 There's a storm a-brewin'. Blackburn has been detained by his own military and is forced to explain his involvement in a plot to detonate nuclear bombs in major cities around the world. Unfortunately, he's also the only one who can stop that plot.
1. Gameplay
 Here we go again. The campaign was abysmal. Multiplayer was alright, but I think the developers ended up getting too wrapped up in what players like about Call of Duty. An unlimited number of unlockables that require hours and hours of gameplay does not make for an awesome game, it makes for a long game. But before I get into that, let me talk about the campaign. The story is set in the modern day. The player is being interrogated by some sort of military “Internal Affairs” type duo who are hell-bent on figuring out the player’s involvement in a series of planned nuclear attacks on major cities. The player will relive each scene in a series of flashbacks that are meant to explain exactly what happened.  And they sometimes succeed. The problem is that Battlefield 3 tries to be too much like a mix between Medal of Honor and Modern Warfare without ever achieving either. It’s a realistic(ish) game with no absurd diving explosions and crazy scenes with massive aircraft carriers blowing up. But it’s not so realistic that the player won’t be required to drive vehicles and shoot down enemy fighter jets with missiles.  Which is more than what some games will give you. But all of the fun of the other two games is completely missing from this story. I can’t tell if the game is trying to differentiate itself from the other two titles or make itself like both, but either way the end result is a slow, boring shooter with few redeeming elements. But enough about the single-player, what about the multiplayer? After all, that’s what this game was built for. Well, fortunately the multiplayer isn’t abysmal. It can get extremely aggravating at times, but first I’ll say what I liked about it. The entire setup feels very similar to the way that Bad Company 2 had its multiplayer, which was a decent system. The game features large maps that are designed for vehicular combat. Objective-based missions are the most fun and the maps are designed to complement the objectives. The overall feel is extremely similar to what Bad Company 2 is built on.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, that’s the problem. I never felt like Battlefield 3 differentiated itself enough from Bad Company 2 to justify the purchase of a new game. Battlefield 3 does feature a ton of unlockables, but it takes forever just to level up in order to achieve those unlockables. When you first start out, you have each of the four classes unlocked but only one weapon per class with zero perks and attachments. The matchmaking doesn’t even bother trying to put together players of similar skill, so in the end my level 1 character is forced to compete against level 50 players. I might as well be throwing rocks at the enemies because that would have been slightly more effective than what I was forced to work with.  Oh joyous day of days. Battlefield 3 does include a series of co-op missions, but the lack of split-screen capabilities drains a lot of the fun from the missions. I understand that the exclusion of split screen was a result of the high-end graphics (which caused the game to lag a few times even on an Xbox 360), but I had little desire to try and match up with some unknown person online to try and complete the missions.  It took me a while to even realize where my teammate was. I’ll end my review with this. I am no fan of the Call of Duty franchise. I think that the series has gone downhill since Modern Warfare. But throughout most of my time playing Battlefield 3 I couldn’t help but think “Why am I playing a Call of Duty knock-off when I could be playing the real thing instead?”
The true meat of this game is in the multiplayer, which increases the magnitude of this game significantly. There are a good number of maps, which are all very large in size. The number of unlockable content is unbelievable (almost to a fault). Players who are looking to unlock every weapon and every attachment will be playing this game for quite some time.
The Fairly Annoying In the campaign, the player is required to complete certain actions before the events are forwarded. This is fairly standard. In Battlefield 3, the game also requires the player to be in a certain location before the characters will begin to discuss what needs to be done, which is also fairly standard. However, the area that the player has to be in before the characters will begin to talk is tiny. If the characters are in a circle ready to talk, the player has to be in some specific part of the circle before the characters will begin talking. If the player is on the other side of the circle, they’ll all stand around like idiots doing nothing. This can be especially frustrating because sometimes the player doesn’t know exactly where to stand to move things forward. It brings the flow of the game to a grinding halt.  They'd sit there forever unless I moved to the spot just to the left of the box. One of the best aspects of the game is the lighting effects that the game utilizes to create more realistic environments. However, there’s a slight problem. The glare created as a result of the reflectivity of certain surfaces, from light sources shining in the face of the player, and especially from laser lights can make it impossible for the player to see.  This is a screenshot of exactly what I'm talking about. It's not doctored in any way. This is especially frustrating when the enemies are using flashlights and laser lights against the player. The glare can become so bad that shooting the enemy is nearly impossible. I have described it to friends by saying “It’s like shining a spotlight into a person’s face, then telling the person to shoot a fly off one of the light’s bulbs.”  Quick, lets play the "Is that an environmental light or an enemy sniper" game! Sniping in the multiplayer game mode is unfairly easy. An enemy who is in the prone position is almost impossible to see, especially from the distances that the game is designed to allow. An accurate sniper can kill an enemy from across the map (and the maps are gigantic). When I first tried the sniper class, I managed to kill two enemies with two shots each, and the sniper rifle I was using was supposed to be the worst in the game. Currently, there are no tutorials available to teach the player how to control the majority of the vehicles. There is one chapter in the campaign where the player will be able to drive a tank, but the most difficult vehicles to control (specifically helicopters and fighter jets) are left for the player to figure out. While controlling a jet isn’t particularly difficult, controlling a helicopter is nearly impossible to do effectively. The first time I tried it, I flew around like a drunken monkey on acid, nearly hitting every tree, building, and fence in the map. The “I Want to Tie Weights to This Game and Drown It in Open Waters” The first time I played through the campaign I played on the “normal” difficulty level. However, the amount of times that I died was absurd. It was extremely frustrating. The problem wasn’t that I was doing something incorrect, it was that I was unable to figure out a good system for not dying. The entire game made zero sense. For example, in certain areas of the game, vehicles would provide the best (and sometimes the only) cover from enemies. However, frequently enemies would have RPGs and would shoot them at those same vehicles, causing explosions that would instantly kill me. If I decided to avoid the vehicles and try using other objects as cover, enemies would be able to shoot me through or around the objects. The few times when there were objects that would act as better cover, they were often so far away that I would get mowed down before I reached them. It got to the point where certain sections of the game I had to repeat at least a dozen times because I was unable to find a system where I could survive long enough to move forward.  