Battlefield 3

Having played the BETA on Xbox for a fair amount of time, I always thought that it was going to be a great game. However, I decided not to buy it initially and instead decided to invest in MW3. (what a waste of money that turned out to be...)

Having played Call of Duty since COD2, I've always been a heavy Call of Duty player and have competed at multiple European LAN events for the game, however, MW3 was such a dire game that I looked elsewhere for an FPS game that was entertaining, challenging and enjoyable.

BF3 is all of these things. I don't really play campaigns too often but decided to play this one right off the bat and it was certainly enjoyable, if a little short at times. But the game is not about the single player, that isn't the reason I purchased it.

Multiplayer.

There is so much involved in the multiplayer that it would be unjust of me to even attempt to sum it up in a review. If you're hesitant to purchase the game, rent it for a weekend and see how you get on with it and decide if its worth a full purchase. I don't regret buying it at all, I've played almost 26 hours worth of game time since buying it back in February and every session is enjoyable.

My only regret is not getting involved sooner, having spent 3 months on MW3 I feel like I've missed out on what could have been 3 great months on Battlefield.

To put things in perspective, I've owned all the Call of Duty and Battlefield games in the past, so I'm used to comparing the two. I've put hundreds of hours into COD games, it's a simple, addictive, polished kill fest.
Battlefield is a different beast.
Multiplayer is the arena where most players will spend most of their time, I haven't actually touched the campaign yet. Here are the things which have been most noticeable for me.

Firstly, teamwork. You can try and play the game like COD but that won't work. Constant streams of reward points flood in if you are doing your job right. Picture the scene; a fierce firefight for control of a flag - medics reviving downed players and laying down health packs, support gunners keeping enemy heads pinned down (the effect of a bullet narrowly missing your head is genuinely disorientating), engineers flaming rockets over your head into an tank, and snipers cracking shots into enemy melons from hundreds of metres away. The combined effect is immersive, loud and a bit scary. Just like war should be. (apart from the actual dying thing...)

Secondly, vehicles. These are genuine game-changers as opposed to pastimes. Just yesterday morning I faced the situation where my team were 2-1 down in terms of controlled flags of a map. So I jumped in a chopper with two other guys, cruised over to a contested flag and was having a dogfight with another helicopter as my teammates were parachuting out to secure the flag. No microphones involved, people just work together. And who doesn't want to fly a fighter jet?

Finally, it's not COD. Call of Duty have over the years produced some great games. However increasingly these games have only been great because a) you know exactly what you're going to get and b) everyone else is getting it so you're pretty much going to have to. By all accounts, Modern Warfare 3 is going to be a carbon copy of Modern Warfare 2, with new maps.

Try something different, I wont be buying COD!

I ummed and ahhed over whether or not to buy Battlefield 3. I have been playing Call of Duty since the very first release (way back) set in the early years of WW2 and the fluid, accurate and exciting gameplay created by Infynity Ward has always struggled to find a competitor. What Call of Duty did well was creating the illusion of being part of a bigger battle; of battling alongside your platoon mates in a realistic audio/visual rendition of warfare. The meat and potatoes of Call of Duty, however, was the multiplayer but I have found it has become skewered towards hardcore gamers who are constantly rewarded with perks and the games designers have made the maps result in mexican standoffs and funnelled battles.

So I bought Battlefield 3.

Let's get something out straight away: the single player campaign sucks. It's derivative and aimless. There are some gritty moments but I found myself constantly searching for trigger points to move the narrative along or waiting for an invulnerable squad mate to join me to enable a cut-scene. It just feels a bit...meh.

The multiplayer is, though, a revelation.

What I feel that it has captured is what Call of Duty has lost: the feeling of being part of a real battle, fighting alongside your team mates and rewarding objective taking rather than K/D ratios. There are a bunch of modes in MP but I feel that Rush Mode is the strongest and makes everyone play the 'long game' more than conquest. The game encourages teamwork and you can easily finish top of the scoreboard without killing anyone.

Also, the destructible environments add to the realism even further. Being a sniper in this game is doubly hard because of this as even if you find a nice spot on top of a building someone will fire an RPG at it and...well, no more top floor. Hiding behind a wall against a tank is also a temporary measure as they will just blow a hole in the wall. There is a limit to the destruction and that sometimes becomes frustrating as to why some things are destructible and some aren't. Some of the newer maps, though, are almost completely destructible.

The second thing which is great are vehicles. They take a little bit of getting used to, but they can help turn a battle. Just as in real life a tank can be a very powerful asset but in a town they are vulnerable from RPG attack and mines...but because of destructible environments they can quickly create a useful clearing and with a decent teammate as a machine gunner can be very dominant. My only criticism of the vehicles is that the choppers and jets are a bit tricky to fly...but there is no where to practice! No training modes, or empty maps - nothing. So you end up annoying your team mates by crashing your jet into a hillside every now and again.

Finally, the classes (Infrantry, Engineer, Recon and Support) each bring with them different strengths and weaknesses and you really have to think about which will be the most useful given the map and what vehicles it has.

There are some issues in that the VOIP service is very hit and miss...some games have negligible teamwork...and there is quite a bit of hanging around waiting for menus to do their thing...but overall this is a fantastic game that produces some amazing moments in multiplayer. Taking your first tank down is very satisfying...landing behind enemy lines and setting up a spawn point for the first time...defending a base to the death whilst running out of ammo...playing medic and keeping an entire squad healed and alive.

The thing is MW3 doesn't have any of these moments and that is why this is a better game.