(Source)
Well gents, the much awaited BF3 is finally here, and I've been taking some time off from college in order to play it at home.
Now for those of you who know me, I am a huge proponent of Battlefield. I wrote a damn post on all of the games for crying out loud.
However, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed by some facets of the game. I hate to be that guy, but the single-player was definitely lacking in a lot of ways. Anyway, below I'll put my brief review of it so far, as I've only been able to play it for a couple of days.
The Christening: First of all, I should probably state that I got the Xbox 360 version of the game..yes, yes I know..I'm a n00b fart. I love PC gaming and I'll always be a PC gamer at heart...but I just don't have a good enough computer anymore or the salary to pursue maintaining one.
One of the worst aspects of PC gaming that I ran into was stupid, freaking problems. I was assuming by getting the 360 version I'd be escaping all the bs of invalid activation codes, massive glitchy frame drops, etc. etc. etc. fill in the blanks. Thus, it was a dissapointment to find that straight from the beginning my activation code for online play....which I had preordered by the way...was "invalid".
Well...this is a familiar feeling. (Source)
Alright. This shouldn't be happening. It especially shouldn't be happening for the Xbox...this was a problem I was hoping to avoid by getting the 360 version.
The more I looked into it, I guess this was a widespread problem. I was able to get the code to finally work eventually by following a different path than the in-box instructions..I probably should have checked to make sure I was getting my "Limited Edition Physical Warfare" pack, but I was so happy the online play was finally working I didn't bother to check.
We'll follow up on multiplayer later in this post though, I want to first talk about single-player.
Single-player: As I've stated before, Battlefield has not usually been a story-driven game.
I'm torn in my response to Battlefield 3's story line.
I want to root for the game so badly! I want it to beat Call of Duty! But my love for Battlefield was checked pretty badly by the single-player experience.
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SPOILERS ARE TO FOLLOW
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There..that way you can't say I didn't tell you so.
I did not notice any problems with the single-player in the beginning, and there certainly were sequences of it that I enjoyed even later....but this shit was confusing as hell. The wikipedia plot summary below gives a pretty clear plot synopsis that comes off as concise and creative...
"Set in 2014,[25] SSgt Blackburn leads a five-man squad on a mission to locate, find and safely return a US squad investigating a possible chemical weapons site, whose last known position was a market controlled by a hostile militia called the PLR. Blackburn and his squad is later sent to Tehran to apprehend a high-value target named Al-Bashir. While investigating an underground vault in a local bank, Blackburn and his team learn that the PLR had access to Russian portable nuclear devices, and that two of the devices are missing. Being overrun and requesting for back-up, an M1 Abrams convoy led by Sergeant Miller is deployed to extract Blackburn's team. Miller facilitates Blackburn's helicopter extraction, but is captured when waiting for a Quick Reaction Force. Miller is promptly executed by Solomon and Al-Bashir and recorded on a video file.
Later, Blackburn and his squad manage to capture a wounded Al-Bashir, who realizes Solomon betrayed him and reveals his plot to detonate the nukes in Paris and New York before dying. Blackburn's team also gets a lead on arms dealer Kaffarov, who was working with Solomon. However while pursuing Kaffarov, the Americans encounter a massive Russian force, who are also attempting to apprehend Kaffarov and are hostile towards the Americans. Almost all of Blackburn's squad is killed while a Spetsnaz team led by Dima assaults Kaffarov's villa. Dima successfully interrogates Kaffarov, confirming Solomon's plot to Blackburn. To facilitate Dima's escape, Blackburn is forced to shoot his commanding officer. As a result, Blackburn is captured and interrogated by agents within theCentral Intelligence Agency and explains all of his previous operations to them in flashbacks. During Blackburn's capture, Dima attempts to stop the attack in Paris, but his team gets wounded in the resulting detonation. However, the CIA agents do not believe Blackburn's story, since Solomon is a CIA informant and there is no concrete proof of his involvement in the terrorist attacks. They instead believe that Russia is responsible for the attacks and that Dima had fooled Blackburn.
Left with no other option, Blackburn and surviving squad member Montes break out of captivity to stop the attack in New York. Solomon shoots Montes, but Blackburn manages to kill Solomon in the resulting melee, as well as recovering the last nuclear device. Having been diagnosed with radiation poisoning, Dima writes about the efforts of both him and Blackburn to stop Solomon's plot. He then readies his gun when a knock is heard at his door." (Source).
