Battlefield 3 Premium Edition Launched
Now available for $59.99.
Battlefield 3
Players: 1 Offline player, 32(64-PC) Players Online
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genres: First-person Shooter
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genres: First-person Shooter
Release Date: October 25, 2011
Developer: EA Digital Illusions CE
MSRP: $59.99
Developer: EA Digital Illusions CE
MSRP: $59.99
Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbiteā¢ 2, the next instalment of DICE's cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.
Battlefield 3 Angry Review
Posted By AngryJoe about 1 year, 6 months ago
Battlefield 3 Angry Review,
Get that Red Laser Scope OUTTA MY EYE!
Angry Joe gives the final word on Battlefield 3. How much does it improve upon its predecessors and is it finally ready to stand toe to toe with Activision’s Modern Warfare? Find out!
Follow me and my show updates on Twitter!
Fan/Like my Profile Page on the Facebooks! Pwease?
Also, Subscribe to AngryJoeShow on YouTube!
Battlefield 3 Video Review - ZGR
Is Battlefield 3 the next best shooter? Daniel from ZGR gives you his thoughts!
Battlefield 3 Review (PC)
In one of the only examples ever where Frostbite sends Johnny somewhere he'd wind up getting sand in his crotch, his charged task of reviewing Battlefield 3 is now complete. By reading it, you'll be taking part in the initial stages of "Operation Sugar Pants!"
Sage Reviews: Battlefield 3
Battlefield may have beaten Call of Duty to the punch, but does that mean it's any good?
EA Confirms Fixes to Battlefield 3 Bugs After Blackout Threats
EA showcases over 200 planned fixes to Battlefield 3′s multiplayer, right after the threat of a blackout from its userbase.
First Look at Battlefield 3 "Back to Karkand" Vehicles
A STOVL fighter jet, a desert buggy, an APC, and a… bulldozer?
Battlefield 3 Angry Review
Angry Joe gives the final word on Battlefield 3. How much does it improve upon
Sage Reviews: Battlefield 3
Battlefield may have beaten Call of Duty to the punch, but does that mean it’s any good?
Angry Joe Plays Battlefield 3
Angry Joe and Johnny M. of Blistered Thumbs tackle BF3′s Cooperative missions together while discussing this highly anticipated FPS heavyweight!
Battlefield 3 Review (PC)
In one of the only examples ever where Frostbite sends Johnny somewhere he’d wind up getting sand in his crotch, his charged task of reviewing Battlefield 3 is now complete. By reading it, you’ll be taking part in the initial stages of “Operation Sugar Pants!”
Battlefield 3 Video Review - ZGR
Is Battlefield 3 the next best shooter? Daniel from ZGR gives you his thoughts!
EA Confirms Fixes to Battlefield 3 Bugs After Blackout Threats
EA showcases over 200 planned fixes to Battlefield 3′s multiplayer, right after the threat of a blackout from its userbase.
First Look at Battlefield 3 "Back to Karkand" Vehicles
A STOVL fighter jet, a desert buggy, an APC, and a… bulldozer?
Battlefield 3 Angry Review
Angry Joe gives the final word on Battlefield 3. How much does it improve upon
Sage Reviews: Battlefield 3
Battlefield may have beaten Call of Duty to the punch, but does that mean it’s any good?
Angry Joe Plays Battlefield 3
Angry Joe and Johnny M. of Blistered Thumbs tackle BF3′s Cooperative missions together while discussing this highly anticipated FPS heavyweight!
Battlefield 3 Review (PC)
In one of the only examples ever where Frostbite sends Johnny somewhere he’d wind up getting sand in his crotch, his charged task of reviewing Battlefield 3 is now complete. By reading it, you’ll be taking part in the initial stages of “Operation Sugar Pants!”
Battlefield 3 Video Review - ZGR
Is Battlefield 3 the next best shooter? Daniel from ZGR gives you his thoughts!
Battlefield 3 Review (PC)
Posted By Johnny Maloney about 1 year, 6 months ago
Battlefield 3 Review (PC)
Battlefield 3 Angry Review, 
Battlefield 1942 marked a turning point for my online gaming. Not in the sense that I started to play online with larger groups of people on larger maps, rather that I continued to play online with the same small group of people and just discovered there were more ways to arse around in Battlefield 1942 than in your regular first person shooter. āA first person shooter that lets me fly a twin engine bomber over enemy lines just so I can jump out, wreck the plane, and get shot in the face on my way down? That sounds like a great way to spend a hundred hours!ā As the saying goes, that was then and this is now, and Battlefield has had more than just a few incarnations of actual wars, future wars, and the scaaaaaaaary wars that could be happening RIGHT NOW!! Perhaps not that scary, but everybody’s been giving me grief about not getting in the Halloween spirit. Battlefield 3 now marks Electronic Arts’ latest entry into the series, with the lofty goal of toppling āthe (apparently) most anticipated game everā of Modern Warfare off whatever decadent throne it now sits atop.
| PROS | It’s gorgeous, it sounds amazing, its variety, FROSTBITE 2! |
| CONS | Short campaign, some weird AI paths, PC specific functionality problems |
| WTF?! | I swear I’ve seen THAT guy in Transformers. |
He’s been in 24, CSI and Bones as well.
No, seriously… I’ve seen that guy in Transformers. What’s even stranger, is that he’s also going to be in Modern Warfare 3 ā what a racket! There’s even a fighter pilot that bears a strange resemblance to Michael J. Fox. That’s all immaterial however, we’re here to talk about the game.
Battlefield 3 is a game about shooting people with a variety of weapons. Got that? Good. Roll credits!
