EA’s latest blockbuster is two distinct games -- excellent, complex multiplayer and simple, short but fun single player
Battlefield 3: Single player
The Battlefield franchise didn’t start with any kind of single-player storyline — for years it was strictly an AI-only version of the multiplayer game, for gamers with shoddy Internet connections and no willing family member for a lift to the nearest LAN party. The Bad Company spin-off changed this, giving traditionally multiplayer-hungry players a chance to settle down with some semblance of a plot and character development.
Battlefield 3, in its efforts to emulate and overtake its Call of Duty competition, has a fully-fledged single player campaign component. To say the storyline is like something out of a book you’d buy to read in an airport isn’t entirely inaccurate — think US soldiers in the Middle East, stolen suitcase nukes, Russian special forces, rogue spies, lots of angry bad guys — but that’s not to say it isn’t fun. It should come as no surprise that Andy McNab was a technical advisor for the game’s storyline; he’s also written a novel to accompany the storyline and build back-story for one of the playable characters.
Battlefield 3: Multiplayer
If you were one of the three million people who pre-ordered Battlefield 3 worldwide, chances are you wanted it for the multiplayer aspect, which has long been a hallmark of the series. A week-long open beta test for Battlefield 3 got our hopes up, and we’re pleased to say that, bar a few teething problems, Battlefield 3’s multiplayer aspect is excellent: it’s one of the best multiplayer gaming experiences we’ve had in a long time, and we’d go so far as to say it’s one of the best squad- and team-based multiplayer games that you could buy.
Battlefield 3’s new Frostbite 2.0 engine does an excellent job with the expansive maps of the multiplayer mode. Nine huge maps that can support up to 64 players in various gameplay modes are all incredibly richly detailed and remarkably versatile, lending themselves to a near-infinite range of play styles — skulk around the edges of the conflict as a long-range sniper, pilot an attack helicopter in the close air above combat, or keep your feet on the ground as an assault rifle-toting grunt. There are dozens of weapons and dozens of vehicles, each of which has plenty of unlockable add-ons, like heat-seeking missiles for a jet or a thermal scope for a machinegun — there’s an intense sense of satisfaction from getting one more kill and unlocking another perky extra. There are a number of different game modes — beyond the standard capture-and-defend-choke-points Conquest, there’s also the fast-attacking Rush and simpler Team Deathmatch (and a Squad Deathmatch mode for smaller conflicts). They’re all extremely well balanced and we’ve consistently had a ball in public servers, with random players, in every game mode.
Battlefield 3: Conclusion
Battlefield 3 is very much a game of two halves: excellent, peerless, unparalleled multiplayer with hours and hours of replay value, versus a cookie-cutter single player experience we probably wouldn’t bother playing again. Co-op sits somewhere in between as a tacked-on extra. Don’t buy Battlefield 3 for the single player — buy it for the multiplayer; we guarantee you’ll enjoy it.
- Price: $ 109.95 (AUD)
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