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by Arcee on 11.01.11  So I’ve now spent about a week playing Battlefield 3, by DICE and EA, and it is safe to say that despite some earlier complications, (see How Can You Survive A Battlefield with No Weapons) Battlefield 3 is easily the best game in the Battlefield franchise so far. Yes, I was having some multiplayer issues that were severely ruining my experience, but after fixing the problem assisted by a very friendly EA customer service staffer, the game has been running smoothly since and I can now confidently write a full review on both the single player campaign and the co-op and multiplayer components of the game.
To start off, I want to talk about the single player campaign in Battlefield 3. If any of you have read anything about the story of the game, what I will say here is no different – the single player story in Battlefield 3 feels like a rushed amalgamation of every war game tightly wound into one story. Does it make it any less compelling of a story? A little, but it is nothing that will impact just how fun an experience the single player campaign of Battlefield 3 is. In reality, I look at the single player part of Battlefield 3 as practice for the co-op and multiplayer facets of the game. Almost everything you will need to know for those components you will learn and get a feel for while playing through the single player game. The story for the game is really just the third wheel and pretty inconsequential. Yeah, there are times of excitement and anxiety as you try to survive one or two particular missions, but nothing as memorable as say Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect or Heavy Rain.
Story is not Battlefield 3’s strong point, but that is not to say that the voice acting in the game isn’t incredible, and I have to give credit to the actors for making the best with what they had. The main protagonist in the game, Staff Sergeant Henry “Black” Blackburn is wonderfully portrayed by Gideon Emery (Takers) and does a great job bringing the character to life and trying his best to make the character accessible and relatable to the player. Also, providing the voice of one the men holding Blackburn in custody for an event that takes place towards the end of the game, Glenn Morshower (24) provides his talents and lends credibility to the person investigating Blackburn’s actions. These two, along with a slew of other actors, helped bring the single player campaign to life with what they had in front of them. I just wish the story was up to par considering the talent they had in the voice acting booths.
Now, enough with the single player campaign, I know why the majority of you bought Battlefield 3 – the multiplayer campaigns. This is the part of the game that numerous gaming publications have been raving about since E3, and rightfully so. And just to get this out of the way, again, yes, I was having some severe issues with the multiplayer part of Battlefield 3 and respawning without the ability to use a weapon numerous times. And yes, it was severely impacting my level of entertainment with the game; but after some time (almost an hour) with someone from EA, I got the game all fixed and ready to go, and have not had problems since. I won’t get into it anymore than that as I would be repeating everything I had stated before other than to say that while everything is fine now, I will factor in my initial misfortunes with the game in the overall score.
With that out of the way, I can easily say that Battlefield 3 is the best multiplayer experience I have had all year with a game. It easily is superior to the multiplayer experience of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and, for my personal taste, better than anything Call of Duty has put out over the years. Yes, that depends on what type of FPS multiplayer you are, but I have always felt that the Battlefield series is a more mature and balanced approach to the multiplayer FPS games over those in Call of Duty. The multiplayer component is easily the best in the Battlefield series as it brings together some of the best parts of every game into a perfect balance of tactics and fighting throughout the games different multiplayer elements. As usual, I ended up sticking to Conquest this time around, but the other types of multiplayer games are equally as addictive and fun to play through. Rush, Squad Deathmatch and Squad Rush all return in Battlefield 3, as does Team Deathmatch, which hasn’t been featured in Battlefield games since Battlefield 1942. For those of you new to the Battlefield series, or those of you who never played Battlefield 1942, I suggest you give Team Deathmatch a try as it is certainly one hectic and exciting version of multiplayer.
For those of you who have never experienced several game mechanics absent from the Battlefield series in the Bad Company consoles games, you are now also able to set your soldier in a prone position for better accuracy when firing your weapon and greater cover from enemy fire. Vaulting has also returned and allows for faster jumps over walls and obstacles. Also returning to the Battlefield series is the ability to use fighter jets in multiplayer campaigns. Now, don’t get to excited over this – your jet won’t be flying at mach speeds over the terrain; you will fly at a controlled speed and will still be susceptible to ground fire and rockets. But if you are lucky enough to hop into a jet, I found that the feel of dog fighting in the sky with enemy jets is one of the best experiences I have had in any Battlefield game. It takes some time getting used to flying the jet, as it did with flying helicopters (which also return in Battlefield 3), but once you get the hang of it, you will see why it is so exciting and addictive to jump into one. For those of you more used to the infantry side of warfare, all the tanks and armored vehicles from previous Battlefield game also return for use in Battlefield 3.
For a more personal experience, I suggest to everyone to try co-op mode with an online friend. Co-op pits you and a friend, or stranger if you don’t have any friends online (thanks jerks), against a number of enemies as you try and cooperate to survive a certain number of objectives required to complete the mission. Note: if you are a lone gunman, loose-cannon type player, DO NOT PLAY THIS MODE!!! There is nothing worse than getting stuck with one of these players who think they can do the whole mission on their own with little to no planning. They leave you high and dry and either get themselves killed, or worst – you. This version of multiplayer is strictly for those who know how to be patient and to work together, following and giving commands. The more you succeed the more co-op missions you unlock; or go back and try and beat some of your best co-op times. Co-op is more fun than it sounds and it would have been more fun had there been split-screen co-op as well for you and a couch buddy to play on one console. As it is, you are limited to just playing co-op online. That’s fine, really, but being able to play with a buddy on one screen would have been a substantial improvement.
As for the technical aspects of Battlefield 3 – the wait has certainly been worth it. The game is impressively beautiful. Not quite on the level that Bethesda's Rage is, but it is up there. The environments and effects in the game are something to admire. The Frostbite 2 engine, which makes its debut in this game, certainly seems more than capable of bringing to life some of the best terrain I have seen this year. There are one or two things that you can pick out and criticize, but it is nothing that will ruin the visual experience your eyes will get from the game. Also, the sound effects in Battlefield 3 are uber realistic. Talking from experience of hanging around the Los Angeles Police Academy’s firing range; the sounds of gunfire and deflection are extremely realistic. The distinguishing sound each weapon makes, as do the impacts of their respective projectiles is chillingly recreated and add to that element of frustration when you get picked off by an enemy. Combining both the visual and audible sound effects in the game also make the destruction of structures around the battlefield that much more believable as well. No two structures seemed to break apart the same way every time, and the defilade that they create can be just as useful as when the structures were left standing. Obviously not everything in Battlefield 3 can be brought down (imagine the Operation Metro area with everything brought down), but what can be destroyed is nothing short of incredible.
While Battlefield 3 does have its flaws, and some flaws were simply bigger than others, and the single player campaign is nothing memorable, the real meat and potatoes of Battlefield 3 is the multiplayer – and let me tell you, the meat and potatoes are incredibly delicious. Despite the fact that the single player campaign can be beaten within a few hours, that is just the warm up phase for the real game – multiplayer. Easily, Battlefield 3 is the BEST multiplayer experience of 2011 so far. (We’ll wait and see what games like Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3, Halo: Anniversary and numerous other games yet to be released will produce in terms of multiplayer.) Nothing any other game outside of the MMO genre can touch what Battlefield 3 has produced this time around. Still, I cannot ignore the faults in Battlefield 3; the sometimes yawn inducing single player story or the massive bug that was plaguing me and many other players in multiplayer. One was corrected, but the other is something that is just there and nothing can be done about that. In the end though, Battlefield 3 is just shy of video game perfection.
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