Battlefield 3 [Review]

FULL REVIEW

In case you didn’t get the memo, there's a war goin’ on. Now, before you panic, grab your poodle and porn and head to the nearest bunker, this war is being fought on various battlefields online. In this war, with each passing day, scores of boys enlist to become men and take the fight across massive warzones. This war is called Battlefield 3 and it is entirely virtual. With Modern Warfare 3 just around the corner, is Battlefield 3 a force to reckon with, or will it get blown away in the shockwave of the new Call of Duty launch?

EA’s Battlefield series has been around for quite some time, having gained recognition with the Bad Company games that were set in World War 2. However, the main Battlefield vein is set in modern times in modern conflict zones, and is thankfully everything you have hoped for.

Battlefield 3’s single-player campaign takes place in the year 2014, and like Modern Warfare series and the killing of Osama, the campaign focuses on neutralising Middle East terrorist scum by the triumphant US Marines. Let’s not forget, against impossible odds. The single-player campaign is quite standard, with enough bang and boom in it to get you by. Lot of action sequences feel like you have seen it before. There are plenty of "wow" moments too. The killer opening sequence on a fast subway train comes first to mind.

Let’s face it though, the single-player campaign isn't what you’re going to be buying this game for. In fact it feels just customarily tacked on just to give you the feel of the games weapons and mechanics. Think of it as a highly charged bootcamp for the real war. The meat and potatoes of Battlefield 3 is the multiplayer, and that’s where you’ll be spending most of your waking hours.

With every subsequent AAA game, developers have been pushing the envelope in creating the perfect war online and now with Battlefield 3 they’ve pushed that oft pushed envelope very, very far. Just like the name of the game, DICE has succeeded in creating some of the hugest battlefields ripe for some good ol’ conflicting.

Your entire Battlefield experience takes place on your web browser through DICE's Battlelog, a web portal where you can keep track of your stats, interact with your buddies in chat and a Facebook-like feed, manage your squad and plan your tactics. All of the maps are just a click away. You can quick jump into any game, or with your party you can choose your server based on the map you want to play, and jump right in.

You can assume one of the four infantry types, support, medic, scout and assault and get in the game. What sets Battlefield apart from the other games is what you can do on the field. You can jump into any of the variety of vehicles available and drive into the fray, guns blazing. Some vehicles like tanks require multiple people to operate the turrets and machine guns. Apart from land vehicles, you also go marine in boats as well as take to the skies in choppers, gunships and jets to provide air support for ground units. This feature alone makes Battlefield worth the price tag, and makes it not one of the best multiplayer games on the market today, but *the* best multiplayer game on the market today.

Battlefield games have always been built with complete and utter destruction in mind. The new Frostbite 2 engine is capable of rendering large beautiful environments and everything within can be blown to smithereens, and they blow up real good. This adds a new layer to the strategy. Pack enough firepower into a structure and it will fall like a pack of cards on the heads of soldiers hiding within. Firefights in the streets of cities have you and your squad ducking and running through very realistic alleys, as bullets rain in from all directions, blowing off chunks of concrete. You know you cannot hide behind cover for too long, because bullets will whittle it down to nothing.

Each of the large maps have multiple ways of approach. You can grab a vehicle and knock on the front door, or you can go right around, braving the terrain, sneaking and picking off the enemy. You can also serve to support the main assault players as they rush, you can pilot troop transports as well as helicopters to deploy units quickly into the fray.

The multiplayer systems have an astounding level of depth. Just like an RPG, your soldier levels up. Not only do you get rewards for being in a winning team,  even the losers get XP. As support infantry, you can drop ammo and medical supplies to gain easy XP. With each kill, or even if you were driving support to a really good gunner, you share the kill XP. The game rewards you for excellent teamwork, the spoils of war are enjoyed by everyone. With each rank up, you get better guns and equipment to outfit your player class. This feature keeps you coming back for more. So planning with your buddies before entering into a certain map is recommended.

There are quite a few multiplayer modes, but the one you will be playing most are the Conquest modes. Massive 64 player battles across sprawling terrain. The object is to annihilate the opposing team by capturing multiple flags and holding them. The team with the most flags wins. Another popular mode is Rush, where you and your squad rush the enemy, preferably screaming.

The Frostbite 2 engine is fantastic and functional. In addition to generating the aforementioned huge maps for multiplayer mayhem, it also fills them with gorgeous and astounding detail. There is so much depth in each frame that if you stand still, it’s hard to tell you’re actually looking at a game. Not only that, the engine has some impressive post-processing effects for the sun glare on vehicles and gun muzzles, the light hitting the runway or in the indoor night portions, the lens flares of the lights on the glass of your visor. Again, the engine renders some incredible explosions and debris. Battlefields are filled with dust as vehicles drive by, reducing your map awareness and visibility. Making enemies harder to spot is a great tactical challenge, and a bit more believable.

The sound design also takes a huge portion of the cake, starting with brilliant music in the opening portions and menu. The maps themselves sound fantastic, with weaponry echoing in the distance, the familiar clatter of machine guns. The explosions send concrete thudding and metal clinking around you. As you pass by smouldering wrecks, you can hear the fire crackling through thick tank hulls. A good pair of headphones is recommended, or better yet, a 7.1 surround system.

As of writing this review, the game was quite buggy on a few PCs. The Nvidia drivers too are a bit kooky, as quite a few times I have had my system freeze because of overheating of my GeForce 480GT, or simply shutting off in the middle of a heated firefight and sending me back to battlelog. Both Nvidia and DICE seem to be hard at work addressing this, you can look forward to a stable game in the near future.

Battlefield 3 is a multiplayer magnum opus. Whatever it looses out on with the sparse single-player, it layers on in tons with the chunky, fun and addictive multiplayer. I foresee a lucrative run for EA in the future, with the release of map packs. So if you’re in the market for some kickass multiplayer and one of the best looking FPSes, look no further.