I obviously wasn’t there when David starting flinging rocks at Goliath’s head, but I was around when northern upstarts Oasis went up against Blur and yes – I bought both records even though Roll With It easily eclipsed the rather toffish Country House. It just seemed like the done thing to do – an expensive one for a student, sure – but I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun.
Ironically, countless years later, we’re here again, and we’re still months away from both Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 hitting the shelves. I can’t remember such a closely poised scrap between two videogames since Konami decided to release a football sim, and I’ve little to no interest in that particular genre anyway. First person shooters, though? Well, that’s big business.
[drop]I’m guessing, if I had to pitch one way or the other, that EA’s entry would probably be the future king of Israel, or – indeed – the Gallaghers. Something of the underdog against the might of the Activision marketing machine and a set of fans so hardcore that they were willing to ditch internet-less PS3s for Xbox 360s just to keep a presence on the battlegrounds.But whilst Battlefield 3 is clearly a step up from last year’s always doomed Medal of Honor reboot, this time around the publisher, armed with a clearly more capable DICE, mean business – and rightly so, if anyone’s going to topple a behemoth like Modern Warfare, it’s going to be one fuelled by someone like Electronic Arts, even if they’re still directly avoiding any comparison between the two.
And let’s be honest – going off the reactions to the various teasers that have dripped out of a very finely honed promotional campaign – EA are doing everything right.
If there’s one word that captures the spirit of what Battlefield 3 is all about, it’s gritty. Not just a reference to the noisy graphics, more about the way the chaos of war is presented to the player: everything that happens, scripted as it might be, appears dynamic, organic and unpredictable. Sure, you’re being led down corridors like most other shooters, but it’s all about how changeable those corridors are.
Not that you can ignore those graphics either. Naturally vastly superior on the top-end PCs the game has been demonstrated on so far, the console versions at least follow closely enough to appease the general public – the PlayStation 3 version shown is hardly shabby, maintaining most of the special effects and lighting, and keeping that all important environmental destruction.
In addition, you can use suppressing fire to disorient your opponents (vision is blurred and hearing is diminished) and flashlights can also temporarily blind anyone unfortunate enough to be caught out – all handled by DICE’s undeniably slick engine.
[drop2]The Frostbite 2 Engine is a powerful beast – smoke and debris fill the streets, the draw distance is hugely impressive, the borrowed ANT motion capture tech has created believeable animation and, across the game’s four chapters, what we hope will be a varied collections of locales as you and your team make your way around the world.And you’ll certainly be needing that passport: the game packs in trips to Paris, Tehran, Sarajevo and then across to the States for more familiar ground, and this being a thoroughbred Battlefield title there’ll be plenty of opportunity to make use of vehicles both in the stunning looking single player mode and the hopefully all encompassing multiplayer portion, the latter of which promises big things.
Again, we’re back to class-based mechanics, and Battlefield 3 will sport four such player types: Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon, across the three currently revealed game modes: Conquest, Rush and Team Deathmatch. The Paris map is the one that’s the cause of much discussion just now, its Rush variant a staggered series of pushes towards an ultimate goal, but one that feels markedly different at each stage.
And whilst Call of Duty’s new Elite service looks set to lock in its fans even harder than its ever done, EA’s Battlelog will play to the same sort of strengths as Autolog did for Need for Speed, combining social networking with detailed statistics and tracking, meaning everything you do in the game can (and will) be compared with the actions of your friends.
There’s a lot going on with Battlefield 3 – and whilst the game certainly looks the part already the developers are still only at alpha stage, refining and tweaking as they go. Time will tell whether the game will ultimately match up to its main rival, but from what we’ve seen so far, that won’t be too much of a problem.
KeRaSh
Looks great. Will probably go for the PC version.
TURRICAN-808
I’m looing forward to the BETA, August?
iiekka
i must admit this could be the game that forces me to upgrade my pc finaly.
Sympozium
So… does it have planes?
TURRICAN-808
It has Jet propelled aircraft
teflon
After the quick summary of the plot, I’m preparing myself to be disappointed with the plot. BFBC2’s SP plot was all about being silly, often poking fun at CoD, but here it looks to be all serious, and jumping around to the locales they are feels off to me.
Then again, everything’s a cliche when set in the modern era (plus or minus 15 years). The US always gets invaded, there’s always ultra-nationalists taking over Russia, or North Korea, or China.
My favourite modern war tale of recent times came from an RTS, actually, in World in Conflict, where it was a final roll of the Communist’s dice to survive by invading Europe and then the US. I think I’d quite like to see more alternate realities that branched off from our own 30-40 years ago.
yogdog
World in Conflict was brilliant, favourite modern day RTS, and hoping fervently for a World in Conflict 2. Check every now and again what Massive Entertainment are preparing. Wish they would hurry up and start it!
mrfodder
Choices, choices! Upgrade PC and buy BF3 for it or PS3 version or both. And Uncharted 3 a week later! I think my wallet is starting to cry.
Broonba
Definitely looking forward to this. Bring on the beta.
hiab-x
Bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I know I’m going to stand alone in the crowd here… It looks brilliant, the artistry is jaw dropping, the realism is probably unsurpassed. It messes with my head completely because of the following simple point: Travel a few thousand miles away from the comfort of your living room and something like this is really happening on a regular basis, to real men and women, it’s terrifying and brutal existence on a daily basis. Travel a few thjousand miles in another direction, it becomes teenagers and adults sitting on a couch calling it entertainment. I think a line has blurred badly somewhere.
Sad Panda
Just read the first thing to put me off the game. What is it with the enforcement of the facebook community and throwing it in your face. Some of us don’t want to bloody social network. Because of my job I’m advised for my own safety by my employer not to have any form of My Space, Facebook, Twitter etc. It does my head in when games require some use of this to either unlock stuff or track your every little stat online. I just want to play the game.
tonycawley
You just want to play the game? Well you can, there is absolutely no requirement for anything else!
DJ Judas
Fortunately I don’t think there’s any requirement for Facebook etc for any of the features, what is meant by social aspect of the game is that your stats are automatically compared to those of your friends in your respective friends list.
I also hate any requirement for social media.
Sad Panda
The autolog really turned me off hot pursuit, part of the reason I stopped playing it. I’m gutted about the unlocks on the likes of infamous2. Whilst there is my main reason for not using these sites, even if I was able to use social networks, I don’t care how big a turd some total stranger managed to pass this morning, nor do I wish to poke it.
tonycawley
Closely poised scrap? You’re kidding me right? Mw3 will kill battlefield3, not because .I have any cod allegience, but because its the best selling video game series of all time and I don’t see that changing one bit.
minerwilly
Sad but true Tony , the good thing though is it keeps a large proportion of idiots out of my beloved Battlefield . Perhaps thats not what EA want but the more mature of us are happy the kids have their own game , as much as i dislike Cods online i have to at least thank it for that .