dubcomm – the toronto teknopusher

Battlefield 3 : PS3 | REVIEW pt.1

I’ve been stoked for this game for quite some time. The MAG servers just don’t have enough people on them anymore, so playing without a full squad of proper players or clan members is an exercise in futility. I love the game, and especially the developers for putting so much time and effort into an amazing piece of technical work, but its time to move on…

In moves BF3! I decided to put in my pre-order on the 24th, and to take my nerdism to the next level head out to my local EB/Gamestop for the midnight launch. It was a smooth and easy process, the staff from EB @ Queen West did a great job and got everybody served in a matter of minutes. I was home with the game installed, activated, registered on battlelog, and had all my pre-order bonus gear set before 1am. This is where things get a little, DICEy. (Pardon the vicious pun.)

I jumped straight into multiplayer, though was met by some errors trying to use the “quick match” setting. After refreshing the browse list though, I found a game and launched. My first impressions from those 2 weeks with the beta were confirmed, this is an absolutely incredible looking game. The models & textures are detailed for maps this large, and the giant scale of things create environments that allow for massive adrenaline rushes during tense moments in play.

All is well, I’ve run around and shot somebody, booted to an objective in a humvee, and got shot in the face. Dead. No big deal though, this is a game! Time to spawn again and take another stab at it! Too bad though, when I respawn, I’m lacking a weapon.

This is a horrible state of affairs for any FPS fan, let alone the developers of the software. I spent the better part of the week blowing up @Battlefield on twitter trying to get an acknowledgement of the issue. I’ve also posted on numerous boards & bug-report sites, and found a couple handfuls of others afflicted withe the same problems. Here is a list for convenience sake:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/0/7674866.page#17859648
http://getsatisfaction.com/battlefield3/topics/no_weapon_respawn
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2832654489420862290/
http://battlefield3forums.com/showthread.php?3300-No-guns-multiplayer
http://battlefield3forums.com/showthread.php?3212-Gun-Doesnt-Show-%28Xbox360%29
http://battlefield3forums.com/showthread.php?3321-No-weapon-

< The evening & morning I was taking notes for this, they responded! Here’s a little snapshot of their somewhat uniform reply to my tweet.

Apologies for my foul language, but honestly I’d been raising a stink about this for a few days. Sometimes I get a little grumpy. Add to the fact I haven’t been able to play the game to its full potential while watching my friends level-up… Yea…

As of right now, I’ve played less than 10 complete rounds of BF3. I’m clearly not pleased, but I’m also restraining myself somewhat. I know that this is a huge undertaking, especially across 3 different platforms, so I don’t want to freak out on the devs.

Single player “Campaign” mode isn’t what I bought this game for, but I’m not one to leave a stone un-turned, and want the most out of my purchase. Seeing as multi-player is no fun because of the no-weapon glitch (always followed by a kick from the server @ end of round) I fired it up and cruised through the first short mission. The game switches between cut scenes & actual play, and during the first transition of the second level, the game froze. In disbelief I restarted, only to be met with the same circumstance. WTF.

I spent some time on the forums (most in the above list) and checked out the twitter feed for potential answers to this new morale-crushing glitch, and found the devs retweeting a post suggesting “rebuild PS3 database”. So I did that. And it worked! The campaign continued through another level or 2 and set me up in another half cinematic/half gameplay sequence. See video below.

Right now, Co-Op play is the best thing battlefield 3 has going for it. Its challenging (except the helicopter mission, “I’m a GOD on the stick” said clan-member Erip420) and really shows diversity in the presented scenarios. Is it weird that I feel lucky to have not faced any glitches? Either way, its fun to play, and there are clear differences between easy/normal/hard playthroughs in most cases I’ve seen.

I’m really looking forward to this game when its truly completed. Battlefield 3 will truly be a masterpiece in FPS games when all the kinks are worked out, because the bits I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy are mind bending. I run my PS3 through a 40″ Samsung LCD TV in “game mode” with an optical connection to my Edirol FA-101 for audio conversion, feeding pair of 8″ Tapco near-field monitors. If I have to explain to you how rowdy this is, you’re probably not much of a gamer… The whole building shakes with explosions, AA fire stings the ears, ricocheting bullets have me literally looking to the left and right to see “what was that”… It’s wild.

Stay tuned for pt.2 of my review, that hopefully won’t be so long-winded. I’ll wait a couple of weeks for a proper patch, and hopefully won’t be making a video of the multiplayer no-weapon glitch… Guess we’ll see!

Tags: #MEGADESK, Battlefield 3, campaign, challenging, co-op, dice, EA, error reporting, FPS, frustrating, Fun, Fun with YouTube, Glitches, long-winded, multiplayer, no-weapon, Online, single player, Twitter