Now that’s out of the way, let’s dig out the core. Describing the gameplay of Battlefield 3 in detail is a fairly pointless affair, because if you’ve played any other multiplayer Battlefield game, you’ve played something quite similar to this. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but it pretty much primes you for what you can expect: conquest, rush, and a variety of deathmatch options in a variety of climate regions, with vehicles, a cavalcade of unlockable items, awards, badges, dogtags to collect, perks, and so on. A change or two has been made, such as the amalgamation of the medic class into the assault class, starting you out with medic packs and unlocking defibrillator paddles in what I think was the first rank advancement. PC players too are witness to the return of jets, as well as the 64 player conquest maps which can get pretty hectic (so long as you’re not walking everywhere).
Even if you did decide to walk everywhere, aesthetes would certainly enjoy themselves most of the time. Right out of the gate, it’s pretty obvious that this is one of, if not the, best looking game to hit the market this year. Previously I had awarded that honor to CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 2, but some of the sprawling outdoor areas throw my admiration for it and other open world army games like ARMA II under the truck, run it over several times, and rub broken glass in its face, all before I remember that I loved ARMA II as a game before I could make her pretty. (I still love you baby… we’re a team, you an’ me!) While good looking however, Battlefield 3 does adhere to a strange habit games appear to be taking these days, in that it’s not necessarily trying to look more realistic, rather than how people perceive war as “realistic” through pop culture. The strangest example of this here to me is the grit and dust on the screen that in any real situation would likely cause a horrible conjunctivitis infection doesn’t seem to bother anybody. It’s still an impressive graphic effect, obviously taken from camera effects in movies and TV, but I screw my eyes up in confusion sometimes, wondering why it’s there.
I do believe somebody should have taken that left turn at Albequerque.
These excellent visuals are brilliantly punctuated by immaculate sound design. The distant snap sounds of guns change incrementally the closer you get to them, echoes ringing in valleys pour through the speakers, and the delays between firing noises and the sounds of rounds striking your cover as the dull hum of an unfriendly motor whirrs closer to your desperate position strike phenomenal reactionary responses. Even conversations carried out in the campaign bounce off environments impeccably, with the small touches of chairs squeaking, or papers shuffling. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many of the cutscenes were filmed, and then animated over in a rotoscoping-like fashion.
8/10
Battlefield 3 Video Review - ZGR
Is Battlefield 3 the next best shooter? Daniel from ZGR gives you his thoughts! Battlefield 3 Review (PC)
In one of the only examples ever where Frostbite sends Johnny somewhere he'd wind up getting sand in his crotch, his charged task of reviewing Battlefield 3 is now complete. By reading it, you'll be taking part in the initial stages of "Operation Sugar Pants!" Sage Reviews: Battlefield 3
Battlefield may have beaten Call of Duty to the punch, but does that mean it's any good?-
November 07, 2011 at 12:08am
It seems like Modern/Near-Future war shooters are now like WW2 shooters in how there are so damn many of em.
As for this game, I definitely liked it, despite its annoyances like the Battlelog issue and if a server has a bad latency rate, its unplayable due to the player keep back-stepping while you move and shots will miss even if up close on the target. With that, the MP is pretty good and I like the feeling of the sniper class.
The campaign definitely ain’t worth writing home about, I’m probably willing to say its slightly better than the MW2 and BO campaigns, but nothing I’m going to play twice (though I could say that even to the great campaigns, guess the momentum of the first playrthrough just can’t be captured again.) For the most part, I think its worth the score it got, still got plenty more games to play this year though.
-
October 31, 2011 at 02:18am
(About the video review:)
Judging a Battlefield game by it’s singleplayer is like judging Yoda by his size. Sense it makes not. -
October 28, 2011 at 04:03pm
Personally, Battlelog is a non-issue. It doesn’t hamper my experience, it has some nice features, and it works great to get me into a game. I’ve seen people go totally negative on it and I don’t think that is fair at all. You get into games much quicker than you would an ingame browser and generally everything works as it should. Some things can be a tad iffy, but when I hear people say that Battlelog is the reason they won’t get BF3, I laugh at how they are missing out on a game for a simply ridiculous reason.
A great review though as I would pretty much agree with this. While the singleplayer is competent, it doesn’t really do anything new and is way too familiar to what Black Ops did last year, though with abit more realism than that, but still an idea already used. I actually don’t know why they have those cutscenes there as to me, it seems like they could’ve almost removed the flashback stuff entirely and not hurt the game, though I still am a few levels from completion.
The multiplayer is top notch though. It does MANY things better than Bad Company 2, though people who played that will still be familiar with the game, same for BF2 veterans, though it’s very much an amalgam of both series. This game is gonna keep me hooked for a long time, especially with consistent expansion packs over the next 6 months, starting with Back to Karkand in December.
-
October 28, 2011 at 05:03pm
Might be just that it screwed up in the beta most of the time (1 out of 5 attempts to join a game succeeded for me, this is not counting when I got in and was immediately kicked or lagged out for whatever reason), but I got fairly irritated by it and I have no intention of going through that again.
Also the fact that you have to actually start a game to change your settings, then in case of some graphics settings leave and start another one if you actually intend to play with those settings is ridiculous. -
October 28, 2011 at 07:50pm
Well that was because of Beta. I haven’t had any issues with Battlelog since Beta and it all seems to work just fine, though of course it’s hardly perfect. The settings thing again, isn’t an issue, that your kinda trying to make it out to be. Even if the game had an ingame menu instead and you are able to change your settings, you would have to restart your game anyways if the settings said so, so I’m not really seeing the problem here. And really, how often is a person changing his settings? You do it once till you get it running right, if it isn’t already doing so, and then you never touch them again.