..but playing through it? I remember asking myself "Did I miss something? Who the fuck is Dima?" If the story had been told in a linear fashion like above, I probably would have enjoyed it more. Flash-forwards and flash-backs are creative and fine...if they're done properly. You're just thrust into Dima's role and play as him as he tries to defuse the nuke in Paris, but you aren't properly introduced.
The story line as it plays out in the game is all over the place. You start out fine...attempting to stop Solomon on a subway train, which stops half-way through and then places you in an interrogation room "8 hours earlier". Which is perfectly okay, it increases your interest in what led the protaganist to this conclusion by offering up a "teaser trailer" of events to come if you will. The next few missions make sense as well, we're introduced to what the main character (SSGT Blackburn) was doing during the war, there's an earthquake and he has to evade enemies at night.
Now the plot starts to jump around a bit. Mission #4, labeled "Going Hunting", is introduced in (what I personally thought) the dumbest way possible. One of the CIA interrogators asks Blackburn to tell him "about his interactions with Lieutenant Colby Hawkins", who Blackburn replies he does not know. Apparently he should, because "as you went in, she took part in an airstrike on Al-Bashir".
This is stupid. There are other ways to incorporate jet game-play into the game. Why are you asking a member of the Marine Corps infantry if he knows some obscure Navy pilot, when they are doing completely different jobs? So you've introduced to the player a pilot that holds no other relevance to the game other than that...yay..I get to by a pilot gunner for a mission. There's no reason to ask Blackburn if he knows "Lieutenant Hawkins"...they never met, nor have they ever talked to one another.
Alright so sweet. Random character interjection and then we're back to where we want to be: on the ground with Blackburn...where we find the suitcase nukes in a bank vault. Alright...so here's were I got confused. Next mission the CIA interrogators ask you "so you don't know what happened in Paris" as an excuse to get you to play out the events of Paris as Dima.
There's one slight problem however. I don't know who Dima is. Blackburn acknowledges that he knows who he is, a Russian Spetsnaz operator. But at this point we don't know how they know one another, so you're just thrown into the streets of Paris as Dima...saying.."well this is a fun level, but I'm really just going along for the ride." Realism wise, it does not make sense why there are so many terrorists you have to dispatch throughout the parking garages, streets and buildings of Paris. This isn't a terrorist attack, its a Goddamn invasion. The gameplay is very Call of Duty-ish in this regard..the game just throws bodies at you, which really doesnt make much sense due to the serious story-line.
So after Paris we're introduced to "Miller", as he kicks ass and then some as a tank driver/all around "Miller, go do that even though its not in your job description." The introduction of Miller, unlike LT Hawkins, actually makes sense. He provides cover for Blackburn and the other Marines as they escape the bank with the tactical nuke. Miller is overrun and captured however: The next sequence hits a little too closely to home; we see from his perspective his own execution in front of a terrorist's video camera.
Mission 9 finds Blackburn and the Marines going after Al Bashir himself. This was another hiccup in the plot for me. I know its all good and fun to have your character be in the center of main events in a fictional conflict, but Blackburn isn't SF...he's just some random Marine who happens to be competent in a wide variety of very....SF-like disciplines. Great, you found a nuke in a bank vault. That doesn't mean that Higher Up should grant you and your CO the green light to go on a special misison to find the head terrorist leader. They aren't spearheading a battalion level force here....its 7 guys from some random Marine unit going on a mission that, in all reality, should be done by DEVGRU or Delta, or Green Berets, or PJs...heck you name it.
Anyway, the next two missions, "Rock and a Hard Place" and "Kafarov" introduce us to the events that led to Dima and Blackburn meeting, which set off the events in Paris and the reasons why Blackburn is in an interrogation room. These missions, especially "Kafarov" were the most enjoyable I thought. Kafarov is a Russian arms dealer who is responsible for the nukes getting into Al-Bashir/Soloman's hands, and the Russians and Americans are both trying to get him at the same time...which leads to some "black opsy" like confliction, with offensive actions against both sides being taken, but not necessarily starting a war.
