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jakob187

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Knee-Jerk Reaction: Battlefield 3

Playtime so far: roughly 9 hours of multiplayer and 2 hours of campaign on 360 and PC.

GOOD IMPRESSIONS

  • Sound design
  • Sound design (it HAS to be said twice)
  • It's fucking pretty, yo!
  • On console, the shooting and aiming feels enough like that weighty feel of Bad Company 2 while having a little extra snappiness to the sensitivity and turning
  • On PC, the sensitivity on default was actually too fast for me. This is a MUCH needed improvement over BC2, where the sensitivity even on higher settings didn't feel right for twitch aiming.
  • Map designs on multiplayer are scaled well between PC and console. Some Conquest maps have 4 bases on console to fit the 24-player cap while those same maps will have upwards of 6 bases on PC.
  • Server browser on console versions. FUCK...YES! There is also a favorites list, a ton of other options - basically everything that you would've gotten on a PC version of the game.
  • Playing Battlefield 3 makes you totally want to play more Battlefield.

BAD IMPRESSIONS

  • The millions of hoops to jump through in order to get installed. On 360, there was a 167MB patch to download...then the 1.5GB install for the graphics...then having to switch discs for multiplayer/co-op and single player (which of course, I'm sure the single player disc will only get a certain amount of play before it's just ignored). On PC, you have to install Origin, make sure your Windows Updates are up-to-date completely, update your video drivers to whatever the latest drivers are, and a million other things...just so you can load the game up through Origin...and have your game's main menu BE A FUCKING WEBPAGE IN YOUR INTERNET BROWSER!
  • The multitude of times that I've seen "this server is full" on the PC version when I can clearly see it says "23/64" for the player count drives me batty. Overall, the majority of the menus for both PC and console are wretched in design all around.
  • The level of destruction is nowhere near like Bad Company 2, meaning that there are tons of corner camping spots...err, sorry..."strategic emplacement opportunities"...for players to exploit in choke points that can make games feel like smashing your ballsack into a Yucca plant would be more fun.
  • The single player campaign on Normal difficulty is...well...I stood next to three enemies that shot at my teammates and pretended I didn't even exist as I shot them at point blank range. So...there's that. I'm not very far along, so it may get better.

OVERALL KNEE-JERK REACTION

It's Battlefield fucking 3, folks. You've already decided whether you want to play it or not. It doesn't matter if this version is prettier than that version. You are going to be running like a muthafucker to shoot doods in the head and stab doods in the back. I don't think it honestly fucking matters if one little portion has lower texture quality than another area, because all the versions show off a gorgeous fucking engine handling a lot of shit at once. It also has what will surely be some deep and continually evolving multiplayer in well-designed-but-not-as-destruction-capable-as-I-would-like maps. It has jets and helicopters and jeeps and hummers and tanks and APCs and all kinds of crazy shit to offer up enough ways to kill people online for at LEAST a few years.

So if you don't care about Battlefield 3, then go not care about it somewhere that people give a shit about the whining. If you do care and feel the need to flaunt your DudeBro shit at someone for not caring, go join them wherever the fuck they go. In here, we are ready for some muthafuckin' Battlefield!

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Vinny_Says

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Edited By Vinny_Says

I've also played 55 minutes of the MP last night in xbox360. Some of my early thoughts:

  • Amazing sound design
  • too many unlocks
  • bad UI between deaths (selecting weapons)
  • scaled down destruction
  • jets are awesome
  • graphics look worse than bad company 2?
  • accepting revives is weird
  • still a ton of fun
  • smooth controls

More to come when I get back from work, I'll also try the SP.

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jakob187

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Edited By jakob187

I didn't think I'd have to point this out, but from some of the comments I've read, I guess I do:

This is a series called KNEE-JERK REACTION. That's exactly what this is: it's those first few hours you put in and see what the game has to offer you. It's not something that goes into super depth about shit in the game. Therefore, I wouldn't 100% know that all maps for CQ on PC have 5 flags or how much destruction the maps would offer. I would only know what little I've played.

