My first Battlefield experience came when playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for my post on it. I found it to be a game where 90% of it was replicating what Call of Duty was doing, but I appreciated the differences. Mostly that was in slightly de-emphasising power fantasy and propaganda elements, distancing a bit further from reality, and giving added freedom in how to approach killing lots of people. Battlefield 3 is a more polished and visually impressive game, and an exercise in finding out what happens when that 90% goes up to 99%.
Some of that similarity may admittedly be heightened by not playing either series in the main way people did. Battlefield 3’s first disc is dedicated to multiplayer, making it clearer than ever that it was the main attraction. While the single player campaign is relegated to disc 2, though, it is still there, and extremely slickly produced. Without Medal of Honor’s awkward historical positioning, it is free to fully pursue adrenaline-pumping action, and throws a lot at you with aplomb. It leads you rapidly from place to place, and while there is never much choice beyond the superficial, the action is fast and precise.
There are moments in which you step out of a vehicle and into a space where the sense of emerging into an actual place is overwhelming. Even more impressive and new are some of the things the game does with light. At one point you creep around a disaster-struck city while enemies shine lights in search of you, and the blinding terror of being caught in the beam is very effective. Later on, shooting illumination rounds and working in their half-light is a nice twist on shooting mechanics, too. The darkness is part of a sense of ever-present danger which is one of the strongest aspects of several of Battlefield 3’s levels. One part makes a distant sniper feel like not just a task to be ticked off but a pervasive risk as you scurry from place to place.
Battlefield 3 is too determinedly bombastic for those to form part of any uniting atmosphere, though. It prioritises moment-to-moment thrills in very much the same way as Modern Warfare. It starts off with you chasing down terrorists on a New York train, a flash-forward promise of intense action and the familiar chance to save America from external peril. It gets you flying a fighter jet in a mission which feels like one long barely-interactive tutorial but looks cool and throws a greater density of technical-looking letters and numbers at you than most games can offer.
Sticking you in Iraq is indicative of going for much the same appeal to spurious authenticity as Call of Duty was running on. It comes with its own Iranian and Russian conspiracies and looming nuclear threats, the better to justify dishing out destruction across the world. It even blows up a nuke, slightly upping the ante by making it happen in Paris. There is the occasional line which it is difficult to imagine appearing in its rival series, including one squad member strikingly saying “Bro, America was founded by terrorists, for terrorists”. It’s not like it represents anything material to the story’s vision, though. Like so much else about Battlefield 3, what it has to offer is more of the same.
Top of the charts for week ending 29 October 2011:
Top of the charts for week ending 5 November 2011:
WCRobinson
I remember when this came out, I was in late high school/college, and it was one of the times when it felt as though people were really considering the mainstream switch from CoD to Battlefield. It neve really materialised though. I mostly played Battlefields 4 and 1 myself.
Now it seems as though the industry has basically given up on ever dislodging the CoD train, and just accept they have to find a different space.
Thanks for the blast from the past!
iain.mew
Yes I remember that sense of a possible contest, a shame it didn’t last anything like as long as FIFA vs Pro Evo