-
October 28, 2011 at 03:32pm
It amazes me how these companies can continue to produce these straight-faced, military themed shooters and how people can keep buying them up like hot-cakes. I know it’s old hat to hate on shooters right now, but I still don’t get it. How can people NOT get bored of this stuff? I can only hope that soon enough shooters will go the way of the JRPG when people get tired of playing through the same old archetypes with a fresh coat of paint and the releases will become farther and fewer between. Maybe the next gaming trend will appeal to me more.
Saying it out loud, that does sound a bit selfish, but oh well. I doubt it will happen anytime soon, anyway.
-
October 28, 2011 at 05:51pm
I originally hadn’t intended to buy this, but because of a reviewing schedule snafu, it got dropped in my lap. I do agree with you that the military shooter has been played out, and I don’t nearly enjoy them as much as I do other genres these days. That said, I felt like it would be unfair to review BF3 against a backdrop of other genres of games. It’s almost as if the “war fps” has become a genre independent of the fps altogether. I wouldn’t recommend people buy it until there was a price drop, but then as time goes on and I see more and more $60 titles from companies like Ubisoft, Activision and EA, I’m feeling I have to draw a hard line in the sand.
It goes without saying that if you’re sick and tired of war fps games, then BF3 does *not* deserve an 8. But if we were all to review games on whether or not they tread familiar ground, it’d be a much crueller profession indeed. Judging from your comment, you’d do well to save your money… it doesn’t do anything new or groundbreaking.
-
October 28, 2011 at 11:28pm
I asked this question to someone else a few weeks ago who said pretty much the same thing (and they never answered me). How would you change shooters to be more original and “not Boring”
I will be honest, I don’t buy shooters for the campaign, bought BF3 on 360 and havnt even used the campaign disc. Its all about the multiplayer and while the general mechanics of shooters remains the same, it is the new maps, weapons, gadgets etc that change the overall experience. Plus upgrades to the game engine and graphics play a part too. that is just my opinion though, and I am generally curious about your opinion.
-
October 29, 2011 at 03:14am
People like what they like I suppose.
I’m still not bored with zombie games for example.
Funny enough, unlike King Walrus, I pretty much only buy shooters like these for the campaign, which is why you’ll never see me buying them at launch, I gotten all the recent CoD games for under 20 bucks each. I just don’t care about competitive MP, it’s just not for me.
It just seems to bring out the worst in people, I don’t buy games to get online just to be insulted by racist 12 year olds.
-
October 30, 2011 at 01:10am
don’t worry man, battlefield doesn’t have any kids playing it and no body really mic spams either
-
October 30, 2011 at 01:14am
yeah, but what about other genres like fantasy RPG’s, there are mostly the same, especially the free to play ones. oh, and how about racing games, most of them are all the same right? just like shooters?
-
October 30, 2011 at 12:58pm
First of all, we’re not talking about online games here at all, that’s a whole different animal entirely. Anyway, look what happened to the JRPG. Same goes for racing games. They’re not nearly as popular or frequently produced as they once were. When the innovation and creativity stopped, so did the sales. You’ll notice that a lot of modern racing games also have a somewhat creative hook to help sell them. Sports games are obviously a bit different because people have more of a real world investment in what they represent, which allows the producers to be lazy. Fantasy WRPG still aren’t as released nearly as frequently as military shooters and tend to have more variety or creative ideas. I mean, I could easily tell the difference between Skyrim, Witcher 2, Fable. Not so much the case for BF3 and MWF and any other generic military shooter I can think of. I’m aware that all genres are guilty of this, but the military shooter is the only sub-genre I can think of that can garner such great sales while doing so little to innovate. Space marines are getting pretty fuckin’ old too. The only “shooters” that interest me are the ones that aren’t just shooters anymore. They’ve mixed themselves in with other genres (like Bioshock, deadspace, uncharted, Deus ex, Mass Effect etc. ) and attempted to actually do something different. Besides, to imply it’s okay for shooters to do it because other genres are guilty of the same is a tu quoque fallacy.
-
October 31, 2011 at 05:56am
I am in full agreement with you, in all honesty… I don’t pimp ARMA II because I get paid to, I write about it because it supercedes my military-shooter desire by measures I cannot express.
The videogame industry is becoming more and more like the movie industry. The lowest common denominator is becoming increasingly more lucrative. Bad games DO get made, and they get made frequently for the risk/reward return. When gamers become tired of pretending to be people who demonstrate their skill (the unlock system is now ALL about making gamers feel better about their level of skill) in environments that are “realistic” we’ll see a change.
I wonder about Michael Bay movies similarly.I would also counsel you to edit your litany of games that “actually do something different,” including Bioshock and Deus Ex.
EDIT: upon re-reading, that last bit reads a bit bitchy. I apologize for my tone, I do believe I’ve been a little distracted and stressed lately. Mea culpa.
-
October 28, 2011 at 01:16pm
I absolutely hate punkbuster. Back when I was playing a lot of PR I swear that stupid little application caused hours of grief because it doesn’t update properly, and even though I’ve opened all of the pertinent ports in my firewall to allow it to do its thing, it still would randomly boot me off of servers, not allow me to connect at all, and generally be unpleasant.
As for the game, sounds good – but also sounds and seems a lot like BFBC2. I’m not sure jets & 64 player maps make it different enough for me to want to come back.. espescially since I played a ton of BFBC2. Not at $60.00 at any rate.