A lot of the reason for this series of blogs is because many people forget what those initial impressions of the game were when they first put the disc in. It's a way for me...as well as others...to go back and look at those initial first 5-10 hours and say "man, look at where things are now with that game".

With more time now under my belt, I can say I'm vastly more knowledgeable. For instance, the maps are far more destruction-based than I knew, but it takes a LOT to blow some of that shit up. I also know that Operation Metro is actually NOT impossible for U.S. to win on, and I think the maps are far better than what I originally thought. Unfortunately, I think Metro is still a very poorly designed map, as the Russians are at a MASSIVE advantage in comparison to the U.S., and the only way I've won is when me and four of my friends were on the same team and used team tactics to accomplish an ace on the map. Maybe this isn't much of a problem on PC, but on console, it is.

That's another thing I think people need to realize is that whether they like it or not, Battlefield is a PC AND console game. Console players have every reason to bitch if something is not designed well on the console, just as PC players would have the right to bitch about it. I'm so fucking sick of this elitest goddamn shit that PC and console players have with shooters. Here's a lesson for you all: fucking deal with it. I'm a PC gamer, I'm a console gamer...I'm just a fucking gamer. I picked it up on console because I remember how bad Bad Company 2 was to me on PC, and I wanted to wait until actually spending time with BF3 on PC before I even made that investment. I KNEW I would play it on console because I've thoroughly enjoyed both of the Bad Company games and I have a lot of friends that have played Battlefield on console. I also have a lot of friends that have played Battlefield on PC.

Moreover, why the fuck said that "this game is a PC game, not a console game"? Who the fuck makes that determination? It was developed and then released for both. You wanna know why PC players talk down about console players? It's because they fail to realize that they never once try to INFLUENCE a console player, instead just talking shit because they are using a controller and not keyboard/mouse. They feel there's some form of inferiority there. There's not. There's a lack of education and a high barrier of entry for those players. They look at a keyboard and mouse as something you browse the web with. They see a controller as something you play a game with. In my line of work, I try to get people on consoles to start playing PC games. It's amazing how many of these "stupid Call of Duty console players" can start stomping some Battlefield ass and love playing League of Legends WHEN YOU SHOW THEM HOW TO DO IT. Once those players know that they are not alone, that there IS a community and they AREN'T assholes that wave their dicks around like it means something, those players actually WANT to play PC games.

Sorry for the rant. The whole "PC/console players" argument is so fucking stupid, and yet it continues on.

I've gotten to spend some time with the PC version, and I definitely have a handful of issues with it as well. A lot of it has to do with Origin, but in the long run, I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick a copy up for PC. It has more of the BF2 feel than BC2. My biggest issue with BC2 on PC was that I had played both BC installments on console, and the way those games control and the way things were animated had a specific weight to it that felt good. On PC, that weight didn't seem to be there. It felt too airy. With BF3, I could feel that weight again while still being happy with the way it played overall on PC.

@huntad: I think a lot of that emptiness has to do with a lot of people jumping in planes and never doing a damn thing in a match. Yes, there are plenty of idiots online that could care less about the Conquest and Rush objective modes. Funny enough, I looked for a Team Deathmatch server (as I wanted to get the ribbons...ya know, I'm an achievement whore after all). There were no servers up for that mode at all. That tells me a bit about the players that are in Rush and Conquest. BC2 sold, what, 11 million copies overall? In turn, a lot of those people told their friends "YO DAWG Y'ALL SHOULD GET BATTLEFIELD 3 WORD UP I BE ON DAT SHIT NIGGA ITZ DA BOMB" or something along those lines. I think that the community will start thinning out the herd a bit in the next three weeks, so we'll see how things go. However, yeah: stuff like Caspian and Firestorm can have an empty feeling when people aren't actually playing the game mode. When they are, though...I mean, we had plenty of matches last night that felt full as shit, things always going on. The console version pretty much just has a different pace to it, but that pace works well.

