Battlefield 3

This weekend I had time to play through the campaign of Battlefield 3 and since I made some fixes no crashes were to be had. The campaign was fine, but I would say a notch worse than the one in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The one in the aforementioned game was more tounge-in-cheek and had some fun characters, were the BF3 one feels like a failed attempt at recreating a Call of Duty campaign. Like many professional reviewers have mentioned, the interview meta-story with flashbacks is pretty much lifted from Black Ops. And while the jet flying-mission is really cool the gameplay in it has nothing to do with Battlefield, same with the quick-time events. There is a reason there was no campaign mode in Battlefield 1942, the first game of the franchise (except for playing with bots). The multiplayer is where these games shines and the reason you play them.

The multiplayer mode of BF3 is clearly a continuation of the one in BF2 and its strong points lie in things that were good in that one. There are a lot of small things to unlock, lots of weapons and gadgets to keep you playing for a long time. I can't help comparing this game to BFBC2 since that was the previous one, one that I really enjoyed and put a lot of hours into. BC2 has a more casual approach where BF3 goes for realism which I think is a bit of a negative. I have only played the BF3 multiplayer around six hours so it's a bit early to come to conclusions, but there was a spontaneous teamwork that appeared out of nowhere in BC2 that is not around in the same way in BF3. Also these games stand and fall with the maps available. When it comes to rush mode, maps with a lot of open spaces are not always a good idea since it becomes too easy for the defenders to just sit back and well, defend. Slightly more confined spaces are better since rush after all just is bomb defusion mode of Counter-Strike ported to Battlefield. In conquest mode large maps are fine since there is no front line where all the players are. I feel the maps in BF3 are not perfect, but with that being said I haven't played nearly enough to learn them so I could be wrong. Not all of the maps in BC2 were perfect either but overall they are better.

I must say that the problem with crashes I have had is really bad of DICE too. You shouldn't release an unfinished game is number one, two is the official support STILL haven't managed to solve the crash issues. Personally I did three different small fixes that I read about on forums at once, so I can't tell which one of them fixed the game for me, but it's really bad I had to go through that channel. Someone who is new to computer games likely wont have the knowledge or patience to scour forums for this kind of stuff, so they will likely return the game for their money back or not buy another BF game again.

Compared to BC2, the average skill level you encounter in BF3 is way higher which I also think is a problem. The only BF game I haven't played extensively is BF2, and in BC2 I almost always finished in the top three players, but I was struggling with BF3 and is just now starting to get the hang of it. It's a bit of a problem that the more you play the better weapons you get because the best players will have even more of an edge on the low-ranked or new players. Losing is never fun, even less so when you're constantly losing an unfair fight against opponents that are more skilled, have better knowledge of the maps which is crucial, AND have way more powerful upgrades.

Another problem with the points and rank system is that in rush when you play as a defender, it's correct to sit around and do nothing guarding the objectives. And this will more than often not gather you that many points. If you go after the attackers you are much more likely to get killed, and it's way easier for the opponents to slip past you and plant the explosives.

BF3 is still a very good game and I will play it for hours to come, but all things considered I feel it's a downgrade from BC2 which is unfortunate. Realism in computer games has never been directly related to a good game experience (try a flight sim with 100 % realism if you don't believe me), and I think that's the only thing holding BF3 back. If it was a just a few notches less "hardcore" it would be an even more enjoyable experience even though the BF2 purists would probably beg to differ.