The Battlefield 3 beta – impressions, HD video, screens

What do people think of Battlelog? I can’t say I dislike it. I didn’t find myself using it all that much as I seemed to be pretty lucky with stable servers. I didn’t get kicked once and the game only crashed while I was updating my gfx card.

There are quite a few bugs, but it is a beta, so it’s to be expected. Certain objects such as trees and concrete blocks seem to be in a constant state of movement and juddering, killed players tend to fly half way across the map (which is actually quite entertaining), there is some poor clipping issues.

Other minor things is stuff like the lens reflection thing, it’s a good idea and should be kept, however, sometimes it look more like a flashlight which is a bit odd. Not going to lie, I mistook it for a regular light sometimes haha. And they have some pretty nice pad support! Yay!

Comments like #48 are why Metro was a bad choice for the Beta.

This was their chance to showcase Battlefield to new players, to demonstrate in real terms what separates Battlefield from the rest of the pack.

Operation Metro is far from the best of Battlefield. Battlefield to me isn’t narrow sausage shaped maps focussed almost entirely on infantry, it’s large sprawling maps with large scale vehicular combat on land, sea and air as well as infantry.

What is Operation Metro? It’s a freakin Combat Mission map off MoH made slightly more bearable because they removed the airstrikes and made sniping less effective. Operation Metro has a grand total of ONE vehicle, a Light armoured troop transport, and it’s only usable for the 1st base and a bit. Hmm, where have I seen that sort of setup before? Oh yeah, MoH!

If they wanted to sell Battlefield they should have picked a map with more variety and made at least Rush and Conquest available if not all 5 of the game types, because as it stands Metro is not a good illustration of what Battlefield is – At least I pray this is the case. If Metro is indeed indicative of what Battlefield 3 is, then they can suck my boaby.

Dice need to get off their obsession with Rush. They seem to think that because it’s the most played game type in BC2 that it’s either better than or prefered to Conquest, not true, the fact is that most of the Bad Company Conquest maps are simply bad (Most of BC2′s conquest maps are sections of Rush maps with flags plopped down, in some cases this worked, others it didn’t) or too easy for stacked teams to base rape on, therefore Rush is a safer mode for the random player playing on his own to get on with. There’s also the fact that BC2 is overpopulated with BushWookies and Rush is perceived as easier to Wookie up on. I’m pretty sure Conquest would be preferred over Rush if the maps were designed better, i.e. designed for conquest rather than designed for Rush then conquest shoehorned in.

They should have built Battlefield 3 for its existing fanbase, and it’s feeling more and more and more that this is not the case. Screw Mass Appeal. BC2 sold 9 million copies last I heard – That’s pretty decent. Build on that instead of trying to poach the CoD audience.

@50 The “Ultra” setting doesn’t actually work. What you’re getting there is the “High” setting. You can select “Ultra”, but it does nothing. So the game will look even better on launch.

@52 I think it’s unfair to say that Battlefield 3 isn’t being built for its existing fanbase based of one map. I get the impression they just wanted to try something different with this map.

Apparently they’ll be putting another map live at some point, so that should be worth checking out.

Metro was used in Alpha and failed to impress. freedoms is right. BF is all about vehicles etc etc. Many a folk here are giving it all the benefit of the doubt and I ask why? BC2 was in the SAME kind of mess at beta and launched with shocking bugs, so this wont be any different.

Such a shame for what was once a mighty FPS title

Well regardless of preconceptions, the bottom line for me was that I had fun playing the game. And in my opinion it still stands apart from the run-and-gun FPS’s out there.

I do agree that it would have been good to see some vehicular combat. It is a little worrying that if this is the current state of the game with only a month until release, they should pull their finger out.

@54 Bulletproof leaves!

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=%22bulletproof+leaves%22

@53, If it was just about the map then I wouldn’t have an issue, there’s a bunch of little things that mount up.

The map is one for sure, not particularly the map itself but the decision to choose that map rather than one that would offer a more complete or representative experience if what Battlefield is. Then you’ve got the very high weapon damage in normal mode which is not historically a Battlefield feature (BF has always slotted somewhere between the sustained aim and pure twitch models), you’ve got the huge expansion in the weapon attachment and “spec” systems which are trending in modern shooters. There also seems to have been a degradation in the team spirit of the series, merging kits so you’ll have to rely less on team mates, no commander, reduced communication capabilities -all these things promote the loner style.

I’m still giving Dice the benefit of the doubt for now, but I’m feeling less confident about BF3 as the next best thing in FPS now than I was 6 months ago.

@56

@57 Well, the final product will speak for itself at the end of the day, and once that’s out we can make a fair judgement on it’s overall quality.

@57 High weapon damage in normal mode & promotion of loner style? That sounds familiar… Tell me, this Metro map… Fairly small, with emphasis on infantry tactics & narrow corridors, channling players Into killzones?

@60, I actually wouldn’t say that at all. If anything, I found you have a number of opportunities to outflank the opposing team and get a foothold in the fight.

I wouldn’t say they are kill zones but more choke points. If you played against a team with good communication and understand of where these points are in a map, you would have a tough time. If you had two teams that knew what they were doing, you’re in for a real fight.

I don’t think I would call the map small either, each section of the map had at least 3 main channels towards the objectives which seemed to offer little cover but the fastest route. In between those three channels you had everything else, basically, that offer more cover but more opportunities for the opposing team to lie in wait for you.

At first I didn’t think it was a very good map but the more I played the more I think about it now, I actually think it’s very well balanced and thought out.