Review by Fabiano “Deimos” Backpack and Alessio Arciola
Battlefield 3 PC Video (Ultra Details) available on GamesVideoTV
AND YOU CALL US TERRORISTS
In Battlefield 3 we will play the role of different characters, with in particular those of Henry “Black” Blackburn, man of the Misfit team behind whom the entire adventure of the title unfolds. This is lived totally in two times, the present where Blackburn is questioned by some men to find out what the man knows about the current terrorist attack and the past, a time in which wearing the role of other characters such as Jennifer Hawkins and Jonathan Miller, we will discover and experience firsthand the attacks carried out by the bad guys. The main storyline does not offer anything particularly new in the genre, on the one hand there are the terrorists and on the other the good guys - the army. The terrorists in this particular case have taken possession of some nuclear warheads that they will use to "defend themselves" from the attack of the Americans, according to them the real terrorists. The whole adventure, especially due to the fragmentation into short chapters in addition to the continuous time jump, does not offer the player a fully enjoyable experience since generally in the key moment, the one in which you really start to carburetor, we will find ourselves blocked by cutscene, quick time events - which in our opinion were best avoided even if they make the melee more spectacular - or from a change of chapter and setting. To diversify the playability from the usual "shoot shoot" there are game phases in which we will be aboard fighter jets - which we will not drive, but in which we will only have to aim and fire or order to fire - or tanks which instead we will manage in alternating phases in all their characteristics - control of the vehicle, of the cannon, of the machine gun or of the external turret.
The pace of play is never particularly high, in fact the brand has always aimed more at team tactics than at the "One man army" and when this characterist is combined with a level design that forces us to move in decidedly too narrow gullies, yes they begin to notice too many flaws. The main one is related to spawn and enemy AI. If on our side we will always have to think as a team, the enemy will not behave in the same way and rarely, if almost never we will see encirclement, attack or defense tactics from the system, in most cases the game is limited to sending on the field as many enemies as possible, all with excellent aiming skills, but who never really manage to put us in trouble.
But not everything is done badly, when you work as a team and manage to better understand every single checkpoint, the adventure offers its best. Game moments such as the assault on the bank or the defense of teammates from the roofs wearing the role of the infallible sniper, are well-built phases of the game and able to entertain the player a lot. Too bad that these end soon leading to less fun phases of the game. Adventure is therefore not the strong point of Battlefield 3, indeed it is its weak point. Said of the rhythm and the plot, even the longevity is not the best that could be done, in fact a skilled player will finish it in no more than an afternoon, between four and five hours. Obviously the figure increases a bit if you are a novice player or if you take the degree of difficulty to the maximum, but overall we are below today's standards.
To put a further patch on these defects is the arsenal and the destructibility of the environment. The first is large and while being able to carry only two canonical weapons with us, each battlefield will always be full of ammunition and other rifles to collect, which will allow us to change our weapon continuously. The choice from this point of view by DICE to reset the arsenal collected by the player when passing a checkpoint is unclear - for example if we have at the beginning of the mission the weapon A and B and we will exchange it with weapons D and F, passing the checkpoint we will return to having weapons A and B with the other two that will mysteriously disappear. Different speech regarding the destructibility of the environment. No position is safe and no hedging is certain. Whether it's a sheet metal, a column, a plywood wall or whatever, everything can be destroyed with the right weapon and the right firepower. This is the real trademark of this title, that extra feature that forces us to move constantly, to understand that a building is better as a cover than a car, but that it too is not a safe place because a rocket or tank to destroy everything and then lead us to death.
TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE ...
If the single player game is short, but not too short, the cooperative mode is even more so. Through a specific item in the menu we will be able to face six different missions unrelated to the context of the single-player campaign in the company of a human companion. The six missions, however, if approached at best, will not steal more than a quarter of an hour each, for a total of one and a half hours of play, something more if the skill of the players is not excellent and cooperation is not working best. Compared to the single game, while still suffering from similar defects, the missions in two were more fun to play, so much so that we regret their short duration and quantity. If it is something that the DLC should focus on, in our opinion it is this sector.
Unlike the single player game, the cooperative mode has a much higher pace with missions in which we will have to move on the ground, aboard land vehicles or helicopters and with objectives capable of keeping both the attention and the fun high. The real prize offered by this mode, however, is linked to the multiplayer sector, in fact we will get weapons and components for the team or single online game.
