Review: Battlefield 3 Lays Down the Challenge to All Games of 2011

When it comes to virtual battlefields, Battlefield 3 is a consistant bastion in its own league.  The refinements and new elements make this third installment feel fresh, and sets the stage of expectations for the stream of highly anticipated game releases of fall 2011.



Many aspects return with improvement such as the use of tanks and jets that add a new flavor to the battlefield. The 6 co-op missions are custom built and seperate from the single player missions, so it's a different experience in terms of objectives to complete each mission.

The frost-bite 2 engine, enabled developers to do a lot more with the title in terms of a lighting, animation, scale and destruction. The picture quality on this game is insane. It's a visual show like no other game out there. The visuals actually affect the game.  Shadows, lens flares, dark and bright spots make it hard to find enemies and give away cover sometimes. 

The online multi-player competition is Battlefield 3 strongest selling point. The pc version will hold up to 64 players in the combat arenas filled with massive maps consisting of a variety of urban, industrial, and military combat zones to rage war against your competitors. There is little lag despite the large number of people on at once which is a plus. Engineers, support, assault, re-con players are the four classes that you can pick from to form a team and fight online. Good team work is stressed and will be a gratifying experience when everyone is cooperating. You can level up and unlock new items and abilities to utilize in the game as you addictively play for countless hours.

The only downside to Battlefield 3 is the single player mode.  The single player campaign, is restrictive and only about 6-8 hours long.  The story is the same tale of a hero locked in a modern conflict fueled by drama of realistic scenarios that pit him against terrorist trying to blow up the world while is trying to save the world.  The predictable action  and climatic moments are dampened by repeats sampling of other shooters like Modern warfare and Call of Duty.  It leaves little to the imagination and not worth the effort to play so skip it.

Overall Battlefield 3 gets a 7.5/10.  The HD problems will get to some avid gamers and the single player mode will seem boring to veterans, but Battlefield 3 is a good experience and will tide gamers  until uncharted 3 of MW3 are released.