-
October 28, 2011 at 12:49pm
Battlelog. That’s why this is the first Battlefield title I’m going to skip.
-
October 30, 2011 at 01:06am
you can’t be serious? also, the reply system in blistered thumbs suck ASS
-
October 28, 2011 at 11:36am
I’m really enjoying this one. I can really see why people dislike Battlelog though. It can be a nuisance having to load Orgin, a Browser, just to click on the game, even for single player.
That said, I really do like the game. -
October 28, 2011 at 10:54am
Awesome I was hoping to see your review of this game, great as always.
And to the comment from Lowlander about Payday Id say that both games are great multiplayer games but are apples and oranges when compared, I think there is space to enjoy both games multiplayer separately but equally. -
October 28, 2011 at 11:02am
Oh certainly. But I’m fine with what I’ve got.
Or at least, I would be if more people were playing it. GET ON IT, GUYS!
No Posts
Battlefield 3 Angry Review
Angry Joe gives the final word on Battlefield 3. How much does it improve upon
Sage Reviews: Battlefield 3
Battlefield may have beaten Call of Duty to the punch, but does that mean it’s any good?
Battlefield 3 Video Review - ZGR
Is Battlefield 3 the next best shooter? Daniel from ZGR gives you his thoughts!
Three British Idiots Play Battlefield 3 Beta (Wez, Larry & Ian)
Wez, Larry and Ian glitch their way through the Battlefield 3 Beta in this very funny video!
Three British Idiots Play Battlefield 3 Beta (Wez, Larry & Ian)
Wez, Larry and Ian glitch their way through the Battlefield 3 Beta in this very funny video!
i played BF1942 and BF2 i think each class had like 1 unlockable gun each time you leveled up and it took forever as i recall. but they actually merged the Combat and Medic class into the Assault kit back in Battlefield 2142, also they had the item unlocks and weapons for the kits in that game too. the medals and ribbons were introduced in that game also. you either missed it or didn’t like it. i think it was considered a failure which i thought was a shame, cause i was getting pretty sick of the fighting the Jungle/city/desert games. its played out. the premise that to forces are fighting for their survival on an Earth that became mostly a frozen wasteland i kinda liked.
Joe the anger at the battle log isn’t that it is a browser its that Origin Is able and actually does scan and read every single File on your computer. It also alerts them to any unregistered data you have, Scans private files, and so on. They say they won’t read anything or abuse it but to me whats to stop them from coming across something like a character you wrote and them stealing it making it in a game and taking all the funds and credit. Plus If Origin is Okay with its privacy invasion it opens pandora’s box with Government issues
You are right about some things that are wrong with the console versions, but you forgot some things. You can’t make your own servers so it’s all ranked vanilla matches so no “everyone has a jet” games a la 1943′s Coral Sea. The only way to communicate is with a mic so if your a PS3 player (like me) only about 10% of the players have mics on so you can’t communicate and use items that need cooperation like the SOFLAM. Finally it is next to IMPOSSIBLE to keep a squad together when joining a match, and even more impossible to try to rejoin in game because the squad menu only lets you join a random squad rather than let you make a private one. The only game mode that I enjoy is Team Deathmatch, but since it’s so call of duty like, I feel I should have just bought MW3 instead.
Basically there are a ton of things that console player just don’t get with this game, kinda like how iPhone users on the PC only get a percentage of the capabilities of the features. Maybe DICE can find a way to fix some of these problems but until then I’m gonna be playing Skyrim for the next few days.
Well worth the wait of this review . I have to say you have done the most professional and in depth review i have seen yet.
Something else to remember about the campaign mode. Not everyone either has, or can afford internet. I live out in the boons and the only time that I am online is when i am out at my parents so Im stuck with playing the single player modes
Joe’s interpretive dance touched something in me. Something deep. I now feel the need to frolic through grassy meadows wearing only clothes made from Earth’s most precious natural resource… bears.
Because this is MANLY frolicking. I will literally frolic the FUCK out of those meadows. Hell yeah.
Anyhow, that’s all I’ve got until I test the game myself. I can’t say that I’m very excited about it considering I’m a multiplayah-hatah, but at least the single player campaign will be over quickly…
I don’t like war games.
Agreed, the action is too fickle.
Imho: Old style shooters need to be brought back (Unreal tournament and quake 3 kind of stuff, with all the fun imaginative weaponry).
Eh……fps singleplayer usually sucks and developers should put more effort into it.. Rarely anything special to single. Ironically, when people start migrating to new multiplayer grounds (i.e. playing Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer while almost no one players MWF 1 mutliplayer) guess what you’re left with? Singleplayer in the long run is the most important part of a game. In the short term multiplayer vastly is more important than single, but game developers need to understand that they need to make both very good, or to make their multiplayer last longer. The idea of call of duty releasing a new game every damn year for full price is absurd to me, like throwing away money for a product that will not last long.
Personally, I’m a Halo guy. Not necessarily because I think it’s better, but for two reasons: 1) I like sci-fi more than realistic war. Just a more interesting setting/premise/universe. and 2) They tend to have large gaps between games with new multiplayer. Halo 3 was 2007, Halo Reach was 2010. They seem to be getting more frequent with it though, which is disappointing. Also I don’t like the 5 powers Reach and the Combat Evolved Anniversary have, or at least I’d prefer more game modes without them and just using standard old system. Bash Halo all you want, I barely like it anyway, but I honestly don’t see the need to play CoD or BF over a multiplayer game I already own.
I use Battlefield, even though I agree with the weak single player. I can’t afford both games, and almost all my friends are on battlefield as well.
