Battlefield 3

The smoke rising from a burned out tank in the distance, coupled with the staccato gunfire of a heated infantry battle in full swing, is my cue to move. The enemy squad are held up in a half-collapsed factory, the rest of my unit working like a finely tuned machine to keep them suppressed. I poke my head out over the crumbling concrete slab I’ve been hiding behind for what feels like forever, and there it is - the enemy M-COM station, unguarded and calling to me like a homing beacon. With the agility of an electric eel I vault over the barrier and charge across the open field between me and my target, that last M-COM station, the only thing standing between my team and battlefield glory. With mere meters left to cover, a sudden, piercing, hissing sound scorches past my head - the fearsome crack of sniper fire - and I drop to the floor, flat on my belly, desperately worming my way towards the nearest cover. Everything has gone quiet now, the faraway rumblings of bitter war a faded memory as I lie in the dust. Minutes feel like hours, my heartbeat throbs in my brain - surely he must be gone by now? Edging forward slowly, breathlessly, inch by inch I push my luck towards the M-COM station, so close I can smell it. He would have put a bullet through my head by now, I’ve been exposed for far too long, right? I pull myself up into a crouch, and shuffle right up to the M-COM box, my skin tingling with confidence and the thrill of victory. Just a moment’s work to arm this damn bomb, and we’re on the next Osprey out of here, medals and ribbons tacked to our lapels. A shot rings out that splits the air like a whip, the salty, metallic taste of my own blood fills my mouth. A cold shiver crawls across my skin as I sink to the dirt, and the world in front of me fades to inky black.

That, right there, is the pure, distilled greatness of Battlefield 3's multiplayer. In a world where game developers work tirelessly to craft memorable moments that they can weave into their stories, Battlefield 3 churns them out on the fly. No scripted action sequence can really come close to this kind of organized chaos, and to the sheer joy that comes with it, win or lose. Every lesson that EA DICE has learned with every Battlefield game that came before this one have led to this - and the result is quite possibly the most enthralling multiplayer shooter that money can buy.

Multiplayer, yes, but is it the best military shooter overall? That’s a different question entirely. See, for a few years in a row Call of Duty has been ruining the party for everyone else, selling in massive crate-loads, smashing records and generally making it difficult for anyone else to make a successful modern military shooter. EA DICE clearly wanted a piece of that action, and set about building a single-player campaign very much in line with what we’ve seen from the Activision camp. Sadly, like a Rolex sold at a seaside market, a knockoff often doesn’t stand up to the standards set by that which it imitates. And that's the bottom line here: Battlefield 3’s single-player campaign, while technically impressive and good for a blast of action, never really manages to shake that perception that it’s playing in Call of Duty’s backyard.

All of the right boxes are ticked: you’ve got a variety of extravagant locations hosting all manner of intense set-piece battles; the story plays out through the eyes of a number of protagonists to add diversity and scope; you even have your full quota of vehicle-based segments and a ‘target & destroy’ mission from an aircraft. But somehow, even with all of the right ingredients, it doesn’t blend together like it should. Keep in mind that I’m judging this campaign up against the best in the business - compared to most other shooters these days, Battlefield 3’s campaign is quite fantastic; a dramatic, over-the-top, nail-biter of a story that propels the player forward with a barrage of intense firefights and narrative twists. But EA DICE blatantly took a shot at the biggest dog in the cage with this one, and in that respect Battlefield 3 comes up short.

The story itself feels a little loose, as if it started life as a hundred good ideas pinned up on a planning wall - ideas that should have been streamlined and trimmed, reworked and cleverly seamed together. Instead the result is a story which, while entertaining and fast-moving, always feels somewhat disjointed. The key role is that of Sergeant Henry Blackburn who, after a short introduction mission on a runaway train, is unceremoniously bundled into an interrogation session with some hardboiled CIA types. It’s a scenario which offers many opportunities for diversity, because from here any number of narratives along different timelines can shoot off on a tangent without seeming unnatural. Most of these flashbacks play out in the boots of Mr Blackburn, but in classic Call of Duty style the flashbacks sometimes veer off to encompass other characters - including a restrictive but nevertheless gripping flight mission in an F18 jet - all playing a role in a wide-reaching search for missing nukes.

