Battlefield 3 (360/PS3/PC)

[englishbob]

Not usually one to watch stuff like that, but by the 1:50 mark I was in tears of laughter!

Odd thing is that he is quite like me, I never learn, I do like to run around and become impatient with staying put. But you have to move to win a game like Rush.

[teddymeow]

Bored of the single player now. It was going so well, gorgeous, amazing audio and the story was pulling me in proper Michael Bay OTT style. Out of nowhere though the games turned into a boring corridor shooter with dodgy checkpoints and enemies who can apparently see through walls. The lush graphics have disappeared too. Currently I'm running through a house with boxy furniture and glass that explodes like in early PS2 games.

Feels proper filler like.

Disappointed much.

[MrMarbles]

Bored of the single player now. It was going so well, gorgeous, amazing audio and the story was pulling me in proper Michael Bay OTT style. Out of nowhere though the games turned into a boring corridor shooter with dodgy checkpoints and enemies who can apparently see through walls. The lush graphics have disappeared too. Currently I'm running through a house with boxy furniture and glass that explodes like in early PS2 games.

Feels proper filler like.

Disappointed much.

You might as well finish it - you only have about twenty minutes of the game left by the sounds of it.

I thought the campaign was borderline rubbish really - from a design point of view, levels seemed incomplete; more like middle sections of missions rather than well-rounded ones. Some of them just seemed half-finished too, with ropey event triggers and AI issues like enemies and squadmates ignoring and running past each other on narrow stairwells, just so that the enemies could get in a position to shoot at me. There were plenty of general presentation issues that other shooters cope with far more admirably too: it's utterly immersion-breaking to have squadmates constantly barging me out of the way whenever I have the audacity to stand in their pre-scripted path (which, thanks to the narrow corridors for the most part, was pretty often), and heaven forbid I wish to take cover behind the same bit of wall that they do. Not really great having to wait ten seconds for stuff to load behind closed doors before one of the NPCs wakes up from their apparent stupor to allow you to proceed into the next area either.

Other peeves: invincible enemies when it wants you to lose in order to trigger a cutscene (the Miller stand-off, for example), instant deaths when you deviate even slightly from what the game wants you to do, frequently broken scripted events (best of all was when I approached a soldier from behind that the game wanted me to use a knife on - for some reason, an event in which he was meant to turn around and put up a brief struggle didn't trigger; instead, I just dropped dead for no reason as he carried on standing with his back turned, blissfully unaware of my fresh corpse lying about a foot behind him) and QTEs that just seem completely arbitrary compared to events happening on screen.

Oh, and the ham-fisted

->Open Spoiler<-

Usual Suspects-inspired

"revelation" towards the end just didn't work, as the player knew everything about the story and where it was headed long before that point. It's not like there's a "holy cow, it was right under my nose all along" twist or anything like that - just an "about time you caught up, Blackburn - well done" shrug.

Still, I fully understand that this game is all about the multiplayer. It doesn't stop it from feeling like a massive shame that they weren't able to cook up a barn-storming single-player with the awesome ingredients they had to work with, though, especially seeing as - pre-Medal of Honor and BC2 - EA was already pimping it as the new champion of FPS games. Considering it's a measly four hours long, you'd have at least hoped those four hours would be polished to a sheen (with the exception of Blackburn's dust-covered eyeballs, obviously).

[Baseley09]

Agree it's a bit dumb, seems a lot of it you don't have to do anything it just plays itself, then while you have fallen asleep its asked you to hit space or whatever and you die.

Very impressed with how well this game scales, running a 5770 on high getting 35fps average, ok so in the 60s would be ideal but it looks amazing and runs fine.....housemate has the 360 version which we've been playing and while in the main it looks like the same game, the overall graphical quality is quite reduced.

[Btang84]

Any maps people are enjoying? Caspian Border on Conquest is superb. It is big but the four points are spaced out nicely enough. My team commandeers a jeep rather than a tank as the speed is more important. If you have an engineer, always remember to place a bunch of AT mines at crossroads or other places that tanks are likely to come across. On maps like Caspian Border and Kharg Island it's free points aplenty.

Surprisingly, I find myself enjoying Conquest more than I do Rush. I was all about Rush on BC2 but here it the spacing in the maps really helps Conquest. I guess it helps that we always seem to do well on Conquest. Our session tonight ended with a 10-game winning streak in Conquest.

Playing with friends is too fun. For four nights running, we've pretty much been on this nonstop and there can't be too many multiplayer games that top this on this current generation. During this time, we've not had server issues apart from some slight lag but nothing serious at all.

