Battlefield 3

[edyzmedieval]

The launch is just around the corner, on the 25th of October. The game is definitely one to purchase, so who will be getting this seemingly amazing FPS?

[Graphic]

I'd have pre-purchased it by now if the alpha or the beta ran at a playable framerate.

4 years with this PC (with a 2009 graphics card from my 8800 taking a dump) and its the first game that's unplayable that wasn't just a wretched console port. It was a nice run *sniff*

[Monk]

The netcode was unplayable in beta*, an absolute glitchy mess that wouldn't register your shots half the time. The other half you'd see people getting killed before the person who killed them even stopped sprinting and decided to shoot. I heard they did some work post beta, but the launch of bad company 2 comes to mind. Its beta was largely the same as BF3's: unplayable, glitchy, and filled with oddities that only served to frustrate. At release it was hardly any better.

I'm staying far away from BF3 until DICE decides to get their act together. I don't doubt that in about a year BF3 will be worth a look.


*oddly, it was way better in alpha. What the hell did they do?

[Kekvit Irae]

You have to be in a match to change options.
You have to have a supercomputer to play it.
No in-game server browser.

nope.jpg
I'll stick to BF2 and BF:BC2.

[easytarget]

pre-ordered and pre-loaded at this point

say what you want, but the simple fact is this, MP games have a shelf life, unlike SP, if you want to play them and enjoy them, you have to enter into the bargain at release, play and enjoy them with a large population cross section of talent and ramp your unlocks along with everyone else, it's more like a ride and you've got to get on early

if you don't, you'll most likely get to enjoy spending most of your time in the company of hardcore no lifer cretins

sad but true, MP has an enjoyment curve, i've seen it repeated countless times since the origins of MP w/ quake2

put my theory to the test, dust off an old copy of Q2, Q3 Arena, TFC or for that matter CS - log in and report back how often you find yourself re-spawning

[Risasi]

I think it looks sweet, alas I don't have a small fortune to spend on it. I'm trying to budget for the Ivy Bridge Macbook Pro. Looks like I will have to stick to BF 2 and Project Reality.

---
P.S. I see it's rated M now. I don't mind the blood so much, it's the strong language. That's too bad. I actually keep spare copies around to play with friends and their kids. I think I'll definitely stick to BF2...

[edyzmedieval]

CSS still has a very loyal fanbase so that game has almost no shelf life, it will always be played and in high numbers.

CS aside, I'm looking forward to both SP and MP in BF3.

[CountArach]

I'm looking forward to it, for sure. I really just want a new decent multiplayer FPS on PC.

[LeftEyeNine]

OK now that makes me special.

I'm the first human being not enjoying any multiplayer FPS other than CS series.

[easytarget]

Take heart, it's special in a good way.

Btw, ever check out RO or RO2? If you liked CS, you might like the realism of those two.

[LeftEyeNine]

RO as in Red Orchestra ?

[easytarget]

Oh, yeah, sorry, Red Orchestra.

[edyzmedieval]

Check the vids.

[easytarget]

launches at mid-night, probably run into lvl 50's when i finally get a chance to play this weekend

[edyzmedieval]

Any thoughts on the game post-release?

[Kekvit Irae]

So I finally caved and started playing it. The campaign is HORRIBLE. It's just one big quick time event after another. You get into a QTE battle with a rat. A RAT. I kid you not.
Battlefield [E] is one big insult to the franchise. I had much more fun playing Bad Company 2's campaign than this.

On the multiplayer side, it's Battlefield. What more can I say?
Unfortunately, your most important class abilities are locked until you can rank up, so no using the defib as a medic until you score some kills. The most insulting part is that you don't get flares or missiles in jets or helicopters until you get some rank ups. This means that unless you are extremely lucky and get a few kills with your crappy chaingun (which is virtually worthless against ground targets), you are WORTHLESS to your team if you jump in a jet. Considering that 99% of all engineers on the map will have Stinger missiles (your first class unlock for engies), you're a sitting duck without flares.


My thoughts: Unless you enjoy being blinded by the lighting effects, having class roles that play more like Call of Duty until you rank up, and playing REALLY horrible maps (Conquest Metro comes to mind), stick with BF:BC2 or BF2. At least they don't insult the Battlefield legacy the same way BF3 does.

[Risasi]

That really is too bad to hear this report...

[LeftEyeNine]

So I finally caved and started playing it. The campaign is HORRIBLE.

No BF3 for me then.

[CrossLOPER]

You get into a QTE battle with a rat. A RAT. I kid you not.

Hantavirus is no laughing matter.

[easytarget]

Any thoughts on the game post-release?

I've been playing it since it released (and in the alpha and beta) and find it to be pretty much what I expected. That's usually the key for me with games I know a lot about, to enjoy them I ignore the hype and focus on what I'm likely to actually get on release.

In this case, that was pretty easy, I knew what I was going to get was Bad Company 3 (and not Battlefield 3). I knew the SP portion would be a joke not worth ever firing up (I won't be), I knew the co-op would be worth running through (I haven't yet, but I will at some point), and I knew the only reason to buy the game was to play MP.

So, for the very few souls here who would ever bother contemplating an MP FPS, here's my short take on it:

It's class based modern warfare, there are a variety of weapons available (none of which are nearly as hard to obtain as previously mentioned above) for each class, for each vehicle, and for each plane/chopper. Whether this is a well thought out and balanced way to implement a team based MP game is a topic for another discussion, but suffice it to say its prevalence now is so overwhelming it has even infected what I personally consider one of the best team based MP games ever made, Team Fortress 2. Like achievements, which I also consider a gaming virus with little to no redeeming qualities, the unlock business appears to be here to stay. Honestly, with hundreds ultimately available, I find it really hard to believe they've been play balanced.