The various narrative threads, tied together to some extent via the somewhat tired flashback mechanic, add up to an overarching story heavy with Hollywood cliches but which acts as the perfect setting for intense set-piece firefights all around the world. From a gameplay perspective, the action itself plays out in a similar style to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, with most of your time spent as part of a squad of four, although this time there are far more instances where your unit is just part of a larger battle. Confrontations are for the most part a rather frantic affair, guns rattle off relentlessly - and with an aural ferocity that puts you right in thick of things, eardrums trembling under the onslaught - while the world sometimes quite literally crumbles around you. The Frostbite 2.0 engine is driven hard for Battlefield 3, delivering some truly awe-inspiring visual spectacles and making the gameworld come alive with impressive texturing and intricate architecture. At times it feels like the engine is being pushed beyond its limits though - there are many instances of texture pop-in, artifact clipping and other such visual oddities which rear their heads throughout the campaign.

Whether you enjoy the story or not, there isn’t all that much of it to worry about - as is the norm these days, Battlefield 3’s single-player campaign is over in a matter of a few hours, and short of gunning for those Achievements there really isn’t much reason to slog through it all more than once. Besides, while you are prancing around saving the world from WMD’s you could be spending that time far more productively - by loading up that second disc, marked “Multiplayer”, and experiencing the true beating heart of Battlefield 3.

Years after its release, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 still has a massive dedicated base of active players fighting it out day and night - myself included - and many of these gamers will be wondering the same thing: does Battlefield 3 offer enough of an advancement over Bad Company 2 to warrant making the switch? Because let's be honest, there is an investment of time and effort involved when it comes to your favored online shooter, an investment which basically becomes redundant as soon as you change to a new game. I always found Bad Company 2 to be the embodiment of what I think online shooters should be about - perfectly paced, furious warfare with scope for actual strategic thinking, focus on teamwork, as apposed to the twitchy pissing contest which makes up a lot of the Modern Warfare online experience (yeah, I said it. Someone had to). Having run the gauntlet of Battlefield 3’s host of maps and gameplay tweaks, believe me when I say that EA DICE has turned every dial up to the maximum for this one.

The recent multiplayer beta had people worried that Battlefield 3 would be more linear than before, with the subway tunnels of that single map funneling the action very deliberately. The finished product dismissed any such fears completely. The various maps on offer are deftly crafted, planned and structured in a way that promotes the kind of ebb and flow that makes any multiplayer battle a thrill to experience. Cleverly placed bottlenecks and chokepoints give both teams equal opportunity to gain the upper hand, while the perfectly balanced vehicles and soldier classes turn each battle into a constantly evolving struggle for domination. From wide open desert terrain to the tightest city streets, there is hardly a single misstep between the maps - they work equally well for Rush or Conquest modes too. Anyone familiar with Bad Company 2 will be instantly at home here, with most of that experience bleeding over to the Battlefield 3 online game, albeit in a clearly superior form.

Small tweaks, like the ability to go into a prone position (useful both for sneaky sniping and for collapsing like a sack of potatoes when a burst of gunfire rips through the air) and the new system for spawning directly into an unused aircraft or vehicle, add an extra layer of sophistication to already sublime gameplay. Dedicated fans of the series will relish the opportunity to start from the beginning to unlock all of the weapons and their numerous upgrades - this time offering a far more user customizable load-out than ever before - to create a soldier which suits their chosen style of play. I could have done without the new Team Deathmatch game type, but you have to imagine that EA DICE wanted to cover all their bases and give us the most complete suite of multiplayer options possible. Which also explains the addition of a co-operative campaign this time - everyone knows you’ve got to have co-op these days, it’s all the rage apparently. Personally I found it a pleasant distraction, but a distraction all the same. Still, the end result is that there are now even more ways to enjoy what has to be the most accomplished online military shooter we’ve ever seen.

With such a fantastic multiplayer component comes the issue of trying to reconcile it with the somewhat lacking single-player game and still give the whole package a fair judgement. Battlefield 3 is a game which is split clearly in two, giving far deeper meaning to the literal physical split of the two separate discs. The intense but ultimately unconvincing tapestry of the campaign offers an imperfect but gripping narrative which really only falls short because we had such high expectations of it. It has its flaws, both in storytelling and execution, but none of that will matter once you fire up the multiplayer game. Online, especially when played in a squad with people you know, nothing else comes close to this. In fact, they could have delivered just the multiplayer disc to my house, wrapped in dirty rags, and I would have cherished it as if it were my first born child. EA DICE has exceeded expectations, building a worthy successor to the brilliant Bad Company 2 to create an astounding multiplayer package, and making this my game of the year so far.

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