… BUT MANY IS BETTER THAN TWO
If there is one thing that Battlefield 3 is unrivaled for at the moment and probably won't have any in the future, it is the multiplayer sector. Whether the game is in single or multiplayer, the technical sector does not change, but what changes considerably is the playability, the fun and the hours that this game is able to donate. The vastness of the maps blends with truly exceptional graphics, where anyone, whatever the style, finds the right point to excel in the game. Each map offers high points for snipers or narrow alleys suitable for riflemen, each place allows you to face combat both on foot and aboard tanks or powerful jets with which to destroy practically everything in front of you, be this a simple low wall, a jungle full of trees or more or less tall buildings to be razed to the ground.
The game classes have remained those of the past with the attacker who has now been merged with the doctor, but thanks to the unlocking of weapons and upgrades that will be obtained by accumulating experience points, each class will be highly customizable and the base class can be modified to your liking by changing weapons, secondary skills, equipment and activating bonuses to be applied to the vehicles on which we will get on. What cannot be changed is the only primary class, a sniper will always be a sniper, just as a doctor can never become an engineer. The improvement of your equipment and degree of experience or rank particularly encourages the game, in fact at the beginning the first levels will go away like nothing thanks above all to the Ribbons and the Stars that indicate our ability in the field and the objectives achieved.
To better manage personal statistics there is the Battlelog, initially conceived as a simple leaderboard, but over time - even after seeing Call od Duty Elite and the Autolog of the NFS series - a real social network dedicated to Battlefield where you can start games and filter searches for servers (only for the PC version), keep track of the progress of our friends with real-time details that allow, especially the clans, the real backbone of these FPS, to better manage the matches and their players.
Unlike its biggest competitor, in Battlefield a game doesn't finish in ten minutes, much less in a quarter of an hour, and if you're thinking of the full half hour, you're still off track. A game started with well balanced teams in Team Race mode can last even more than an hour and we are talking about a single game, not divided into matches or "three out of five". But let's move on to the actual gameplay of multiplayer and therefore to its modes. The main ones of game four: Team Deathmatch, Conquest, Race and Team Race. The first point to make clear for those unfamiliar with the Battlefield series is the question of time.
If Deathmatch mode doesn't need much explanation, Conquest and Race does. In conquest, the two teams are both at the same time both in defense and in attack, in fact on the field there are bases that the two teams in combat must first conquer and then defend to accumulate points that will increase a counter, the team that first fills the counter at maximum obviously wins. More compelling, according to the writer, is the Race mode where the game is divided into two matches, in the first team A will have to defend against the other attacking, in the second match the roles will be reversed. To make these fights infinite are the places to be conquered, in fact each base has two different positions that those in attack will have to reach and detonate by placing bombs. The task of those to defend is to prevent this from happening and in the event that a base is lost, move back to a second base where there are two other positions to defend from the enemy. Each map generally has a minimum of four different bases - therefore with eight positions - and the team that has managed to lose the fewest positions during the defense phase will win the match.
As in multiplayer, there are also ground and air vehicles, vehicles that we can use at will to transport the members of our team from one place to another or attack an opposing position with tactics ranging from the unproductive kamikaze style to more fruitful team play - two men in fact can control the position from above, a third advances with a powerful tank while an engineer stays behind to repair his partner's vehicle and destroy the enemy ones.
MULTIPLAYER IN DETAIL (CLASSES AND MEANS)
There are four specializations to choose from on the battlefield including the soldier, the engineer, the machine gunner and the sniper. By choosing the soldier, the real novelty of this third chapter, we will have the opportunity to treat (with the defibrillator or the classic medipack) even teammates, since there is really no class used for this specialization. The engineer specializes in demolition and fixing things and also has a torch that can illuminate maps in the dark which are really dark here. The gunner has the ability to use his tripod for a noticeable suppression fire that literally freezes opponents. Lastly the sniper, joy or terror of many online players, has the ability to designate certain targets - very useful indeed for larger maps.