@wolf_blitzer85: Ballsacks are weak and sensitive, and the tips of Yucca plant leaves (which are nearly unavoidable) are about as sharp as a fine needle. As someone whose mother owns a couple of Yucca plants and has merely grazed his leg into them on accident while walking by in a pair of JEANS, I can say those fuckers hurt like HELL. I would definitely not wish upon ANYONE for their ballsacks to be smashed into a Yucca plant.

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AhmadMetallic

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Edited By AhmadMetallic
@jakob187 said: 
  • Map designs on multiplayer are scaled well between PC and console. Some Conquest maps have 4 bases on console to fit the 24-player cap while those same maps will have upwards of 6 bases on PC.
6? No, all CQ 64 on PC has 5 flags. That's one more flag for forty more people. 
BF3 has shitty map scaling.. This is what good map scaling is.
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GreggD

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Edited By GreggD

For what it's worth, the Team Deathmatch in this game is actually pretty good. No, it may not have vehicles, or any real sense of tactics, but it is good for what it's trying to do. Also, it's an easier mode to gain overall experience in, to level up for better equipment for Conquest and Rush.

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Seppli

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Edited By Seppli

@Funkydupe said:

@tekmojo said:

The only people that seem to be hating is console only players.

If PCs stopped hating on MW, I'm sure they'd ease up on BF. Battlefield is a PC game. Modern Warfare is a console game. The developers try to make their games fit on every platform and it is hurting both IPs.

I played enough Battlefield on consoles to wholeheartly say Battlefield is a valid game-choice on any platform. I'm sure Battlefield 3 is no different.

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Seppli

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Edited By Seppli

@jakob187:

Little tip for playing on PC. Apparently the Quick Match option takes your serverbrowser searchmask into full account. Easiest way to find a game is to just use the Quick Match option.

There should be queuing functionality, though in Beta I've only seen a choice-few servers supporting queues. Guess it's the same now? I'm sure soon enough every server will support queues. For 64 player servers the player turnaround will make queuing a breeze.

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maskedarcstrike

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Edited By maskedarcstrike

@Funkydupe said:

@tekmojo said:

The only people that seem to be hating is console only players.

If PCs stopped hating on MW, I'm sure they'd ease up on BF. Battlefield is a PC game. Modern Warfare is a console game. The developers try to make their games fit on every platform and it is hurting both IPs.

DICE wouldn't have had to go console if more PC gamers had bought 2142. 2142 sold decently well but no where near expectations so do you really expect DICE to go PC only this time around? I bought 2142 full price back when it was still pretty new and enjoyed it a ton, the recon class in that game was a blast with the stealth suit and engineers had that bad ass rifle that could take out tanks in one shot if you got a good shot in on the rear. At least they tried to change things up with Titan mode.

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huntad

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Edited By huntad

@jakob187: I have a question though. I've been hearing from friends that the maps can be pretty empty. I asked them after I watched the quick look, and they said yeah that they did feel a little barren (console). Is this true? I remember BC2 having very well balanced and appropriate sized maps for a console game. Do they feel like 64 players maps even with the 2 other capture points removed?

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wolf_blitzer85

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Edited By wolf_blitzer85
Doesn't look that bad.... 
Doesn't look that bad.... 
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huntad

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Edited By huntad

@Funkydupe said:

@tekmojo said:

The only people that seem to be hating is console only players.

If PCs stopped hating on MW, I'm sure they'd ease up on BF. Battlefield is a PC game. Modern Warfare is a console game. The developers try to make their games fit on every platform and it is hurting both IPs.

True statement, but MW is in such a good spot on consoles that I really only see the BF IP getting hurt right now. Might take another year or two before MW starts hurting.

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MachoFantastico

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Edited By MachoFantastico

I know what to expect from Battlefield 3. Battlefield 1942 was pretty much the first multi-player game I played, and Battlefield 2 I played to death. Loved playing the franchise even in the Bad Company form so the reviews haven't really been of much care to me, I know what I'm getting and I know I'm going to spend another 100 plus hours playing it.

Nice write up though.