I use Skyrim
No…Dancing to the battlefield 3 theme isn’t the manliest thing you could do joe…
Dancing to the Sonic Free Riders theme on the other hand….you need balls to do that…
Now this is a review you can trust,unlike other faus-reviewers ’round these parts (cough Sage cough). But what the Hell was that thing with the tutu? It looked like Joe,but ut couldn’t have been him….
very nice Review Joe.
Don’t wan’t to troll but as long EA keeps this Origin Spyware bullshit on i won’t buy any EA game anymore. I played BF 3 at my friends home on his PC.
The SP is a Joke.
The MP ist great but not that over the top. I have the same feeling when i play Bad Company 2.
As for the A.I. ….well its just “enter a trigger zone and they will stop to spawn and run at you like armed zombies”. Best A.I. i have ever seen is still on FEAR 1.
Grafically the engine does its job very well but the best grafics still holds Crysis/Crysis Warhead. Still with tripple 580GTX configuration, the 80fps+ can’t be reached (with grafics at max including AA/AF and without counting Vanilla mod and Rygels texture mod)
the Sound is awesome.
It’s a great game but Origin prevents me from buying it. I don’t accept such conditions even with those workarounds for that spyware.
I question why they even put in a single player when they obviously don’t care about it. Focus on the multiplayer, save some time and money, and cut the cost (and price) slightly, would certainly give them the edge over their competition if they can say “Yeah we know you’re here for the multiplayer, so that’s all we’re giving you, and we’re saving you some money.”
Oh wait, this is an EA game, and they know their sheep will buy it regardless of quality at whatever they feel like charging.
Fuck you. People buy this game because they KNOW it’s a game of quality, and they buy it for the multiplayer.
I will have to respectfully disagree with you opinions on the Battlefield 3 campaign. I enjoyed myself. I’m not saying that your complaints are not legitimate. I too thought that the A.I. where a bit to easy to kill even on “Hard”. And the opening radio noise song seems incredibly stupid, even to me. And I never pay much attention to the soundtrack. But I thought that the campaign was fairly gratifying. The parts that seem intense and important seem all the more so when the rest of the campaign involves far less intense moments. This being said, I am new to the Battlefield franchise. Battlefield 3 and Modern warfare 3 will both be my first introductions to the franchises. So I can’t compare this campaign to previous installments. Whats more, I will agree that the ending was pretty weak. But either way I can honestly say that the view of a dozen Russian transports doping down hundreds of enemy soldiers is something that I did not think they could top. (Until the end of the mission when an enemy jet starts to essentially carpet bomb you. That was defiantly the highlight of my day, and the campaign.) Now if only I can get the P.C. version of this game… and a P.C. that I don’t share with two family members… also one with graphic capability that don’t look like s*&t… battlefield is really starting to look expensive. *sigh*
As I have played countless hours of bad company 2 on my 360 I too shall play countless hours of BF3 on my 360. I’m well aware the console versions aren’t nearly as good as the pc version, but unlike most people here I don’t have the budget to get a high-end pc that needs constant upgrading though I wish I could.
I’m part of a clan in bad company 2 who have the same problems I do about not having a good enough PC and we’ve all gotten BF3 for the 360, it can look plain ugly at times admittingly, but like Joe had said a huge part of what makes the multiplayer great is having an organized skillful squad (or 2 squads) to carry out coordinated attacks, I loved bad company 2 and put aside any and all graphical issues as I am now with bf3 for the 360.
Yes! We wanna see more of Joe in a tutu and boa.
I think that consoles did get a bit jipped, but still a very enjoyable experience overall. Also, I LOVE the server browser for consoles, because then you can basically find your favorite and well connected server, and go straight to it, no hassle. Therefore, almost eliminating the guessing game of connection.
I haven’t even played the singleplayer yet and I’m not planning to. And CoDs campaigns stopped being good around 4-5 where it wasn’t so incredibly overblown it is now.
I hate that Joe keeps reviewing games like this on Xbox. I play this game on a AMD 6-core with an ATI 5770 and it’s incredible! Whether you prefer console or PC, if you’re playing this game at half its capability (if that) it’s never going to feel as good or as intense as it would on a high-end PC. And unfortunately, like the last 2 COD games, MW3 has more focus on Xbox than PC and PS3 – whereas Battlefield 3 was developed from the ground-up for PC.
Plus, where first-person shooters are concerned a keyboard and mouse are always going make the experience far more real than a controller.
I have to say, I will not touch this game unless they take out the origin requirement. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a Steam fan boy and will only play games released on steam. Its all the dirty sneaky ass BS they have placed in the TOS, EULA and the how the program works. If I can install the game and play without origin, or they release it on steam I will happily pick it up. Not a moment sooner
Good review.
Even though I couldn’t care less about BF3′s singleplayer I agree that it shouldn’t be left out of review. It’s included in the game so it should affect the score even by little.
And to origin = spyware people I bet that most of you haven’t even read the new or old version of Eula. To me origin’s eula was pretty much in the same line with steam’s.
wow, lot of butt hurt COD fans voted on this poll didn’t they?
Battlefield 3 while lacking a good story mode is EXCELLENT!!!
I’ll be buying Battlefield 3, it’s more fun in my opinion. Call of Duty is just the same game every single time they release it. I haven’t bought a new CoD game since MW2 and I don’t think that will change.
Most probably I’ll be getting Modern Warfare 3. You see, my computer is a real piece of work that has a terrible graphics card, and it’s integrated into the system, so it can’t be upgraded. So my only choice is console. But, I don’t have access to online play, and I won’t for some time now. I’d love to give Battlefield a try, but whatever.
