Battlefield 3 Game Review & Overview - Online, campaign, Multiplayer, Storyline - Jump into high Difficulty Battle

Battlefield has constantly battled the largest first person shooter game franchise, Call of Duty. Electronic Arts and DICE teamed up once again to compete with the Call of Duty obsession among gamers. The constant competition has led to impressive features, graphics, physics, and game types added to both games, but Battlefield has continued to be one step below the popularity of Call of Duty. Changes made to the Battlefield series has created one of the most realistic wartime environments in video gaming, but the popularity of Call of Duty's online atmosphere continues to fuel the addiction to gamers worldwide.

It's hard to discuss the storyline of the campaign without giving away key details that ruin it. My overview of the Battlefield 3 campaign is more about the gameplay than the storyline.

Battlefield campaigns are more slow-paced than that of Call of Duty, but the realistic aspect of Battlefield 3 gives the player a first person experience that can be realistically related to a modern soldier in battle. The realism includes features incorporated within the physics of the game including the level of destruction and ability to completely demolish buildings. The realistic features also includes more "life-like" damage dealt to enemies as well as the player. Players can only take small amounts of damage before being killed, which is accurate to reality. Another unique feature incorporated into mostly the campaign, but also multiplayer, is the accuracy of light reflections. Light accurately reflects off of your helmet and can essentially be"blinded" while looking at lights at certain angles. This can become annoying, but once again adds to the realness of the game.

I like the style that EA uses with the storyline of the game. The cut scenes, visuals, and audio make the storyline seem like a movie that you're playing the lead role in. The storyline focuses on the accounts of a falsely accused soldier being interrogated for not following orders. As he is being questioned, he explains his view of the situation as you play it. The scenes of the soldier being questioned look incredible realistic and are super dramatic feeling.

I'll break the campaign into what I liked about it and what I don't like about it:

Likes:

• Ability to completely destroy buildings and knock down trees
• Light beam reflecting (Can be annoying)
• Graphics - Including cut scenes
• Sound effects

Dislikes:

• The main thing that I dislike about the campaign is the poor placements of "check points" and "action points." What I mean by this is that the player can spend large amounts of time wondering around before the next wave of people is activated. Games use certain points that triggers actions to begin. For example, once you cross a designated point, it triggers something to happen. Sometimes if you don't reach that point, you face an endless wave of enemies until you do reach that point. These points are hidden, but I noticed several occasions that were in a sense endless.
• Another thing that I noticed was that the boundaries are small. You can't wonder far from the paths that you're supposed to follow. This means that you can't jump over the boundaries of the main focus point of missions. It's not really a big deal for players that play the campaign efficiently and follow the objectives.

The online multiplayer is similar in many ways to Battlefield Bad Company 2. The online play offers massive levels where players move slowly across the map without even noticing it. The levels are so big that it seems like multiple levels within one. The game types are also very similar to previous Battlefield games, which includes capture the flag, rush, and team death match. The game length depends on the game type, but most games last anywhere from fifteen minutes to over half an hour.

A feature offered in Battlefield 3 that wasn't available in the previous Battlefield is the ability to go completely prone (lay down). This ability makes the game much more realistic and up to par with other games. You can also unlock weapons in Co-op missions, which can be helpful if you play a lot of Co-op campaign missions. Unfortunately we still can't cook grenades in Battlefield 3.

One thing that I noticed most about playing online is the level of difficulty. Battlefield has always been known for being more realistic when it comes to hitting an opponent/being hit, but Battlefield 3 seems to be one of the most challenging online games that I've played online. Not only does it take awhile to get used to, but I was constantly frustrated with never seeing my enemy but I would die easily. Most guns can kill an opponent with just 2 or 3 hits, but this was difficult to adjust to. I recommend using the Sniper rifle (Recon class) until you get used to the easy deaths. It's much more realistic, but also much more difficult to adjust to the realistic feel of Battlefield.

likes:

• Each class has special abilities, upgrades, and unlocks relative to your chosen class
• You can rank up your overall level and class level
• You can join one of several team squads - lets you spawn on teammates
• You can parachute off a building at anytime - you don't have to unlock the parachute
• You receive bonus points towards leveling depending on the gametype
• You can chose what game type and map you begin playing on
• You can demolish buildings and scenery
• You CAN lay down (Couldn't lay down in the previous Battlefield game)

Dislikes:

• You can only play multiplayer on a single online account - You only receive one online access code per game
• There are two separate disks - one for online multiplayer and co-op and another for single player campaign
• The HD graphics update takes up around 2GB of space and theres another multiplayer update that takes up about the same amount
• You CANNOT cook grenades
• Starting classes are awful (Online play is difficult for the first few levels)
• Leveling up is fairly slow