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Chummy8

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Edited By Chummy8

That's why its better to read the text, rather than the scores. The negatives in your analysis don't really bother me that much. I could live with that.

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Edited By mosdl

@maskedarcstrike said:

@N7: Singleplayer is there but I won't really get into it. Some of the new maps are really great though. I'm absolutely loving Tehran Highway, Damavand Peak, and Seine Crossing. The new maps are definitely one of the games strongest parts in multiplayer.

Operation Firestorm is a blast too. Hell,Metro rush is fun as everyone knows it, so its high level play.

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maskedarcstrike

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Edited By maskedarcstrike

@N7: Singleplayer is there but I won't really get into it. Some of the new maps are really great though. I'm absolutely loving Tehran Highway, Damavand Peak, and Seine Crossing. The new maps are definitely one of the games strongest parts in multiplayer.

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TEHMAXXORZ

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Edited By TEHMAXXORZ

I honestly don't read much of your stuff (or anyones blogs for that matter), but when I do I know it's going to be good and it delivers. I'll probably buy BF3 in like a year or two, because I was not impressed by the console version, it is definitely a PC game... sadly, my PC could never run it, upgrade time.

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Cloudenvy

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Edited By Cloudenvy

@jakob187: They've said that the lack of destruction is mostly due to balance the maps and make it fair and fun for both sides. : )

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kalmis

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Edited By kalmis

Dang! Didn't know console version had server browser. Very nice

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mosdl

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Edited By mosdl

You can turn off squad spawn (making the leader the only one you can spawn on) at the server level (our server does that)

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Twisted_Scot

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Edited By Twisted_Scot

I really didnt like the BC games and I think this feel like a BC with BF moments. Dont get me wrong I'll take what I can get as I dont think there will ever really be another BF2 type of game. I would have like to have seen an "Original mode" or something that let players play a reduced conquest mode with limitation like no squad spawn etc as an option if you wanted it. LOVED server browser on console version...thank god. 
The SP is kinda odd compared to other FPS out there. While the look, objectives and atmosphere are great it feels like they were too focused on it as a kinda of tech demo rather than the gameplay, for example the jet mission....you don't even jet to pilot the jet! In other FPS game the on-rails aspect of this mission wouldnt bother me but this is BATTLEFILED, they spend so much talk on including jets again and then don't let you pilot them in the SP. 
 Id like to have seen a vehicle training or offline / private mode where you can practice with the helicopter and jets as I cant fly them worth a shit without being able to use my own key setup and I don't want to be "that guy" who jacks a jet and flies it into a wall wasting points for my team while I learn. All in all with the time Ive put in so far (including having to play the SP while the servers were down again) BF3 is so far quite an enjoyable game, looks great, handles well and although I don't feel it is a true 100% successor fo BF2 more than a BC3 I feel it does a decent job at catering to fans of both series (usually due to specific maps I find).  I would have like to have made people a little easier to see since you can now go prone and if a camper is hiding in teh grass he is almost impossible to spot until your head exploded but that could just be me getting older and the old eyes aint what they used to be. 
So far (having not played any co-op, a bit of the SP and a few hours of the MP) id say its looking like 4/5 for me. Lack of destruction to what was promised is the most irritating thing so far.

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sins_of_mosin

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Edited By sins_of_mosin

I also seen some frozen or non-active ai enemies but it was pretty rare. Still, it was a far better game play experience then the last CoD.

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MichaelBach

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Edited By MichaelBach

Sounds like a good honest opinion, will get this for the weekend for sure :)

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Edited By Funkydupe

@tekmojo said:

The only people that seem to be hating is console only players.

If PCs stopped hating on MW, I'm sure they'd ease up on BF. Battlefield is a PC game. Modern Warfare is a console game. The developers try to make their games fit on every platform and it is hurting both IPs.

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zaglis

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Edited By zaglis

The destruction was easily one of the worst things that could have happened to a Battlefield game, all it ever did was make the awfully designed maps even less fun to play. So hearing that they actually reduced it makes me happy.