The sector dedicated to the vehicles to be controlled in battle is also excellent, a real luxury with regard to 64-player skirmishes. Here the real war is being played out. In addition to helicopters of various kinds from attack (Apache) to transport (you read that right), the flagship comes with the beautiful F-18 or A-10 to be controlled in person or with the Flanker and the Frogfoot for the Russian versions. As for the ground vehicles we will have the opportunity to control tanks, armored trucks equipped with cannon or machine gun also useful for transporting troops and Jeeps which are always useful for moving in the larger maps. All the aforementioned means, without exception, can be modified as an arsenal, great applause therefore to this thought that also concerns an enormity of unlockable objects or upgrades. Personally I believe that the balance of means and classes is really excellent and that it will satisfy everyone or almost everyone.
MULTIPLAYER IN DETAIL (THE MAPS)
We now come to the maps that we will find in Battlefield 3 which at launch will be nine but which will increase thanks to the safe future DLCs such as the already announced Back to Karkand. All the maps present are one more beautiful than the other, little to say on this point and offer very different views and settings. The first map that came to my hands is Grand Bazaar which by the way is devoid of vehicles. The map n question is not very large and is well suited to close and continuous firefights thanks to modes such as the free-for-all or team deatmatch. Operation Firestorm (my favorite) is a very large and desert map where there will be few shelters but which will be exciting to fight with tanks or in combat in the sky. The mode best suited to this map is Conquest (or defend) which is well suited for the large size of the scheme. Of the same size if not even bigger, we find Caspian Border which is the only one that really enhances a 64-player game for the Conquest mode. Ground fights are deadly both with vehicles and on foot where snipers will surely make the difference. The map is hell on earth given the amount of bullets and stuff exploding around us. Definitely the most exhilarating war map you will ever play. Kharg Island as the name implies is an islet that adapts to the Conquest mode where the enemy forces land on the ground to take control. The scenic view that is an oil marshalling yard with many Iranian navy facilities is nice. Ground combat exhilarating but nothing really exciting - too many snipers for my taste.
Operation Metrò we have already been able to play it thanks to the beta and it is a very large map that is fragmented with three very different areas, one open in the park and then descending into the metropolitan underground. Here you have to conquer a series of objectives in a row in the Run & Stop mode. The outdoor fights are good but even better those close indoors where the teams engage in really narrow spaces. Smoke bombs and hand grenades will be a real nightmare for everyone. By changing the setting and focusing on a port, we will have Nosharh Canals beautiful if played in Run & Stop but also in deathmatch vist that the not too large spaces offer good guerrilla possibilities both in attack and in defense. The last three maps have not exalted me too much and are Tehran Highway which is medium wide and offers duels on short or medium distance. The real peculiarity of this map is the night where every slightest noise or light can be fatal. The bad thing is snipers with night vision goggles. Also from an urban setting we have Seine Crossing which takes place on the streets of Paris (like Operation Metrò) and which lets itself be played well in deathmatch. Here, too, no means but it is not that we miss them too much. Finally we have Davamand Park which has its own mountain setting. Beautiful collisions between helicopters and exciting those in the numerous tunnels under the surface but nothing that makes you cry a miracle ... perhaps the least successful map of all.
In conclusion, if there is something in which Battlefield 3 is a net 10 game, this something is not the single player, let alone the already best cooperative mode. The best Battlefield 3 offers it in its multiplayer sector where the fusion of FPS and vehicle games, the breadth and destructibility of the environments and even more balanced classes thanks to better customization, make the title the definitive online FPS.
WITH OPEN MOUTH
The technical sector is then the flagship of DICE's production. If it offers the best in the PC version, which we will discuss more fully in a separate paragraph, the console versions nevertheless do not clash even if they do not offer the very high quality that the Frostbite 2 is able to offer to PC users. Each texture is treated down to the smallest detail with effects and polygonal models that are always realistic both visually and physically. A building never destroys itself unnaturally and in the same way the animations of the characters are always realistic and believable, which is especially noticeable in the race, during the suppression fire and when jumping more or less large obstacles. From a real shock the lighting sector that gives the player scenes able to remain impressed for realism, cleanliness and quality.
The audio sector is excellent, especially as regards the sampling of vehicles and weapons, a little less for the tracklist which, after removing a few excellent tracks, offers mediocre songs and not able to affect in a particular way. Good dubbing in español with some voices more suitable than others, all done with excellent synchrony, but not perfect.
