The Fall of 2011 was one of the most over crowded seasons I've known in terms of new game releases. Big triple A titles were all set to be released into the competitive market for the Christmas period. Annual releases such as Halo Anniversary, Assassin Creed: Revelations, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Fifa 2012, all made their appearances along with other titles Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Batman: Arkham City and Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception.
With a season so packed with new releases customers would have to pick and choose certain games as to not become bankrupt.
Battlefield 3 made its debut 2 weeks before its main competition Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 a title so backed up by millions of fans, that it was going to be a struggle to knock it off the top spot, where it has been sat for the last 4 years with the previous games in the series.
Battlefield has always been about the multi player, massive maps and destructible environments create adaptive and ever changing tactical options as you pave your way though the game.
While Battlefield 3's campaign is short and unoriginal , it still makes for an interesting sit.
Battlefield 3 is set in 2014, on the Iraq - Iran border, you play as Sergeant Blackburn, went sent to investigate a possible improvised explosive device, the last known position was a market controlled by a hostile militia called the Peoples Liberation Resistance. Sargent Blackburn and his squad are sent to Tehran to apprehend a the leader Al-Bashir. While investigating an underground vault Blackburn and his team learn that the Peoples Liberation Resistance have acquired Russian nuclear devices and that two of the three devices are missing.
You briefly play as Sergeant Miller who is deployed in an M1 Abram to extract Blackburn's team. Miller assists in the extraction before becoming captured and executed by Solomon and Al-Bashir. Blackburn and his squad manage to capture Al-Bashir who reveals Soloman's plot to detonate the nukes in Paris and New York before his passing. Blackburn's team get a lead on an arms dealer called Kaffarov, who was working with Solomon. while pursuing Kaffarov, the Americans encounter the Russian forces who are also trying to apprehend Kaffarov, they become hostile towards the Americans and most of Blackburn's squad are killed in action during a vicious fire fight. While a team of Spetsnaz Special Forces assaults Kaffarov's villa. they successfully interrogates Kaffarov who reveals Solomon's plot to Blackburn. Blackburn's commanding officer arrives and to let the Spetsnaz Special Forces escape, shoots his Commanding Officer. Blackburn is captured and interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, he explains all of the previous operations to them. During Blackburn's capture, the Spetsnaz Special Forces attempt to stop the attack in Paris, but are unsuccessful resulting in the detonation and the deaths of 80.000 civilians.Since Solomon is an informant to the CIA, they do not believe Blackburn's story.Left with no option, Blackburn breaks out of captivity to stop the attack in New York, he manages to kill Solomon and recovers the nuclear device.
While there are some amazing set pieces in the game, you cant but think some of the missions have been designed to give the player outstanding in game moments, before throwing a storyline in to fuse them together. While this isn't technically a negative thing as the player gets to absorb some of the ground breaking spectacle designs of the game, it doesn't assist in the storyline and rather than become attached to Blackburn's team, you're just there for the ride.
The positives with this are that the levels are fun to play and the set pieces can really build some adrenaline within the player, if its driving across the open desert in a tank, or sitting in the cockpit of a F-16 fighter jet there is an epic scale fun to be had.
The reason for the great pieces is DICE's decision to is show its amazing Graphic engine, the Frostbite 2 engine and the updated in-game Destruction 3.0 creating more refined physics than its predecessor and quasi-real-time radiosity using Geometric Enlighten technology.
Its DICE's first game with the new engine but future games will use this also.
Battlefield 3 is without a doubt the new benchmark in terms of graphics, there is nothing out there that can be compared to, with amazing lighting and textures design it has extremely little texture popping if none. With the assistance of EA's motion capture ANT technology characters seamlessly move free flowing without any pauses in the animation, this makes the characters act and look more realistic than anything (accept real human) creating real looking team mates and enemies.
The games audio as ever is mind blowing, to fighter Jets flying above you and the thud of Tanks, to the crack and wisp of every individual bullet that crosses your screen, it immerses you within the game as you start following the sound of footsteps from the enemy nearby.
While the voice acting lacks that of Hollywood stars, that doest mean it isn't good, voice acting is still great and the assistance of a Hollywood star wouldn't improve the game at all (unless it was James Earl Jones) an actor who is in the game and an actor I am a personal fan of is Glenn Morshower (Black Hawk down, 24, Transformers, X-men, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) he plays as one of the interrogation offices from Central Intelligence Agency his voice acting definitely suits the role.
As ever there is a downside to this game, but at the moment it is a negative that I find with all games currently. Not since the improvements from Metal Gear Solid to Metal Gear Solid 2: Son of Liberty have I found a massive improvement in the games Artificial intelligence.
The Games AI is satisfactory but doesn't attempt to challenge the player, the occasional knife attack at you life means quick time button sequences but in general the games AI will not challenge you. Playing at higher difficulties doesn't make them more of a challenging either, this for me is a minor issue and I was hoping Battlefield 3 would lead the way into new AI as it has done on every other level with Graphics and Audio.
Battlefield 3 is the game that has paved the way into the next generation of games. It has raised the standards of in game content and game lifespan. While the single player campaign maybe short it is fun and defiantly worth a play, when the Battlefield servers are down for maintenance.