I agree with your sentiments on the single player campaign.
i’ve lost hopes with these games single player just eats content from multiplayer single player’s are never even entertaining i actually never paid more than 25 dollars for these games because they don’t give what they should and yeah multiplayer is fun from time to time but they’re not worth 60 dollars they should either make single or multiplayer because it seems to me we can’t have both till the time we get single or only multi or the never happening best single/multi i get these games from bargain bin
I would imagine the reason it looks so much worse on a console is mostly due to the X Box 360′s limited disc capacity. At 9 GB a disc it simply can’t compete on a 1 or even 2 disc basis, needing multiple discs to keep up with PS3′s 25 to 50 GB Blu-ray. Whats more, it obvious that games today that are planned for multi-console releases are either created from the get go for X Box, or dumbed down later for it. Most developers I imagine look at X Box before PS3 (or the Wii on occasion) to decide certain technical aspects (game length/disc capacity being high on that list). Basically, they decide that if we can make it work for X Box, it will be fine on the PS3. X Box 360 is a great machine (Gears of War 3 is awesome, then again it was a game made by X Box for X Box, relatively speaking) but it does a great disservice to the gaming community when so many things seem to revolve around it because it came out first or because of who makes it or because its easier make stuff for/change things around for.
I didn’t judge the game on its single player alone, which has a much better story then MW 3 by the way, and I actually have come to accept the whole Battlelog thing.
And Joe is right, it is really easy inviting your friends to a match by just simply dragging them from the list to your party and enter a server.
With some more improvements, EA and Dice might actually have a winning concept here.
I gotta say that was a very good review, I would say one of your best. I like that you did not punish the singleplayer as other reviewers did. I too found that there are some parts in the SP that were really good, but yeah not really intense.
The Multiplayer on the other hand is really awesome. I play usually with 4-6 friends and it just rocks, its just a whole team expierince, and I really liked that also in BC2.
And I do not see the engineer as unbalanced, yes you can kill a lot of ppl with rockts, but 1st you have a limited supply (unless there is a support class) and it is hard to kill moving targets. I do not really see an overpowered class at the moment, however recon can be annoying on hardcore mode.
To the BF vs MW thing. I can not tell so much, I played MW1 and MW2, singleplayer mostly. MP only with MW1 and it was ok, but I am more the “I need a friggn tank” and the foul language the soldiers talk, so I am a BF3 guy
The multiplayer is still broken for me on PC. Don’t know what the problem is. I have horrible stuttering and disconnects and I’ve tried every solution I could find on BF3 Forums and google.
I had no technical problems with the singleplayer although it is kinda bad.
Have you tried different browser my friend uses Chrome because he find out that using Firefox manage to crash the game, somehow?????
No way, Joe! That distorted music track is way cool. Also, you must be the only person on Earth that likes that on rails ‘dogfight’. Also also, as said by others, the omission of a mention of Origin is a shame. It would have been a perfect candidate for the introduction of a ‘consumer unfriendly’ medal.
Look to the people who say that single player does not count in a BF game, I agree. But they added single player, they took time and money during the development to make the single player campain. We don’t care about the single player in the BF games (Bad Company is an exception), do not make a single player campain DICE, focus more on the multiplayer. The reason they have sinleplayer is probebly becouse of CoD:MW single player. But the reason that the single player in BF never gets as good… ok decent, as MW is becouse MW has a epic story, and I mean “epic” in that it is big. You have characters that you play as and recognize from game to game, (thou I did not expect Soap to have a mowhawk). In the BF games, (and all the other CoD games except MW) you just play as a random soldier, in a random location every game, you can’t get invested in those characters becouse they don’t give you any time for it and eaven if you did get invested in them there is no point, when the game is over you never see them again.
Also, no I am not saying that MW is better then BF, becouse MW multiplayer is crap, atleast on the pc it is. Bleeping P2P servers, grumble grumble, console port, grumble, can’t change FOV…
I use Battlefield 3 for my teamplay fix. I’ve got a working formula: server hop until I find a squad that knows what it’s doing. Friend request the good players in the squad after the round is over. Join on my new friends’ servers. Average quality of team play increases! I’m also slowly building a favorites list of consistently good teamplay servers. There’s no excusing the lack of in-game squad VOIP, but at least I can find some servers that work around it with TeamSpeak scripts.
I am giving MW3 a pass for a long time because I got tired of the vicious nature of online play in MW2 and Black Ops. If I want twitch shooting these days, I actually keep it offline and play Painkiller. Respect the classics!
You’re wrong about Origin, Joe. Even if it realy is a good service like Steam, that doesn’t change the fact, that it’s an invasion of privacy. I hear in Germany the goverment is geting involved trying to bann the service because of that.
I’m pretty disappointed in this review. Sounds like you been bought off from EA. For starters, there is no way you could had played BF2. Battlefield was not known for its single player. I kinda thought that that would be left up to the “Bad Company series” and the not regular Battlefield games. It was suppose to separate itself from the other run and gun FPS’s out there but they just copied it from everyone else. Also what made BF2 (yes i like bf2 a lot) was it voip talk between other squad members. How did you get it to work or did you use something else? They say the only way you can do this is through battlelog but IT DOESN”T WORK! And It only suppose to work is with someone in your friend list, why not in game? It was sad listening to my friend ask how you do things that we did in bf2. Now don’t get me wrong the game does look nice but i would take a slightly upgraded bf2 to this. And they biggest slab in the face to old BF2 players was how they promise to have original maps from bf2 but to this day are still not playable. Maybe why the pc version (digital download) was 10 bucks cheaper than the rest. If you never played BF2 (what this was suppose to be a sequel of) It going to be the next best thing since sliced bread to you. If you did, Its going to be a pretty big letdown.