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tekmojo

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Edited By tekmojo

The only people that seem to be hating is console only players.

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superfriend

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Edited By superfriend

The scaled back destruction is a real bummer. They seem to have even less destruction than in the beta. Considering they were pushing their Frostbite engine so hard, this seems a bit odd. If anything I was expecting even more destruction than in Bad Company 2 (maybe some bigger houses to take down). I´m sure it was done for balancing or performance reasons, but it´s still a little sad.

Always thought that Bad Company needed some kind of sandbox mode, where you just have this big village to destroy and goof around in with friends.

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Edited By bwmcmaste

@jakob187 said:

Playtime so far: roughly 9 hours of multiplayer and 2 hours of campaign on 360 and PC.

GOOD IMPRESSIONS

  • Sound design
  • Sound design (it HAS to be said twice)
  • It's fucking pretty, yo!
  • Server browser on console versions. FUCK...YES! There is also a favorites list, a ton of other options - basically everything that you would've gotten on a PC version of the game.
  • Playing Battlefield 3 makes you totally want to play more Battlefield.

BAD IMPRESSIONS

  • The level of destruction is nowhere near like Bad Company 2, meaning that there are tons of corner camping spots...err, sorry..."strategic emplacement opportunities"...for players to exploit in choke points that can make games feel like smashing your ballsack into a Yucca plant would be more fun.

Yes to all of the above.

@XII_Sniper said:

You really think the destruction is better in Bad Company 2? That's disappointing. How much worse would you say it is? I mean can you still level buildings and expose people with well placed rockets?

The difference is absolutely night and day. From what I can tell - I've only had a couple of hours on the MP - they have constrained destructibility almost entirely to reducing cover. You won't be flattening the map like in Atacama.

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N7

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Edited By N7

What would you say of the lighting in the game? In the beta, I noticed how it went from a warm summer day to a cold, blue tunnel of pain. The entire atmosphere changed when you went into the tunnel. It was IMMEDIATELY noticeable.
 
How does the other maps look? Singleplayer? What's the lighting like?

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Czarpyotr

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Edited By Czarpyotr

@Andorski: I put over 100 hours in BFBC2 multiplayer and it is fantastic. This game does not feel or look right on xbox. Gonna trade it in when I pick up skyrim (I have not traded a game in over a year).

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maskedarcstrike

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Edited By maskedarcstrike

@XII_Sniper: He is right about the amount of destructibility in the environments from BF3 to BC2. Most of the buildings in BF3 are more complex, much larger than the buildings on BC2 maps which I'm guessing DICE just didn't have the time to model/program them to destructible. What is rather interesting however is that from what I've noticed is that the only destructible buildings in BF3 are re-skinned buildings from BC2. Other than a few exceptions within the Paris maps and a few key structures within the single player campaign they re-used a lot of assets from Bad Company 2 for destructible environments. You will see many buildings in multiplayer that have the exact same layout as buildings in Bad Company 2 but they just have slightly different skins. Even then some of the buildings from Bad Company 2 were assets from 1943..........

(edit) as far as being able to level a building on top of people like BC2? I've yet to see it happen and I've spent around 4-5 hours in MP so far. I have seen one building get leveled and it's the same large 2 story command like structure that was used in 1943 and Bad Company 2.

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jakob187

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Edited By jakob187

@XII_Sniper said:

You really think the destruction is better in Bad Company 2? That's disappointing. How much worse would you say it is? I mean can you still level buildings and expose people with well placed rockets?

Many buildings cannot be leveled, and like I said, there have been walls that I planted C4 on and figured they would blow open...and it didn't happen. It may just be that they take a lot of exploding to bust up, but I don't know. I can definitely say, though, that Bad Company 2 without a doubt had far more destruction in it.

Then again, they basically FED you explosives to use in that game. In Battlefield 3, I don't even have a grenade launcher on most of my guns. Therefore, that may be a major part of why I don't feel as destructive.

I really wanna point out, however, that sniper rifles sound FUCKING EVIL on this game.