Anyway, Dima and his Spetsnaz buddies have gone ahead of the main Russian forces to go get Kafarov at his villa (complete with some awesome firefights tearing up the plush place with shotguns and even shooting through a training "kill house", wear you have to decipher between metal plate targets and the real guys popping up), with Blackburn/whats left of the Americans (3 people) eventually getting there. Long story short, Dima and Blackburn exchange words, saying that WWIII will happen if Solomon's plot (to set off nukes in Paris/New York) occurs, as the blame will be placed on Russia. Dima has to get to Paris asap, and Blackburn is forced to kill his CO for the greater good in order for Dima to not be captured.
However, because Dima failed to stop the nuclear attack in Paris, and because all evidence to collaborate Blackburn's claims of what happened thus far have been destroyed through a number of means, the CIA reasonably believes that Russia is responsible, and that Dima just played Blackburn.
That makes sense, and it is a good storyline...however it took us the whole game to get to that conclusion. The plot has been all over the map at this point, and this final clarity unfortunately doesn't do much to appease you for the previous confusion. The ending is even worse. Everyone in Homeland Security in the Battlefield Universe needs to be fired. Its believable that Solomon could get his hands on a train with a few of his cronies..but finding that there are still waves of terrorists you have to dispatch......in the fucking sewers...after you escape the train....that's not believable. What were they all doing there in the first place? Anyway you do stop Solomon and, I personally interpreted it as you stop the nuke from going off..but there's some speculation amongst the gaming community. However Dima's fate is unknown. He has radiation poisoning and is writing about Blackburn/him stopping WWIII, but then he starts talking about death and looking at a gun...and then there's a knock on the door and a fade to black. Sooo...he doesnt seem like the type to commit suicide..so who the heck is after him? Whats with the knock on the door? The ending in simple terms: stupid, inconclusive, and now I don't know what to think about what happened.
Gameplay: Alright so the plot, while slightly annoying, was not my only grievance with the single-player. There were a lot of glitches. Like, "laggy and my xbox froze so I have to restart it" kind of glitches. Why is this happening? I'd expect that more from Multi-player..not whats supposed to be a finely tuned single-player...this isn't supposed to be a Beta-Demo.
You can tell that the developers really wanted to show off the graphics..but maybe a little too much. It was incredible hard at some points to fire on enemies when you couldnt see them..not from the glare of their flashlights or laser sights, but from regular street lights. Why is there so much fricken glare? Do people in Iran install gigantic fog-lights above all of their doors? It got aggravating after a point...like I get it..the graphics are awesome...but now you're beating me to death with them.
Besides all the negatives I had about the campaign, there were certain levels I know I'll be revisiting. The levels with Dima: Paris and Kafarov, are fucking awesome. There were some cool levels with some sweet firefights. The selective fire adds another level of realism and the weapon options were plentiful.
I can't rate the overall single-player campaign as a fantastic experience however. I can't be that blind fanboy who says it was "the best thing in the world"...I hate to say it, but at this point I'm actually looking forward to the MW3 campaign.
Multi-player:
While I was disappointed in the single-player, the multi-player was just as I'd expect. The multi-player was the aspect of Battlefield that put the game series on the map in the first place anyway, and it doesn't fail to entertain in BF3. I could go on for hours about how I enjoy Battlefield online play much more than COD, but I'll spare you, this post has already gotten wicked long. The only cons I've found so far was the helicopter controls having been changed (I'm pretty sure) from BF: BC2, which lead me to crash many a number of times, and the HUD being a little bit confusing at points. I'm sure things will get better as I get more used to the maps and the added controls of jet and helicopter warfare, but those cons are greatly outweighed by the rest of online play.
Conclusion:
I can not grade both the multi-player and single-player together as the same games. They aren't. Maybe DICE was aware the single player was lacking, for the 360 its a two-disc game, with Disc One being Multiplayer. That's the main emphasis of the game, and its the strongest component.
With all the plot BS, glitches and not much originality with the COD like AI just frontal assaulting you with body waves, I'd say overall single-player has to come within the "C" Range. And by that I mean C-. I was really dissapointed with the campaign gameplay overall. On the select few missions that were awesome, and didn't bug up-I'd give them some solid A's. There weren't enough of these however to save the single-player as a whole though.
Multiplayer: Hey...I have to give it a 10/10. It's classic BF online play, and the graphics are sick. It's a total A+ in my book.
That pretty much sums up my review, I'll be sure to do one of MW3 (whenever I end up getting it) and try to compare the gameplay off one another.
But until next time,
As always,
--Fin--