I personally disagree with that guy ^^
Its funny how often I see “BF2 Vets” complain about this game and try to generalize their complaints as things all players of BF2 would also agree are broken and worth crying about. I played the shit out of BF2 (as well as 2142, BC2 etc), its probably one of my fav games of all time. You know how that makes me feel about BF3? I fucking love it. Its beautiful, immersive and has a shit ton of awesomeness exploding from its seals.
” VOIP is broken” it works just fine for me. also if you haven’t found an alternative to in-game voice chat since BF2, get with the times.
“the maps SUCKz0rs!! they arnt the same as BF2″ relax. the gun play is fantastic in this game. it would be a shame not to have as many city / close quarters / infantry based maps as they do. if you want only vehicle maps, change your filters.
“no commander = no good” sure ill agree. the commander was cool.. but lets move on.
Ohh and to address the other most common complaint I see:
“FUCK ORIGIN! I WONT PLAY THIS UNTIL ITS NOT ON ORIGIN” LOL.. poor you. even if EA is tracking info about what stuff you play, or even if they have info about your preferences online. WTF do you have to hide? naked kids? dog sex? what is it you don’t want them to know?
If you wont play this game because you have to install Origin. You are a missing out. Bottom line.
I don’t hate Call of Duty, in fact like everyone else I loved COD4, still kind of do.
I have a problem with the treatment of the property by Activision and the developers post COD4 though.
MW2 and now MW3 are essentially $60 expansion packs, then on top of that they sell another $60 worth of map packs and each map pack includes maps from the previous games that should have at minimum been included on the disc. It’s all for the sake of being able to convince the consumer that paying a $5 premium, compared to the $10 map packs released for other games, is justified. Essentially they want us to spend $120 yearly for COD. More if we subscribe to Elite or buy the Hardened or Elite collector’s editions.
I’m also kinda of sick of Pointstreaks(killstreaks), I know they can be turned off but most servers are still going to have them turned on. They could at least develop a new engine to justify the $60 price tag of the standard edition, but they don’t even do that. Those are the problems I have with COD and it has nothing to do with Battlefield. I just won’t be buying COD again until they at least give it a facelift, I’m sick of the cookie cutter BS.
As far as Battlefield is concerned I’ve bought most of the BF games including 2142. The only ones I didn’t were 1943 and the first Bad Company. So I am a fan of the series but I also like COD. They’re completely different flavors of the modern military FPS.
Yeah, consoles don’t look as good as PC and don’t have 64 player maps, but at least I don’t have to install fucking spyware. Big letdown on your part, because I always thought you were fighting the Corporate Commander on the frontline. And now you even say it’s all ok? What the hell man?
Origin is a new STOREFRONT. It’s an inconvienence to have to open it to run BF3 but it isn’t what I would call spyware or even malware. EA basically saw what Valve did with STEAM, and what Microsoft did with GAMES FOR WINDOWS/XBOX LIVE then asked themselves “Why don’t we cut out the middlemen, and sell it direct too?” They revised their EULA to quell paranoia.
It’s fine if you don’t want yet another digital distro storefront on your computer but going forward that’s where the competition will be. GFW/XBX Live, Steam, Origin, GOG, D2Drive, among others.
Also don’t be surprised if WiiU/Xbox3/PS4 expand their digital storefronts, and begin selling most of their games direct instead of going through third party retailers.
Again, I’m not saying you’re right or wrong for not liking it, I’m just saying I think calling it malware is going the route of Chicken Little sensationalist hyperbole.
I’m really not calling it names, I just stand by the facts. In germany we still have some privacy left online and the things that Origins is able to do are in fact against the german law. I’m not joking. It is by definition spyware. Court case pending.
I just think, that Joe of all people would b the one speakin out against it.
I agree, the way Origin works now is complete BS. However you need to listen to what Joe actually said. He was talking about Battlelog, not Origin they aren’t the same thing.
read the eula, numpty.
1.) No reason to insult me
2.) I have read it several times over, and there’s nothing in there that isn’t in countless other digital storefronts. Steam/D2D/GFWL/XBL/Itunes all have fairly similar wording. If you take the stance of such things as being malware then you pretty much won’t be buying anything digitally from 99% of online storefronts ever, and in some cases even physically as the physical copy may require synchrinization of a digital storefront.
3.) Even CONSOLE games are transitioning from PRODUCT to LICENSE as if you bother to read the manuals cover to cover, you will find they too have EULA’s. They just aren’t enforced the way they are on computer platforms. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next wave of consoles follows EA/Valve/Apple’s etc. lead.
GREAT REVEW JOE as always, perfect analysis of BF3 and the differences btw COD and BF
I think you have pretty much summed up my feelings about BF3. I have gone on record for Sage’s review about my feelings towards the singleplayer as being bland and generic. However, the graphics, audio, mechanics, and multiplayer are all outstanding in my opinion. BF3 was easily worth my money over MW3.
couldn’t agree more. solid review as always Joe. I was in a few servers with you online and I was hoping you were doing alright, just becuase I figured it would encourage a positive review
hehe
so whats your prediction for hours logged on this puppy? ive already put about 55 and i feel like ive just been scratching the surface. I absolutely love this game! How will I make room for skyrim, uncharted 3 and zelda
Joe… in a tutu… I will never unsee that
AngryJoe for candidacy in Dancing with the Internet Stars!