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MikkaQ

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Edited By MikkaQ

You really think the destruction is better in Bad Company 2? That's disappointing. How much worse would you say it is? I mean can you still level buildings and expose people with well placed rockets?

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Edited By takua108

I've never played a Battlefield game before for more than a few minutes on a friend's computer. Now I have a beefyish rig of my own, and I got BF3, and had none of the install troubles you mention; it all worked just fine. The "launching a game from a webpage" thing was a bit weird at first, but now that I'm used to it, I have that tab pinned in Chrome and it works just fine. Should they have used Webkit and just put their own browser into the game executable for those who don't like it? Probably, but, like I said, it works just fine for me. Plus, who's playing Battlefield 3 with a computer that can't handle Chrome and BF3 running at the same time?

Oh, and I'm about two hours into the campaign, and it's fun but not great. Some parts are really cinematic, but others are like "wow, there are five dudes just standing up in this hallway and kinda shooting at me, what is this, a light-gun shooter from the 90s?"

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jakob187

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Edited By jakob187

@IceColdGamer: Yeah, kind of a bummer, but it's expected after launch day honestly. Bad Company 2 had the same issues for the first week of release.

@Andorski: The sound design, graphics, feel of the weapons, just everything seems beefy as shit, man. Beyond that, it definitely has some classier presentation, although I think the HUD is rather intrusive on the PC version...especially the chat. The maps, so far from what I've played, feel good and have a lot of unique characteristics that set them apart from one another. It's a nice mix of urban and big ass sandbox areas. As for the destruction, there's still plenty to be had, but it just doesn't have that "I'm going to just demo this whole building and level it to the ground" craziness of BC2. You can tell it's definitely been toned down on the destruction side, mainly to keep some semblance and structure to how the map is laid out. The urban areas actually suffer more from the limited destruction than the bigger maps do.

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Edited By sopranosfan

I agree with this. The sound is the most amazing sounding game I have ever heard. I don't know if I have ever found myself actively paying attention to the sound of a game before but the sound of guns and explosions in this game was incredible because you hear so many different sounding guns from different distances and it is very impressive. I also agree about the destruction not being as complete as in BC2 and I liked being able to take down an entire building with a few well placed C4s and a couple RPGs but I don't think I have seen a building completely go down yet. I do agree about the trouble to just get to the first match on the 360 though I believe it took me about 15-30 minutes to enter and download everything before I shot my first person. Overall I felt the multiplayer was very satisfying and in the couple of hours that I played I truly felt that it was the most fun I have had in multiplayer since COD4.

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IceColdGamer

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Edited By IceColdGamer

Might be easier if the 360 servers weren't down.

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@jakob187: So when you say that BF3 feels like BC2 on steroids, what do you exactly mean? Are you talking about it in a graphical/cinematic perspective?

The destruction aspect to both BC2 and 1943 is what I loved about those games. The idea that I wasn't limited tactically by walls or structures felt like a unique characteristic that separated both titles from the rest of the military FPS market. So when I heard that destructibility was held back in BF3, I was wondering what in it's place would be the game's "prime feature." Is it just really solid and enjoyable maps, well balanced classes, etc.?

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@Andorski: I played a fuckload of Bad Company 2 and know those maps pretty well. In turn, only spending 11 hours with Battlefield 3, I don't think I could give an honest comparison of which one I liked more. It definitely has quite a bit of the feel that Bad Company 2 had. The squad system is the same, the use of cyan and orange for designating different spots on the map is present. A lot of it feels like Bad Company 2 on steroids. When I first started a match up, the sound blew me away much the same way the overblown audio in Drag Me To Hell freaked me out in theatres. This is a LOUD game, in ways that Bad Company 2 just canNOT match up.

At the same time, I played more BC than 1943, so I became use to "destroy every building, level it all to the ground" more than "you can destroy SOME stuff, but other things have some necessary structural integrity to make the map actually be a map". In turn, it's just a little off-putting to me now when I throw some C4 on this wall over here, pull the detonator, and the wall is still standing in places where I feel the wall should be getting destroyed. Having less destruction than I expected, it means I have to actually LEARN these maps (which is perfectly fine) in order to know all the paths around rather than creating my own paths.

