Battlefield 3: OXCGN’s Definitive Preview

All Platforms + Max Detail PC Screens!

by exterminat

©2011 Nicholas Laborde

It’s been six long years since Battlefield 2 took the world by storm and began a revolution in online gaming.

Never before had a series made such an enormous leap in terms of technology, gameplay and overall functionality.

Over half a decade and six games later, Battlefield 3 has arrived (at least in Beta form) and promises to culminate in a melting pot of every single thing that has made Battlefield great… but does it actually accomplish this?

OXCGN looks at its offerings across all three platforms, and what we found just may surprise you.

All screenshots are in-game, taken on the PC beta.

The Core

The Battlefield 3 multiplayer beta opened its floodgates this past week, and we’ve been spending extensive time with the game’s offering on all three platforms. Before we get into platform specifics, though, we’ll tackle the core game and its features.

Battlefield 3 is a first-person shooter in a modern warfare setting.. hey, stop yawning! (ED: Ooops, sorry couldn’t help it…..)

This isn’t your typical shooter in any regard, and to view it as so would be sacrilege. If you are familiar with the Bad Company side series, then you’ll already be acquainted with the feel and core mechanics of the new title.

Make no mistake, though; this is NOT Battlefield: Bad Company 3. It’s the true third iteration in the Battlefield series in every sense of the meaning.

Battlefield 3‘s multiplayer offering is a squad-based experience, with an emphasis on teamwork and bringing order to the massive chaos of war. Four classes are available for players to choose from, but Bad Company 2 veterans may want to pay attention to this before enlisting, as there have been a few role changes.

The biggest alteration is the sacking of the Medic class in favor of the Support class, with medical abilities now being delegated to the Assault class. At first, you may think this is quite the illogical change and think it won’t fit, but trust a true Battlefield veteran: it fits perfectly.

Medics are meant to reach comrades in tight situations, and it makes sense that these duties would be reassigned to the class that engages in such activities. And on that note, the Support class is very warmly received in its return because of a key new feature that we’ll discuss further on.

So, without further adieu, we have the Assault class, which handles assault rifles and shotguns along with the ability to heal teammates and revive them from the dead via defibrillator paddles. Any Bad Company 2 veteran (or even Battlefield 2 veteran) has felt the pang of being revived in the middle of combat, repeatedly dying while a single Medic reaps the rewards of your obliteration.

Not any longer! Upon revival, players are laying down with their sidearm out, and presented with two options: revive or reject. Choosing to revive is the jump key, standing back up to defeat your enemies once more, while rejecting will not count as a death and the soldier who performed the revive will not receive any points upon this rejection.

Next, we have the Engineer, your all-around special operations soldier. Wielding close-quarters weapons such as SMGs along with explosives, the Engineer is your best choice for dealing with tricky situations, or scenarios involving vehicles. In addition to this, the Engineer can repair vehicles with a blowtorch, and can also use undersling attachments such as the flashlight, or blinding enemies in low-light environments.

Third, we have the much-revered Support class, specializing in heavy weapons (LMGs) and ammunition dispersal. The Support role is tailored to make use of a very important new feature in Battlefield 3: suppression.

When being shot at, players’ screens will become blurred and cloudy, aiming is much more difficult and sound can become distorted. Welcome to the world of suppression, and if this happens, you had better haul it to cover, otherwise you won’t be living much longer. It’s a great feature to prevent the effortless slaughter that would many a time ruin the enjoyment of Bad Company 2.

Last but certainly not least, we have the Recon class. Featuring sniper rifles and all-around stealth equipment, the Recon role is meant to provide long-range support and cover the advances of assault troops.

Now, all multiplayer gamers know the feel of attempting to be a frontline soldier, only to be continually picked off by packs of snipers sitting on a cliff several hundred feet away.

Battlefield 3 has discovered a subtle, yet brilliant way to weed out snipers: lens flare. What this does: while in direct contact of the sun, rays of light will bounce off of the scope and create a bright light, revealing the sniper’s location.

Couple that with an improved spotting system, and we finally have an experience where snipers don’t dominate normal players in every regard. (Ed: Hurrah!!!)

The Features

The primary mode featured in the beta version of Battlefield 3 is Rush, a now-staple mode in the series.

The premise is simple: two teams must fight for sets of two strategic objectives. The Attackers must approach the objectives, set an explosive charge on them and defend them until they are destroyed.

The Defenders must stop them at all costs, with their advantage being infinite respawns; the Attackers have a set number of lives and must be strategic in their approach.

It’s a simple mode, but my heart is heavy at how the concept has evolved since the original inclusion in 2008′s Battlefield: Bad Company. Originally, to fit with the humorous theme of the title, the mode was called Gold Rush, and revolved around destroying crates of gold, either by explosive charge or physical damage.

Bad Company 2 took out the gold aspect, and now Battlefield 3 has completely removed the physical damage aspect; it still feels balanced and fair, but to those who have seen the mode evolve, it can be disappointing to a degree.

It all happens on Operation Métro, the single map we get to play with. Taking place before, in and after a metro in Paris, this map has three phases: first, an open outdoor environment that will test the authenticity of even the best soldiers, second, a close-quarters underground metro station, and third, a medium-sized urban combat scenario. If this is only one map, I can’t wait for the full game.

