Yes I know this game is like three years old. I started playing this when it came out on PC but never beat it. I picked it up on 360 when the Ultimate Edition was $19.99 and finally got around to playing it again a couple weeks ago.

As with any other game that offers character customizations, I got a bit lost in Fallout NV with restarting using different character builds. I tried a handful of builds including sneaky rifle, energy weapons, explosives and ended up doing a final sneaky pistol build that focused heavily on science, speech, and repair (using high int/cha and low str). For anyone who hasn't played this game but intends to you really need to go big on a talking skill. So much of this game can be resolved with words instead of bullets that you need to select your "intellectual weapon" skill and treat it as importantly as your actual weapon skills. I also feel like science and/or repair are nearly as beneficial.

All in all I enjoyed this game but some parts of it really bothered me. Thankfully these things happened near the end of the game and didn't detract from my fun too much. In the last quarter of the game you have to pick a side amongst the various factions and there was seemingly no room for middle ground.

I spent nearly the whole game being buddy buddy with NCR. For my faction selection I wanted to go with Mr House. Then all of a sudden it seems like that decision ruins my relationship with NCR. Not only does this not make much sense given the realities of what Mr House wants but it also doesn't really jive with how I played the game until then.

While the severity of my NCR breakup was tempered by all the good stuff I did for them before, it certainly was presented to me as if I was gonna get shot on sight by them. To me this didn't make sense and underlies the games assumption that factions are all or nothing. In the case of NCR and Mr. House it is kind of silly because they already have an agreement to share vegas, ya know?

Beyond that I was subjected to some ridiculous dialog from House during his quest line. He monologues at length about how useless I was to him because of my relationship with NCR. The only reason NCR even had a problem with me was because of the stuff *HOUSE* had me do. That baffled me and seems like poor writing. I imagine many players would go from helping NCR to helping House so it seems like an omission to not acknowledge this in an alternate dialog branch.

So none of that is game breaking but while I did quite a bit in the game I ended up at the last boss around level 18. From some of the stuff I read online that is probably a little early. Given the difficulty of your last Legion opponent it certainly is too early from a combat point of view. Legate Lanius can choke on Caesar's power fist, in my opinion. Even with my Gun skill at 85 I couldn't come close to figuring out how to take him and his entourage down. I had Boone and ED-E with me and a Charisma of 9 (which pimps companion damage) and nothing worked out.

I ended up having to reload my SYSV save and then putz around the world finding quests I didn't do to get to level 19. This was a little boring for me at this point because I had already done so many side quests with my other characters before this last build.

Finally I hit level 19 and upped my speech skill to 99 (I had 10 int by this point). Putting on Benny's suit let me talk my way through the final encounter. That felt cheap to me and also seems like serious balance problems with the skill system. I had zero hopes of beating that dude with my offensive skill (Guns) at 85. Unfortunately Sneak is of zero use here because he is non-offensive at first and activated by proximity trigger, so no hope of ninja capping him except at long distance.

With winning by force off the table, my intellectual weapon (speech 100) let me talk my way out of it. I have a feeling that if I dumped my level 19 skill points into Guns that fight wasnt going to go much easier.

If I ever do play FNV again (and that wont be for awhile), I probably would dump sneak and go with rifles and maybe medium or heavy armor. For most of the game a sneaky pistol build is great but once you start running into heavily armored foes, it becomes a problem unless you can sneak attack them.

Before I get to the main portion of this post, how about some back story?

Last friday I got back from a trip to St Croix in the US Virgin Islands. A fantastic holiday with my wife to visit her brother.He lives on the beach on the ocean. Man, is that glorious!

While I was there, his roommate introduced me to Battlefield 3 on 360. I only played it a couple times but it was quite a bit of fun. This is a pretty big contrast to my experience with BFBC2 on PC when that first came out.By the time I had got into that game's multiplayer portion I was way behind the level curve and felt it immediately and profusely.The odds may have been stacked against my enjoying multiplayer.

I took my sweet time with BFBC2 singleplayer and vowed to complete that before getting into the multiplayer portion.By the time I did the PC community was full of players who had dedicated numerous weeks if not months to playing the game.A complete noob dropped into servers full of these players is destined to die and die often.I deleted the game after a few days of multiplayer sessions.

I have a couple places marked with spoiler tags.These areas discuss a particular narrative mechanism that some people may wish to learn of naturally.No part of this post reveals plot points.

Back to Battlefield 3.I had a lot of fun playing while in St Croix and decided to buy the game on 360.I haven't really done much multiplayer on 360 since Mass Effect 3 and felt like BF3 was a good place to satiate that appetite.So while I was still on holiday I had amazon ship me a copy of BF3 for 360. It arrived the day I returned home.

I've played multiplayer for about 10 hours since. I am rank 11 and a corporal 2 star at this point. Mostly in assault with a bit of engineer thrown in on maps where assault makes less sense. I've had a lot of fun.Tons.Being a noob was not nearly as painful on Xbox Live as it was on PC but it certainly was a challenge starting out. Currently I'm at a typical point in my multiplayer experience where I understand the game well enough to care how I perform.I t is at this phase where I can lose focus on having fun and focus too heavily on not dying. This causes frustration and starts to impede on my enjoyment.

To clear my mind I usually try to play singleplayer. With most games like this it works wonders. I usually bang out singleplayer pretty fast and then return to multiplayer reinvigorated. This break provides me with better insight into the game's mechanics but also it helps me keep in mind that I should be playing games to have fun. So when I come back to multiplayer I have a mind to enjoy myself in life and death. Have fun in success and in failure. With this game singleplayer is not doing it's job. I don't know that I've every said that I hate a singleplayer game but I'm getting perilously close with BF3 SP.

