Battlefield 3 (360, PC, PS3)

If only it were so invulnerable in Battlefield. Sometimes you'd only last 5 seconds in an Abrams in BC2's multiplayer.

 

Yeah, the M1's depiction in Battlefield 2 really irked me; then again, having it be as actually invulnerable as it is would really unlevel the game because nothing besides really, really huge IEDs-we're talking a ton or more of high explosives here-have ever had much of an effect on an Abrams. There's a story from the first Gulf War about an M1 that shed a track or something similar; at any rate, they had to wait for a recover vehicle. During this, the M1, by itself and unable to move at all, was attacked by three Iraqi T-72s. It didn't take any damage and killed all three enemy tanks, one by using the thermal sight to shoot cleanly through a sand berm and hit a T-72 on the other side of it.

 

Well there's always a story like that when it comes to tanks. The Russian and German heavy tanks of WWII have similar tales of survival. None of which translate well to online games.

 

True. I remember being like "....." with the SAW in Battlefield 2; it's incredibly lethal and arguably the best light-infantry weapon in US service today, at least when it comes to firepower & mobility; spraying enemy with upwards of 70-odd rounds per man in the game got old fast.

Battlefield 2 really put me off these games in general, actually; I'm hoping BF3 is a distinct improvement, at least in terms of attention to detail in how US/European weapons actually work. Also,

 

Have you ever played ARMA II and its offshoots? It's much more realistic with hardware and how it's used. It's pretty tough though, enemies are usually dots in the distance.

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I've heard Battlefield 3 has more in common with Bad Company 2 than it does Battlefield 2. I never played the latter, so I can't tell.

 

Yeah, I've never played either of the Bad Company games, so I can't really comment on that. MW was light years ahead of Battlefield 2, IMO; waay better attention to detail and a focus on being fun that BF2 never had.

As you might know I'm actually a US Army light-infantryman, and FWIW Arma has it pretty spot-on for realism, particularly the lack of knowing what's going on-it actually turned me off the game for just being entirely too familiar. I'm looking for fun, not an after action reenactment of my job.

I've thought about picking up Operation Flashpoint: Red River, which I understand is an offshoot of Arma, but I tend to hesitate on a 60-dollar investment I might not enjoy.

 

I've heard Red River isn't a very good game, so I'd probably pass on that. The Operation Flashpoint games are now being developed by Codemasters and haven't been very well received. The original creators of the franchise went on to make Arma.

And yeah, I remember your promotion thread in MS. I can definitely understand not wanting anything too realistic.

 

That sucks about Red River; I actually enjoyed the new Medal Of Honor quite abit-never thought I'd see a war game where you actually irrevocably die. That impressed me, and the level of attention to detail for equipment and how SEALs actually look and act was nice, too.

 

I've seen the launch trailer for this and it looks so awesome. There's a lot in it that I don't remember seeing mentioned before, so it was well worth watching. I can't wait for it to arrive.

 

Zod_the_Bear on Origin/BF3 if anyone else is playing.

Nowhere near as realistic as Arma, but is certainly fun.

 

Here's an interesting video from OXM. It's a side by side comparison of BF3 with and without high-res textures. Sometimes it's not all that noticeable, but a lot of it shows the difference like night and day.

The HD Video, because it'll better show the difference.

 

Been playing this since Friday, when I splurged on getting my xbox running online. The singleplayer is your typical Modern Warfare inspired Cold War II crap. Apart from a couple of nice set pieces it's complete pants and you might as well avoid it all together.

But the multiplayer is so adictive it's unbelievable. I can't stress just how impressive the Frostbite engine is. The first match I played a team mate used a rocket launcher to blow up a sniper stationed on the second floor of a building. Watching the explosion tear a chunk out of the building was an amazing sight to witness.

The only real complaint I have with the multiplayer is just how stingy other players can be with supplies. Running out of ammo in the middle of a firefight with a support gunner right next to you can be pretty frustrating. Other than that I'm having mighty good fun with the game, something I haven't had from multiplayer outside of Halo.

 

Oh man, I love being the support guy throwing out ammo.

There was an awesome moment on Metro in the subway. Our team were guarding the frontline behind a wall in the middle of the room with openings left and right, and I was lying on the floor with my mounted gun firing away at the enemy pouring out of a passageway, and to my left was another guy doing the same thing, then I'd get up and throw ammo boxes around, constantly getting points for resupplying everyone. I fell to enemy fire a few times, but there was always someone reviving me, and we'd repeat the same process over and over again. It was non-stop frontline action like something out of a movie. It was fun.

 

I'm gonna disagree strongly with Chewgumma on the campaign. I absolutely love the campaign. I'm probably one of few who got it for the campaign so I'm probably biased, but I'm very impressed with it. I'm playing it on Hard so it is hard, but it's also varied with both fighter and tank action in there too. It's not all run and gun either, so the combat is varied too.

The multiplayer is fantastic though. I know a couple of folks from twitter so I've joined an XBL party with them and hopped into the action. Definitely more fun that way, but on my own it's still great. The destruction is amazing. I was in a tank and a wall was blocking my path, so I blew it up. I was also playing a Rush game where the buildings the objectives were in were largely just rubble by the end.

Talking of which, I had two epic moments in the mountain Rush map. The objectives were several hundred metres below and the only ways to get to them are either helicopter, spawn on a squad mate, or parachute. I parachuted in, landed right outside the objective building, ran in, armed the bomb, and boom. Did the same to the second objective but got killed and it was disarmed.

 

Since you're in the Army and an infantryman, do you think Battlefield 3's "ultra-realistic" looking depiction of war is disturbing in any way, or perhaps disrespectful to soldiers who are actually going into harm's way in real life? I've never thought this about any other shooter, but BF3 just seems to cross a certain threshold if you ask me.

 

I am enjoying the hell out of this game.

Back to Karkand trailer

 

Back to Karkand should be good. I expect a lot of old fans will be loving the old maps, but this'll be the first time I'll see them. I'm wondering what the new weapons will be though. I have my fingers crossed for at least one new sniper rifle.

I have a quick question, and it's probably easy to answer, but how do I mute individual players? I just got fed up with this one guy spouting rubbish and I could still hear him even with VOIP turned off. If it is simple then my excuse is that it was 5am and I haven't slept yet.

Still, was a good couple of rounds.