That knock against sluggish tanks had to be a crack about Destructoid and their less than stellar review lol
I definitely agree though about the lackluster campaign. While I didn’t have high hopes for it, going in entirely for the multiplayer, I was disappointed that the campaign, while having a few good moments, really wasn’t that well done I thought with a real weak ending that was way too full of plot convenience.
This review was really good, hitting upon everything in a solid mindset, and especially going after the Battlelog, pointing out to folks so adamantly against it, when really, it’s more beneficial than an ingame browser and stat windows. Sure it’s new, sure it has problems, but this is a new way to do things and companies have to take a step into trying it, before they can come out with the best version of it. It will continue to get better as it has every week since launch.
Could not agree more with you on MW3 and BF3. MW3 has always had a very competent singleplayer experience, but the multiplayer was always small scale, arena, action, with very overpowered rewards for doing well, compared to Battlefields more realistic, teamwork oriented, large scale vehicle and infantry combat. Even the smallest maps in BF3 are bigger than the largest CoD maps lol That’s what I like more. A better tactical and team oriented game, instead of lonewolf, mindless, run and gun, arcade action. I played both, but BF3 is the one I actually bought and find much more engaging.
I think that it’s OK to complain about dust getting in the way as I’m not convinced that a straight out war simulation makes for a good game. I’m not saying that it does or doesn’t work for BF3 as I haven’t played it, but the complaint may yet be valid. Judging from the review though it works overall…
Good review at that!
I didn’t like this on console and I was going to spend $1500 on a computer but decided not to. Joe have you seen the BF3 simulator with the paintball bullets hitting you when you get shot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8Bh5iI2WY
Your special effects in your videos are starting to get pretty damn good Joe. Kudos.
Dat tutu.
I think… I want you more now. I’m ashamed.
Decent overview Joe. I do have to disagree with you a little bit about Origin/Battlelog though.
While yes it DOES in fact make it easier to manage friends, stats, and milestones in addition to server browsing it is far from perfect. As mentioned it is 2 extra processes that now have to run, and while they don’t use a ton of resources (At least on my system) there are those who like to tweak their PC so that any RAM not used by the OS is free for the game.
Aside from that minor quibble, recently I’ve found Battlefield 3′s exe will sometimes crash when being launched through Battlelog from time to time, forcing me to click again. This most often happens when trying to follow friends onto a server. DICE already released one patch, which hasn’t fixed this issue. There are also some minor graphical glitches that happen from time to time like a raycasting triangle, texture pop in, and sometimes missing objects.
All of that said I do find BF3 to be a lot of fun, and I’ve already spent a considerable number of hours playing it. It really does seem to combine the best of BF1942 with the best of BFBC2.
I also didn’t find the Single Player to be that bad. It was about on par with most other single player action games this gen, making for a fun 4-6 hour romp with little incentive to replay it. That is an issue ALL developers will have to look at fixing, making a SP game that is so fun, players won’t mind replaying it down the line.
I don’t think BF, and CoD should really be compared either, they’re two different animals with similar skins. I think people see the same machine guns, terrorists, settings, etc, and assume they’re the same without even playing them to find the system mechanics are totally different.
In response to what you said about SP campaigns: The CoD4 campaign was (and at least in my opinion) still is an exiting, gripping, replayable campaign… but maybe that’s just because it did it first.
I would have to argue they basically cribbed their SP structure from Valve’s Half-Life series. They too were point to point story driven shooters. The difference being HL has a much more interesting story that is written much better. Which creates the desire to revisit it from time to time, the way some of your favorite books, or films might. HL also hides it’s linearity very well with it’s set pieces, and occasional puzzle solving.
Not to knock CoD’s or even BF’s SP modes but neither of them have the same panache as HL. So they do provide a fun romp, but there’s nothing that makes me wish to replay it once I’ve blown through it. I guess we just agree to disagree.
I have to say I found the music that was running during the dogfight mission quite awe inspiring. But it’s true other than that I don’t really remember much of the Soundtrack other than that.
You were pretty much spot on with this one. Good job.
i personally feel that they should drop the singel player entirely and insted add a extensiv toturial for the multiplayer.
also battlefield 3 is not like CoD where we get a game a year this game will be played for many years to come many ppl who got BF3 jumped over from BF2.
again this is me beaing old school but i like server browsers in games and i would not mind battle log if i was not forced to use it
i did say this game was gonna suck on consoles didn’t i? consoles are simply to old now there are no more tricks to get the game to run that good on consoles now
P.S Joe you need to play some tribes 64vs64 now that is some awsome jetpack fun ;3
I’m still very, very concerned about EA’s Origin. You basically give EA the right to monitor your PC, make lists of installed programs and hardware and even let them send those gathered informations about your system to 3rd party companies.
No offense, Joe. But if you really want to battle Cooperate actions you must adress something like this.
I’m really liking the game as long as I’m with friends. I can’t play games like these without my friends on playing it too. I’m gonna keep playing until Friday and then I’ll go missing for a couple months.
I agree with Joe about importance of singleplayer game. Game developers seem to forget that single player game is also important and they just consenrate to multiplayer game. Its true that there is people that don’t care about singleplayer game but there also those of us that do. I don’t see why they could not make also good singleplayer game for those of us that want to play it.
I’m usually not one for fps games, but battlefield 3 is beautiful. i look forward to the mw3 review. btw i want to see your opinion on minecraft, just a suggestion.
Angry Joe in a pink tutu confuses me sexually.
that comment went to facebook
How so?
Almost as jibbly-inducing as Geisha Joe from that Shogun video.