Oh, one thing I've noticed is that I can tell who my teammates are better than I did in the Beta. For the final release have they changed the HUD elements such as the triangles? I can't remember. Spotting somebody does give an orange name now and I think that's new but not 100% sure.

[PeteJ]

Caspian seems to be the highlight, but I still haven't experienced half the maps so time will tell.

best of all was when I approached a soldier from behind that the game wanted me to use a knife on - for some reason, an event in which he was meant to turn around and put up a brief struggle didn't trigger; instead, I just dropped dead for no reason as he carried on standing with his back turned, blissfully unaware of my fresh corpse lying about a foot behind him

I had the same, and we aren't alone!


This is my favourite though, love how the guy comes back to open the door

[Spatial]

I'm still not sure about some of the balancing that's been done to this game.

Last night I jumped into a game Rossco was playing (and using to hone his helicopter skills) and at one point the enemy had basically managed to create an indestructible chopper by having an engineer (there might have even been two) in it.

The two of us were hammering it with SAM's and getting points for disabling it, but the thing would not go down. All in all I lost count at around six rockets and the thing was still going.

Plus the refill for Chaff rockets on jets is way too fast. I get that you primarily need Jet vs Jet to try and deal with them otherwise being a pilot wouldn't be much fun, but it's still a bit wonky, especially since there's no way to practice flying without being in a game.

I can see this getting really prohibitive for newcomers very soon at this rate.

[capcom_suicide]

Are the 360 servers working OK now? Think I'll pick it up on console after work today, have the evening free tomorrow and feel the need to share some server space with Spatial, TBM, Rossco, Boris, Pete and the boys! PC Is amazing, but I can live with lowered settings to have some BDF action!

As per the issue with Chaff, it was amusing parachuting and using a stinger to take down the other plane, you should try that next time.

[Spatial]

No chance, I only tried to pilot a plane once. Got to the end of the runway and went straight into a ditch, ending up in a ball of flames.

Servers seem to have been okay for me most of the time. Played over six hours worth since Friday and only one game had lag in it that made me quit out at the end of the round.

[Kaido]

Seems I'm the only one of my mates that can see lots of servers in the server browser, so it might be ping dependant or something. Takes a while to find a server empty enough (less than 15 players) that all three of us can join at the same time and be on the same team without queueing. They've been seeing only 2 or 3 servers every time they refresh...

EDIT: just remembered I put DICE in the search box on sunday and that was more successful

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

Single player was pretty good, altho I agree it did turn into a coridoor shooter towards the end & 1 section was a constant drag, then when I finally completed that section the game locked up. Luckily it had saved about a milisecond b4.
The action was defo dumbed down on the console versions tho.

Multiplayer - I've also found that its not me being awkward or imagining things or having tv issues with the way this plays. I put Bad Co 2 on last night & played the MP on it to discover that the button & stick response is super responsive compared to the delay I was getting with BF3.

Anyway I couldnt play the MP anymore without feeling a rage everytime so traded mine in for ?31 cash yesterday & glad I did. Will stick with the responsive Bad Co 2 for now.

[Largo]

Seems I'm the only one of my mates that can see lots of servers in the server browser, so it might be ping dependant or something. Takes a while to find a server empty enough (less than 15 players) that all three of us can join at the same time and be on the same team without queueing. They've been seeing only 2 or 3 servers every time they refresh...

EDIT: just remembered I put DICE in the search box on sunday and that was more successful

I think browser settings have something todo with it to, if you have a restrictive browser, then it wont show the servers pings, for example

[Harry]

A fairly decent guide can be found here:

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/battlefield-3

My favourite maps are Caspian Border, Kharg Island & Operation Firestorm as they are the biggest and are the only maps that offer jets.

Regarding the SV98 sniper rifle and people recommending it, unless I'm missing something, it's no more powerful than the MK11 but requires reloading after each shot. I hope you unlock a rifle that can 1 shot kill from chest upwards because sniping in this game is a pain in the arse.

[Largo]

is there a forum clan we could setup? apparently it makes the game a lot better playing with m8s

[Neon Ignition]

For me server connection is all over the place and there's plenty of mainly visual glitches. Anything less than a full 5 bar connection is a waste of time. There's been a steady improvement with connections over the last few days but if it's not sorted by next Tuesday its getting traded in for COD and I'll return to it when EA and DICE decide to sort out the issues rather than the patchy mess it is currently