Like I said above: playing Battlefield 3 makes you want to play more Battlefield.

EDIT: I should point out that I've been playing Battlefield since the beginning, have played all iterations, and my favorite BF games have been 1942 (DC mod), BF2, 2142, and BC2. Take that for what you can.

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Do you think it's better than Bad Company 2 on console? I loved the hell out of the BC2 demo and for some reason never bought it around the time it launched. I thought about getting it several months later, but then decided to just wait until BF3 came out. Now with the mixed views everyone has been having, I'm wondering if I should instead just go out and get the GoTY edition of BC2.

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Dammit after reading this I have the urge to go grab it but there's still more riddler trophies to collect. Good read and I'll be picking it up soon.

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Playtime so far: roughly 9 hours of multiplayer and 2 hours of campaign on 360 and PC.

GOOD IMPRESSIONS

  • Sound design
  • Sound design (it HAS to be said twice)
  • It's fucking pretty, yo!
  • On console, the shooting and aiming feels enough like that weighty feel of Bad Company 2 while having a little extra snappiness to the sensitivity and turning
  • On PC, the sensitivity on default was actually too fast for me. This is a MUCH needed improvement over BC2, where the sensitivity even on higher settings didn't feel right for twitch aiming.
  • Map designs on multiplayer are scaled well between PC and console. Some Conquest maps have 4 bases on console to fit the 24-player cap while those same maps will have upwards of 6 bases on PC.
  • Server browser on console versions. FUCK...YES! There is also a favorites list, a ton of other options - basically everything that you would've gotten on a PC version of the game.
  • Playing Battlefield 3 makes you totally want to play more Battlefield.

BAD IMPRESSIONS

  • The millions of hoops to jump through in order to get installed. On 360, there was a 167MB patch to download...then the 1.5GB install for the graphics...then having to switch discs for multiplayer/co-op and single player (which of course, I'm sure the single player disc will only get a certain amount of play before it's just ignored). On PC, you have to install Origin, make sure your Windows Updates are up-to-date completely, update your video drivers to whatever the latest drivers are, and a million other things...just so you can load the game up through Origin...and have your game's main menu BE A FUCKING WEBPAGE IN YOUR INTERNET BROWSER!
  • The multitude of times that I've seen "this server is full" on the PC version when I can clearly see it says "23/64" for the player count drives me batty. Overall, the majority of the menus for both PC and console are wretched in design all around.
  • The level of destruction is nowhere near like Bad Company 2, meaning that there are tons of corner camping spots...err, sorry..."strategic emplacement opportunities"...for players to exploit in choke points that can make games feel like smashing your ballsack into a Yucca plant would be more fun.
  • The single player campaign on Normal difficulty is...well...I stood next to three enemies that shot at my teammates and pretended I didn't even exist as I shot them at point blank range. So...there's that. I'm not very far along, so it may get better.

OVERALL KNEE-JERK REACTION

It's Battlefield fucking 3, folks. You've already decided whether you want to play it or not. It doesn't matter if this version is prettier than that version. You are going to be running like a muthafucker to shoot doods in the head and stab doods in the back. I don't think it honestly fucking matters if one little portion has lower texture quality than another area, because all the versions show off a gorgeous fucking engine handling a lot of shit at once. It also has what will surely be some deep and continually evolving multiplayer in well-designed-but-not-as-destruction-capable-as-I-would-like maps. It has jets and helicopters and jeeps and hummers and tanks and APCs and all kinds of crazy shit to offer up enough ways to kill people online for at LEAST a few years.

So if you don't care about Battlefield 3, then go not care about it somewhere that people give a shit about the whining. If you do care and feel the need to flaunt your DudeBro shit at someone for not caring, go join them wherever the fuck they go. In here, we are ready for some muthafuckin' Battlefield!