The teams that win usually do so because the players on their side focused on their classes strengths in pursuit of the objective (taking and holding control points). Which at least means that when you play, you are never really shocked by the arbitrary outcomes, the AI isn't cheating, it's just your team got beat by a better performing opposing team. And there can be quite a bit of fun to be had in the firefights that break out in a fluid front that's ever changing as the control points move back and forth between the two opposing forces. The game has issues with lag that need to be resolved (throwing around all that eye candy is not something DICE has completely figured out), the teammates you are paired with may or may not be effective or work together (just as in any MP game), the maps and weapons need tweaking, all the usual stuff that comes up at launch.

I've found it to be pretty entertaining so far, but as I said at the top, I came to it knowing what I was getting, and got what I expected.

[Vuk]

So I finally caved and started playing it. The campaign is HORRIBLE. It's just one big quick time event after another. You get into a QTE battle with a rat. A RAT. I kid you not.
Battlefield [E] is one big insult to the franchise. I had much more fun playing Bad Company 2's campaign than this.

On the multiplayer side, it's Battlefield. What more can I say?
Unfortunately, your most important class abilities are locked until you can rank up, so no using the defib as a medic until you score some kills. The most insulting part is that you don't get flares or missiles in jets or helicopters until you get some rank ups. This means that unless you are extremely lucky and get a few kills with your crappy chaingun (which is virtually worthless against ground targets), you are WORTHLESS to your team if you jump in a jet. Considering that 99% of all engineers on the map will have Stinger missiles (your first class unlock for engies), you're a sitting duck without flares.


My thoughts: Unless you enjoy being blinded by the lighting effects, having class roles that play more like Call of Duty until you rank up, and playing REALLY horrible maps (Conquest Metro comes to mind), stick with BF:BC2 or BF2. At least they don't insult the Battlefield legacy the same way BF3 does.

Thanks for the review Kekvit, it sounds like everything I feared it would be. Another brilliant computer gaming franchise hiked away by the console hype. I really hope that it fails, and that they learn their lesson. I mean, aren't there enough BS console titles out there without them having to ruin the computer games? BF was one of my favorite franchises, and ever since BC2 (I don't say BC 1 because it WAS both fun and funny, but it could have been much more so), it has been garbage.

[easytarget]

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, everything viewed backwards in time becomes a long lost gem. BF was ok, it certainly wasn't the team based magical place it's now made out to be (imho). I've seen better team based behavior in TF2 or RO. As for the current dire straights team based FPS find themselves in, well, you can lay that one squarely at the feet of the 800pd gorilla sucking all the air out of the room: COD.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!


So I went to go on BF3 the other day..... And It said something about I would need (error message you see) DirectX 10.0 or something or if I had such and such another thing I would need DirectX 10.1.


I mean, I got 6 gig of RAM and basically most if not all of the hardware requirements so I don't know what is going on......

HELP??

[easytarget]

Not sure I understand the problem, if you need DX to run the game, it should install it when you attempt to load it up the first time, just like every other game I've ever played.

Perhaps you're attempting to run the game on an older graphics card that won't run dx10 or dx11?

What vid card you got?

[Vuk]

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, everything viewed backwards in time becomes a long lost gem. BF was ok, it certainly wasn't the team based magical place it's now made out to be (imho). I've seen better team based behavior in TF2 or RO. As for the current dire straights team based FPS find themselves in, well, you can lay that one squarely at the feet of the 800pd gorilla sucking all the air out of the room: COD.

Not at all, I recognize BF 1942 and BF2's flaws and want an improved battlefield game that does not share those shortcomings. That said however, I also understand what made them excellent games, and what defines the Battlefield series. When you turn against those principals, you will not have a good Battlefield game.

[easytarget]

I don't disagree with you, but the tide at the moment is definitely running against true team based game design.

There's more team based behavior in 5 minutes worth of play in L4D or L4D2 than you'll likely see in 8 hours play time on a BF3 server, or 80 hours of play time in MW3. Funny how designing the game to reward team play works so well when done right, and yet how rare it is ultimately to find.

Trends are hard to fight, so I tend to just move from genre to genre based on where the best game design is taking place.

[Vuk]

I don't disagree with you, but the tide at the moment is definitely running against true team based game design.

There's more team based behavior in 5 minutes worth of play in L4D or L4D2 than you'll likely see in 8 hours play time on a BF3 server, or 80 hours of play time in MW3. Funny how designing the game to reward team play works so well when done right, and yet how rare it is ultimately to find.

Trends are hard to fight, so I tend to just move from genre to genre based on where the best game design is taking place.

If every series sells out, there will not be any good computer games left soon. There are plenty of cheap COD rip-offs out there. Battlefield had its own audience, and did not have to sell out to the COD crowd. I really hope the game flops and they learn their lesson.

[edyzmedieval]

Battlefield 3 lost the sales battle with MW3 for the moment, the copies sold for PC (hard copies) are only around 500.000. Digital distribution is excluded however.

[easytarget]

That wasn't ever in doubt, but honestly I don't know why gamers would care about unit sales, I know I don't. Any more than I care which movie made the most money at the box office. Which also reminds me of The Oscars, which I feel pretty much the same way about, why should I care what holiday wants to give itself awards for? I'm amused they televise it and assume I'd ever bother to watch them give themselves a pat on the back.

[easytarget]

If every series sells out, there will not be any good computer games left soon. There are plenty of cheap COD rip-offs out there. Battlefield had its own audience, and did not have to sell out to the COD crowd. I really hope the game flops and they learn their lesson.

No doubt true, but changes nothing. And BF3 wasn't a flop, while it won't reach MW3 numbers, pre-selling 5M of anything at 60 bucks isn't likely to instill the gaming industry w/ a lot of desire to stop mimicking Hollywood with their sequel disease.