Game Title: Battlefield 3
Game Genre: Action, First Person Shooter
Console(s): Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Publisher: Electronic Arts. Sega (Japan)
Developer: EA Digital Illusions CE
Date Released: October 25th, 2011 – November 2nd, 2011
Retail Price: $60 USD, £40 GBP, $100 AUD.
Age Rating:: PEGI: 16 - USK: 18 – ESRB: M – ACB: MA 15+
Players: Single player, 2-24 online multiplayer
Co-Op: Yes
Achievements: 48 known achievements
Xbox Live Compatable: Yes
Online Multiplayer: Yes
Xbox System Link: No
HDTV Support: Yes – 1.5 GB install.
Previous Edition: Battlefield II
Visuals & Graphics..The HD graphics really do amp up the game as it should. 1.5 GB of Hard Drive is quite out there for just graphics. But it does make everything a lot more defined and outlined with shadows falling the way they should… But it does add a nice aesthetic finish to the game.
And with the nice HD graphics you’d finally think they’d create a lot more cooler enemies in their respective uniforms, but no. Absolutely not. Most often, enemies are in simple casual wear such as shorts and a t-shirt looking like they were out for a casual walk on the street and figured to join in on all the shootouts on the streets. And while most are simple cut and pasted a few dozen times, they still resemble your own troops. This causes problems when you are low on health and you’re being attacked from all sides and you turn to take an enemy down with you… And all you get is a blatant warning that Friendly Fire will not be tolerated. This can be really frustrating at points and I feel that it may have reduced the enjoyment of the game.
But oh, the lighting… Sometimes you wish you ate enough carrots so that your eyes would pierce the pixelated darkness of the game and see what exactly they’re trying to hide in the shadows and other times you wish you brought a pair of ski goggles. The most annoying thing in all of Battlefield would be its lighting problems. The first mission had shadowy areas mainly since the only light source came from a small knee-high window in one corner, but why not add an extra feature for a flashlight option? Even playing the game with the brightness turned to the max did nothing. The only apparent way to gain a flashlight is to find a weapon that has one mounted AND switched on. But then it always disappears when you swap weapons which completely defeats its purpose. but in other levels, the lighting was so bright that it completely voided my screen and made it impossible to spot oncoming soldiers and whether or not they were dead. One flare in particular was so bright, there were even those light bars that are visible when you try and zoom up close on a bright object. It was a good idea to include extra lighting so that we wouldn’t need a flash light or night vision, but it was a bad screw up to make it so bright, it blinds you.
b]Visuals & Graphics Rating:[/b]
5/10Achievement Difficulty..Most achievements in Battlefield 3 are straightforward and can usually be done on the way to other objectives. But to get some of the achievements require thinking outside the box and a good exploration of your environment. Such as one required you to shoot two guys underneath a building before the building collapsed and the other was to push a car off a ledge and squash two cocky rebel soldiers underneath. The car was fun. The shooting of people, not so much.
Achievement Difficulty Rating: 8/10Story Mode / Campaign Difficulty..Now this is where all the fun began. To be frank, there is almost no difference in difficulty. Apart from the fact that you can take less shots to the face as the difficulty increases, the game still doesn’t like to ease up on you. In fact, there are many scenarios which involve an unforgiveable instant kill outcome if you so much as crouch behind a barrier. Because snipers in hotel blocks 50 meters back can shoot through concrete barriers and shoot you in the head if you so much as put your head up a millimetre.
The storyline is much reminiscent that of Call of Duty: Black Ops I where the player is kept in an interrogation room and is interrogated by the FBI. It’s not an original storyline as it also involves playing though the game through a means of flashbacks, each one building up to the modern day scene which is hinted at the opening scene of the game. There are other plot ideas that seem to have been taken from Call of Duty also, such as the nuke idea in Call of Duty 4 and the rail airstrokes that are so common with the Modern Warfare series. And frankly, I am disappointed by this. I know Battlefield is better than this and would have better ideas as a driving story plot, but this one is severely disappointing, in my own opinion.
Story Mode / Campaign Difficulty Rating: 5/10Game Depth & Navigation Details..As for depth, Battlefield 3 just didn’t suck me in as well as other modern day shooters do. I never felt connected to the protagonist as much as I did to the protagonist in CoD: Black Ops I who I felt the need to actually keep alive and shooting to discover what happened next. The main protagonist in Battlefield 3 seems a lot more distant and far from being involved. The only tones of voice that were variable were angry and neutral/calm which fails to make me interested in the character for that reason. And no interest = no motivation.
Navigation is… tricky. Since Battlefield thinks the idea of destructible cover is such a wonderful idea, all cover, regardless of its actual building material is chipped away with a few placed shots from the enemies. Which always makes you scuttle from car to car and sandbag emplacement to sandbag emplacement but eventually you get picked off by snipers and soldiers with semi-automatic shotguns which are capable of taking you down after three shots on even the easiest difficulty.
In brief, the storyline is but skin deep and the navigation is horrible at times.
Storyline Depth & Navigation Details Rating: 6/10Value For Money..I hear the Battlefield fans screaming now about how it’s more of a multiplayer structured game and that you can’t base everything on single player alone. Grated, the multiplayer aspect is what draws many new gamers to it, but don’t players ever feel… bored of repetition?
To me, shooting people on the same map is tiring. When more effort is put into the multiplayer than the single player, a game does lose all interest in me. But I expected more out of Battlefield for the $60 NZD I spent on it and I was disappointed on recycled ideas and themes from other games.
Value For Money Rating: 6/10Ratings Round-Up..Visuals & Graphics: 5/10Achievement Difficulty: 8/10Story Mode / Campaign Difficulty: 5/10Game Depth & Navigation Details: 6/10Value For Money: 6/10Overall Rating: 30.0/50
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Good review, but I don't agree with it all :)
!!, Will try it once my exams gets finished. 