AND THE WINNER IS… PC
Needless to go around it too much, Battlefield 3 on PC is currently the new standard for war games (modern and otherwise). The Frostbite 2.0 graphics engine wins over two things in particular: particle effects and light. But not only that, the excellent fluidity of the graphic engine is also well suited to less powerful machines. By setting the graphic options of shadows, particle effects, meshes on average, removing the Motion Blur and decreasing the AA and Anisotropic Filter to only 2X, everything that moves on the video remains a joy for the eyes. Which is truly remarkable if we think of the recent problems with RAGE, where for example some configurations such as our medium-low, were unable to run a title that certainly does not have the same video quality as this Battlefield 3. The programming is also very valid and the evolutionary capacity of this Frostbite 2.0 is excellent.
There are two configurations in which we ran Battlefield 3.
The first medium-low stands on a 3.2GHz Dual Core with 4GB of Ram and 4600MB Radeon HD512 video card. The game can be played quietly by setting the options in medium but without shadows, Motion Blur and anisotropic filter with a maximum frequency of 35 frames per second. In the most agitated situations, however, the situation changes and you can even touch 15 frames per second. The resolution played did not exceed 1280 × 800 but it must still be said that what you see on the screen fully satisfies. Driver support was Directx 9 on XP operating system. The real drama with a similar setup comes in multiplayer maps (we'll talk about it shortly) where you need to go down in resolution and detail. You can enjoy the title all the same but you have to give up some details… it doesn't rain.
The high-end configuration boasts a 7GHz 6-Core i3,3 processor with 12GB of Ram and 6990GB Radeon HD4 video card. Here things got damn serious with a setting in ULTRA (all at maximum) with a resolution of 1920 × 1080 activating the Anisotropic filter at 16x and the Anti Aliasing filter at 8x. The game recorded a frame rate almost never lower than 55/60 net to never go below 30 in the most detailed situations. Obviously we are talking about settings on Directx 11 and Windows 7 Ultimate operating system. The fluidity of the graphics engine is certainly unrivaled where even on this configuration, for example, in some situations the same RAGE was triggered (let's spread a pitiful veil) but not Crysis 2 which was very stable at the same resolution and with the details in HARDCORE. Excellent fluidity response even for multiplayer maps.
As mentioned above, the graphics engine is truly phenomenal and I doubt it will leave any gamer unsatisfied. From today it is necessary to mark a new graphic standard for what concerns the particles but even more the light that gives emotions clearly close to photorealism. Of the pumped-up games, Battlefield 3 quietly dances above the heads of RAGE and Crysis 2 without much difficulty. It fails to achieve the excellence seen on The Witcher 2 but we are really very close. These are the two games that software houses must consider for their future products in the genre of FPS and third-person RPGs. Going back to life, the other thing that amazes are the almost maniacal details found in every map but also in every texture of the game which among other things will have more levels of dirt or destruction depending on the situation. Then we have some simply screaming facial animations while as regards the movements, I must admit that the good work done could have gone to the excellent but around it has seen better (TW2). Same thing for the particles that give foaming sensations to the mouth or jaw on the ground, it is useless to look for other words. The Smoke is simply true, as are the debris that dirty the view or the sparks that arise from some surface during a fight ... shoot a few shots on a metal surface and you will realize it for yourself. On the other hand, the fire that does not satisfy almost nothing is passable ... on this, the excellent particle seen in Crysis 2 is far superior. Another factor that did not really satisfy me fully, is the destruction that in the single player campaign is dominant more for the pleasure of the programmers than for the pleasure of the player. That said, we are truly at levels of more unique than rare excellence.
CONCLUSION
The technical sector so full of details that it seems more like a dream than reality and the various settings that are always different with the right audio at every moment and for every weapon or vehicle, make Battlefield 3 a real jaw-breaking title, a game that is will put maximum details just to make those screens that are then used as wallpaper for the desktop as they are beautiful. If the PC is the platform on which BF3 gives its best, the consoles still manage to defend themselves by offering equally detailed graphics, but not always perfect.
In conclusion Battlefield 3 is a wonderful game, certainly ten if we consider the multiplayer sector alone, an area in which the title offers the best of itself. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said for the single player and the co-op mode, both fun to play but with the first that promises a lot without ever giving that change of pace it really needs and the second that lasts too short, even less than the single player which is already short in itself.
VOTE: 9 SU 10
