Alright let me start by saying Battlefield 3 is still in its beta phase and anything said in this article isn’t smacking around the final product of the game. I couldn’t get this up earlier simply because the servers were buggy, crashing, and constantly not allowing people to connect. Which was expected, because you got a highly-anticipated game combined with every one coming home from work or school wanting to play it, that’s fine. But once I finally did get on, I can’t say the experience was all that great either, at least not what I had in mind.

The game at the moment has one mode called “Rush” where two teams will enter into a sort of “turf war” battle where one team needs to secure bomb points in order to expand the map into the next area. The map available to players is called “Operation Metro”, a three part map where players will get to fight in a big park, a subway, and the plaza. The map is huge. The park is a one big turf war and it’s pretty fun. Then you enter the subway and teams that aren’t coordinated suffer. A lot. Defense has such a perfect place to defend… which is the end of the subway. Just fire when ready pretty much. Then you enter the plaza, and offense seems to have the advantage here. There are two buildings with windows all around for snipers to hide in, which are relatively compact and not too hard to get by. Map design wasn’t bad for the title itself. But, it brings back the whole Modern Warfare 2 “feel” to it, where you can be shot from everywhere and then brings back a terrible version of Modern Warfare’s linear-style of map where the enemy is in front of you and ready to kill you.

The graphics are pretty good. DICE put in a lot of effort in giving a certain “fluidity” to the actions of their characters. The audio was also done quite well. I was using surround sound headsets and the sound was rather immersive. Yea, that’s all I have to say about that.

I thought this game was supposed to be the epic “more true-to-life” action shooter out there. Can’t say that’s true. Yes it’s a video game, I understand, but one who claims it’ll smoke its competition in terms of “realism”? I was able to take the tricks learned in Call of Duty and put them on steroids. I was virtually unkillable when “drop-shotting” and jump-shotting. On top of that, sprinting is unlimited, no matter what I’m carrying. Weight? Who cares. I guess that makes sense for this type of game otherwise getting around the larger maps wouldn’t be fun. Also, I’m still unsure whether gravity is still a factor in gun engagement, because I was counter-sniping with my M4 on semi-auto from quite the distance.

So now let’s talk about the cover-fire/suppression system where applying bullets into an area “suppresses” your opponent. Love it, that’s a great idea and a brilliant concept… except I can’t count how many times I was “spawn-suppressed”. My teammates were taking fire at spawn so I would often take the blunt of the pressure when I got in. Spawning-in into distortion sucks. It was like playing airsoft after being spun around for 5 minutes before the game started.

On top of the “spawn-pressuring” there was also… spawn-killing *gasp*. There were times I was immediately killed by sniper fire at my spawn. The spawning needs a few tweaks. You’d think companies, especially DICE would’ve learned from other games like Bad Company 2 and heck, Medal of Honor while they’re at it where spawn killings and turf wars are king. Can just slap any of those two titles onto the box and put “now with better graphics!” and I would never know the game was new. The good thing is I could counter everything the game had to offer, which is excellent because that shows balance in the multiplayer mechanics. It’s just spawning needs a bit more reworking. It seems it’s fixed, it never really changes. There were moments I was killed so fast, any form of reaction time was useless, despite my fast aim in most shooters and there were other moments where I spawn in and get a kill within one second.

Again in this game, there are plenty of snipers. Sniping is obviously countered by also sniping, or flanking, but because of that very logic, there was a heavy abundance of snipers. I would often join games were I was the only player planting bombs, dodging tons of sniper fire a long the way.

The game needs teamwork. Actually, it pretty much requires it. In order for you to succeed, you need to coordinate or push really hard. I have tried playing the “one man army” planting bombs, defusing them, and playing heavy objective, but it just wasn’t enough for one person to try and be everywhere at once. This might be troubling for people wanting to come home from work to do a quick match without some friends.

I was really hoping for something cool. Mind you, I didn’t get to abuse any vehicles in the BETA but all the hype I had built into this game is gone. It’s one of those games where I will have fun and enjoy it with some friends but never touch it again after awhile. I really want to say good things about it because it’s a beta, but who am I kidding? Anyways, Battlefield 3 launches on October 25^th, 2011 and on my opinion, won’t be early enough to beat out Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.