-worthy proportions, and a dogfight in an F-18 are two high points. But for the most part, players will find themselves hurtling down corridors, moving from one uninspired gun-battle to the next.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the campaign, though, is how rigid, scripted and restrictive it feels when compared to the game's multiplayer. There are precious few instances where the open, multi-purpose style of play from the online mode is applicable – or even allowed – in the campaign.
There are also a couple of instances where the game's realistic elements eat into the player's enjoyment of the proceedings. After a while, they may become fed up with being unable to see opponents who are a few metres away due to the amount of dust their firefight has thrown up. This, by the way, doesn't impair the vision of the AI, which at times strikes at the player with laser-guided accuracy, and at others, seems to be unaware of them when they're emptying a clip into their compatriots from close range.
Finally there's the co-op mode, a series of mini-missions whose story runs alongside the single-player campaign. It's a fun, if slightly brief diversion from the other two options. It's less constrictive than the single-player campaign, in that some improvisation is allowed from the two players in how they tackles some missions, but it also contains some of its weaknesses – such as the wonky AI.
So Battlefield 3 feels like three distinctly different experiences offered in one confusing game, which, to be honest, has proven hard to judge on its merits as a package.
Do we praise the game for its incredible multiplayer or mark it down for its woeful campaign? There are those who would posit the opinion that the campaign shouldn't affect the score because most people who buy this game won't play it anyway and instead will spend all their time in the multiplayer.
Then again, the counter argument to this is, why bother with including a campaign at all and instead use the extra disc space to provide more modes, maps, options, weapons and other content for the superb multiplayer?
The answer is, of course, that Battlefield 3 was supposed to bring down CoD, and without a campaign – which seems to be DICE's approximation of a CoD experience – this wouldn't have been possible. This is unfortunate, because the instances in which DICE seem to have tried to beat their rivals at their own game have resulted in Battlefield 3's weakest content.
Where they've ignored their competitor completely and stuck to what they do best, they've created one of the finest experiences in the medium. There's a lesson in that somewhere…