Wonderful. Dead again. This was only compounded by the fact that the enemy AI was practically psychic. If I found a bush or smoke to hide behind for a few moments to recover my health and re-assess a situation, enemies would instantly know that I was behind the smoke regardless of if they could actually see me. They would shoot at me and kill me while I would be unable to determine their precise location through the smoke or shrubbery. The aggravating nature of the enemy AI was further compounded by the idiotic nature of the friendly AI. Friendly AI are programmed to move to particular locations in order to fight enemies, but often times those locations are the best spots for cover. If I am occupying one of those spots, friendlies will frequently move into my spot and push me out of cover where I would be massacred by enemy bullets.  Hey, I'm shooting here! Even more frequent, and perhaps thus more frustrating, were the numerous times when friendly AI would jump in front of my line of fire to attack an enemy. I would end up shooting the friendly instead of the enemy, after which the game would scold me that “Friendly Fire Will Not Be Tolerated”. I refuse to call it “friendly fire” if the “friendly” is dumb enough to jump in front of a spray of bullets.  Then stop jumping in front of my line of fire! While I played this game on the Xbox 360, I know that the PC version of the game has serious issues, especially with Multiplayer. The PC version requires the player to install a ton of extra applications which should have little to do with the game itself. The online matchmaking uses a browser-based system where the game has to quit before and after each match. It’s a very inefficient system that must have been designed by a few cabbages. 2. Parental Notices
 Next time, don't take cover behind a soft subway chair. If a player uses a knife on an enemy, sometimes a brief animation will play. This animation will involve the player killing the enemy with the knife. Conversely, the player can be knifed by an enemy and a similar animation will show.  Even pesky rats can't escape the wrath of my knife! Every so often the player will be required to participate in an interactive cutscene. The player will be involved in some sort of hand-to-hand struggle with an enemy.  For a game that's trying to be realistic, I end up in hand-to-hand combat a lot. One of these cutscenes involves the player eventually forcefully driving a knife into an enemy. There is no blood in this scene.  Like I said before...
 But where's the giant talking caterpillar? The second instance was when the player is supposed to extract a high-value terrorist target so that information about the nuclear plot can be obtained. Unfortunately, the extraction goes poorly and as the target is dying, the player has to inject some sort of substance into the target. The substance might be epinephrine, because the target’s breathing increases significantly in pace.  Why would you give epinephrine to a guy who's bleeding out?
3. Other Factors
 I guess this would be one situation where the ends do justify the means. The player will have to shoot police as he chases the terrorists from the French Stock Exchange.
 Which is always a good thing. However, take note of the problems I mentioned in the “Overall Fun” and “Frustration Factor” sections above. Players who are first starting out will almost certainly have an extremely difficult time competing against other higher-level players. This can be a significant deterrent to playing the multiplayer game mode.
 Yep, this looks safe. The player will have to repeatedly enter and leave the train in order to eventually make it up to where the terrorist leader has the bomb.  Why can't I just stay inside the train? Ugh. In the fighter jet dogfighting scene, both the Russian forces and the player will perform a sort of quick-stop dodge maneuver. The maneuver will inflict high g-forces on the pilot and is certain to cause inexperienced pilots to black out.  It's like drifting, but while flying. There are a few times when the player will have to rappel down buildings or elevator shafts to move quickly down a few stories. In one particular section, the player practically runs down the side of a building.  I'd say "Don't fall", but that's kind of the idea. There is another scene where the player, as a Russian, will have to “Halo Jump” out of a plane. This is basically just a form of skydiving.  Ooooh... pretty... The player can also parachute down to the map in a few multiplayer missions.  Fortunately, people hardly ever look up.
In one scene, the player (as a US tank commander) is captured by the terrorists. He is executed in front of a video camera. The entire setup reminded me of the Nick Burg execution, which is why I refer to this as a beheading. However, there is no proof that the character was beheaded. It’s entirely possible that his throat was cut, but the game gives no definitive answer either way.  That's a pretty big knife. I had a serious issue with this scene, not because of what was being presented but because of how casually the scene was thrown into the game. The entire sequence could have been excluded and the storyline would not have suffered any significant loss. The lack of forethought seemed to cheapen the real events that this scene was based on. If the developers had made this scene a serious motivating factor for the player and his allies, its inclusion would have made sense. However, I thought that it was just a cheap way to try and make the antagonist seem more evil. Weapons of Mass Destruction The entire storyline of this game involves stopping a rogue terrorist leader who plans on detonating nuclear weaponry in three major cities. One of those nuclear bombs, the one sent to Paris, ends up detonating.  But where are the other two? Language
There were enough f-bombs thrown around casually in this game to be noticeable, but considering the mouths of most people in a war time would not be the cleanest things in the room, it wasn’t too bad.
2 Comments
PATRIOT 32756
4/23/2016 06:59:09 pm
Why did every Battlefield disappoint you? 12/15/2021 03:05:22 am
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