On top of all of this, a deep progression system presents itself, and it’s easily the best-handled rank up system to date in multiplayer gaming. Each class levels up along with the overall player level, and each weapon can get multiple attachments and upgrades to allow better use on the battlefield.

Along with weapon upgrades are gadgets, which start small like the defib unit, and increase as more rank is acquired. EA once stated that the game will have “years of unlocks” and that statement was full of hot air, as I’ve already seen players in the mid-forties with the beta being out less than a week.

The amount of content, regardless of the time it takes to unlock, is still awe-inspiring and will keep even the best of players coming back for more.

PC

You may have noticed how I did not include any ‘superficial’ aspects such as visuals, audio or gameplay fluidity in the ‘core’ section of this preview, and it’s for good reason; the PC version is the only one that does any of it right.

The visuals on the PC offering of Battlefield 3 are crisp, superb and unparalleled. Uniforms are detailed to the stitches (which you can actually see), weapons are beaten and scratched in an aesthetically pleasing manner, audio is larger than life, and the controls are tighter than you could ever think.

It all comes down to power available versus power within range. Battefield: Bad Company 2 on PC was an obvious PC port of a console game, the worst thing a developer can ever do to a once PC-exclusive series. With Battlefield 3, it’s done just the opposite, and it sets a standard for how things really should work in this industry.

Battlefield 3 is a beast that DICE has let loose upon the world, and while you won’t need a monster PC to play it, you’ll need a behemoth to max it and see it in its true glory; the ‘sky’s limit’ was exceeded for the PC audience, and then this experience was cut down and adapted for console audiences.

My PC was able to max and sustain the game at above 60 frames per second, and it’s the most beautiful game I’ve ever had the privilege of playing. Not only is this a result of good hardware, but the entire order just feels fluid. Players leap over walls and cover in Mirror’s Edge-esque parkour style, lie down and crawl in a realistic manner, reload… every single thing that happens in Battlefield 3 is done beautifully and fluidly.

In addition to Rush, PC users have been able to play Conquest, an objective mode about capturing and holding points for a certain amount of time. Conquest mode allows for larger maps and more open-ended gameplay, and it’s the best the series has ever shown.

As if it could end here, server owners have been able to hack into beta files and modify player counts and game settings; let’s just say there have been servers with 128 players and even 256 players.

… and consoles offer a max of 24 players. When stacked up against each other, the PC version reigns supreme and is the complete, ultimate Battlefield 3 experience.

New to the PC version, though, is Battlelog, a sort of ‘social’ Battlefield experience taking inspiration from Battlefield Play4Free and Battlefield Heroes. Something that tinfoil hat-wearing crazies such as myself will get up in arms about is that there is no client for Battlefield 3…

The entire experience is managed through the Battlelog page, including server browsing and clan management, and even the cooperative and single-player portions of the game (not available in the beta).

It works and is an interesting model to move forward with, but the lack of a physical client almost makes you feel as if you don’t own what you paid for… because you don’t.

At the end of the day, the PC version comes out on top, regardless of strange design choices.

Consoles

Don’t get me wrong: I have no bias against consoles. There are games meant for consoles, and games meant for PCs; in this case, Battlefield 3 falls under the category of the latter, but the average player won’t be affected by this in any way.

Many of these issues are pointed out because of their comparison to the PC version, which is the standard experience.

The Xbox 360 version feels bland and unpolished to me in more ways than one.

First off, draw distance is literally less than fifty feet; textures and foliage pop in and out frequently, and it kills any sort of immersion of atmosphere you could attempt to get.

Textures are extremely low-resolution, shadows are blocky, uniforms don’t have half of the detail shown on the PC version, and gunplay feels loose and clunky.

Couple that with poor audio that feels out of sync, glitches everywhere you look – and strange ones at that, like muzzle flashes getting stuck in the air – and an overall whitewashed look, and what you have is the worst Battlefield 3 experience possible.

The PlayStation 3 version looks slightly better than the 360 offering, with a more polished experience and tighter controls, but still the strange audio issues of feeling distant and not in complete synchronization with their corresponding actions lingers.

If you had to pick a console version of Battlefield 3, the PlayStation 3 version will be your best bet. What we’re presented with on the Xbox 360 is abysmal and an embarrassment to what the game can and will be.

Verdict

After extensive play time on each platform, OXCGN’s official verdict regarding Battlefield 3 is as follows: if you have a capable PC, think no further and invest your time as such.

If you pick a console adaptation, stick with the PlayStation 3, as it will undoubtedly reflect the superior experience come launch day.

While this is still a work-in-progress with nothing final, Battlefield 3 will be an exhilarating FPS experience to define this winter come the end of October.

The beta is still ongoing, and is available for Xbox 360 on Marketplace, for PS3 on the PS Store, and for PC via Origin. For now, check out our extensive image gallery below!

OXCGN Anticimeter – Highly Anticipated

PC Specs

• Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB
• 8 GB RAM DDR3 @ 1666 MHz
• AMD Phenom II X6 1090 T @ 3.2 GHz

©2011 Nicholas Laborde

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Filed under: Console gaming, Demo impressions, Game Impressions, New Xbox 360 Games, PC News, PC Reviews, PS3 News, PS3 Reviews, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | "First Person Shooter", Battlefield, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company, Battlefield Bad Company 2, bf3, EA, games, Modern Warfare, multiplayer, Online game, origin, PlayStation Network, PSN