The thing that makes me refrain from declaring I hate this game is that the story seems genuinely interesting. I want to love this game for it's compelling narrative. The love stops there. The dislike starts when the game dynamics seem to be furiously trying to ensure I have as little fun as possible. The story is told in such a way that it represents an recounting of past events. I believe the decision to force the path of the story is the root cause for the game systems that have ruined this experience for me.

I keep telling my friends that I think DICE either did not hire or immediately fired whoever was in charge of making sure the singleplayer campaign was fun. Instead they hired someone to figure out how to frequently kill the player. Preferably in ways that require little input from the player and less indication that they might get killed by not doing something in a specific fashion.

The first couple missions were great. I enjoyed them and had fun.However I quickly noticed that there seemed to be a very powerful "negative feedback" system in place. Those who may remember the first roof area may recall being shot in the face because you didn't follow but instead ran for cover right away. If you were shot in the face you probably found yourself wondering "where the hell did that come from?"

So let me tell you why this game is a tough one to enjoy, despite the interesting story:

This game overuses "quicktime events". This is a situation where you lose full control of the character and instead must wait for button indicators to appear on the screen. Generally this is a fight sequence or a situation where the character is in physical danger. If you do not hit the right button in time the game is going to kill you. The button's have no real corresponding relation to movements you make in the game normally which makes these events seem incongruous. Usually B means interact with something but sometimes it means punch someone in the face? While A corresponds to your character jumping, sometimes it means "throw someone into a train". Right trigger means fire except when it means stab someone in the throat or kick them in the gut. Those seem pretty analogous to "Punch" and thus it makes little sense why the key is different.Unless of course you were trying to make something inherently inane more interesting.It reminds me of the electronic game I had as a kid called "Simon".The thing where you hit the colored buttons in the right order or you lose.That was the 80s.Why is this showing up in video games 30 years later?These wouldn't be so bad if the outcome wouldn't cause death and a reload.If the story must be told in a particular fashion why not just make a missed fight sequence go on a few punches longer or whatever?

So if those weren't in the game, I still would be complaining about it.Like no other game that I have played this game insists on a strict linear progression.Nearly every mission you're supposed to follow, take cover, chase or do something in a very specific path with specific timing.If you deviate from the path, flank the enemies when not instructed or generally think for yourself the game rewards you with nearly instant death.This can frequently happen if you do the right path except at the wrong time.This is another instance where the strict narrative approach is overbearing and detracts from enjoyment.

In my head I can see the discussion inside the game play developer meetings: "Well the guy is in the armed forces right?He doesn't have to think for himself, he has to follow orders.He should die if he doesn't listen".At least, I hope that is the underlying reason for the game mechanics we see at work.Either way this is part of the reason I say that the "FUN" guy got fired.

I also noticed too many instances bad AI and/or delicate fight scripting not working as intended.For example there was a mission in this office building atrium that underscored this repeatedly. Enemies spawn in unrealistic fashion and if one pays too much attention it becomes obnoxious.I would carefully inspect parts of the combat area to find them devoid of foes (check your corners and all).Then after crossing some invisible line, suddenly there were guys there.

As I fought my way to the ground floor of this atrium, friendlies had spawned behind enemies and would sit there and do nothing while the enemies shot only at me.Speaking of friendlies, I need to mention that it seems like 90% of their rounds are actually blanks.I rarely would see them kill enemies and frequently it was like my squad mates didn't exist to the AI.Is that great baddy AI and crappy friendly AI or just bad programming?Who knows but I noticed this very quickly and it pissed me off after awhile.

The final AI glitch in this area happened when I killed the last baddie but no objectives changed.It turns out a squad mate was back up on the second floor shooting at a corpse.Forever.I tried using my gun and then knife to re-corpsing the corpse with no change.I also tried stabbing, shooting and grenading my squad mate but "Friendly fire will not be tolerated".In keeping with the incongruous nature of this game, friendly fire was tolerated to a great extent and blatent indications to the contrary were not enforced.Finally a grenade next to the corpse unglitched the NPC shooting at him and then my objectives got updated.I believe this happened because it was the first enemy I killed in this area.Apparently I shot it earlier than I should have?Who knows.

Another big area of discontent for me is the artificial tension the scripting attempts to create.There was one part where some kind of small coupe vehicle with a suicide bomber takes about two dozen rounds from a 50cal machine gun to no avail.These same types of cars continue to take massive damage only to explode obviously after crossing a predetermined line.I am just now wrapping up a mission where the end involves the same 50cal ammunition have no impact on ground troops.I am clearly shooting them spot on and they keep running.Who comes up with this crap?It is bad game design and it isn't fun.Soldiers cannot stand 50cal short range bullet wounds.That shit blows limbs off.Just retelling this part of the game makes me shake my head.

The reasons to dislike the experience of Battlefield 3 are sadly many.I am going to finish this game if for no other reason than to give it every chance possible to redeem itself.At this point though, I'm going to go back to multiplayer relieved to be done with singleplayer.I should be feeling reinvigorated and well entertained instead I'm frustrated and counting the missions until I'm finally done.

I sincerely hope that no future Battlefield games take the design path that 3's singleplayer campaign has.Negatively enforced linear storytelling is at odds with the nature of a first person shooter and should be avoided when possible.