Battlefield 3 beta thoughts

Battlefield 3 won’t be released proper until Oct. 25 here in America but EA Dice is giving gamers a small taste of the action with a multiplayer beta that was released today. The demo is free to Xbox 360 and PS3 owners and also technically free to PC owners - though those unfortunate souls did have to pre-order some awful Medal of Honor game to get access to it through EA’s online store, Origin.

The multiplayer beta only features one map – Operation Metro – and gives gamers a brief look at what the award-winning EA Dice series has in store for them when it hits shelves a little less than a month from now. Since this is just a beta I’ll only be giving a series of observations I’ve made about the game with the limited amount of time I’ve had to play it. DICE seems to have taken the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality with this game. The way the game handles is very, very similar to BF: Bad Company 2 and if you liked any of the previous Battlefield titles, you will definitely find an incredible deal of enjoyment with this title.

-First off – the demo (on 360) is about 1.3 gigs and features one map, Operation Metro, in the game mode Rush. Metro features four or five sets of objectives – two of which are set in an underground, subway station. The move indoors is a new setting for the series which traditionally features large, outdoor areas for players to destroy. The environmental damage seen on the indoor portion of the map is pretty impressive – tile and debris flies everywhere as bullets impact walls and columns.

-Just had a thought – I wonder if it’s possible to tunnel through walls with explosives the way Red Faction allowed? In Red Faction, me and my friends would routinely play local multiplayer just to try making different routes through a level using a combination of the game’s environmental damage and plenty of explosives. I’ll have to try that later.

-Operation Metro is an infantry focused map. The size and scale of the map feels just right – objectives aren’t too close to one another but not so far apart that you’ll spend more time getting to the fight than participating in it. Unfortunately, since Metro is focused on infantry, there aren’t any vehicles to play with. I was hoping for maybe a jeep or an APC but sadly there is nothing to drive in the beta.

-Probably the most noticeable change from BF:BC2 – outside of the overall improvement to the visuals – is the HUD. And it is not a change I am enjoying. Everything on the HUD – whether it’s the minimap, friendly soldiers’ names, the score, etc – seems to have this neon glare on it that was probably intended to be a cool, stylistic touch but actually just makes the HUD look like a blurry mess.

-I also noticed that spotting enemies doesn’t seem to work as well. Though I’m not sure if I was just misconstruing that feature not working with the fact that the little icon over a spotted enemy is much, much smaller – a visual change I’m not in favor of. Spotting enemies was a favorite tactic of mine in BF:BC2 and it seems to be nearly useless now.

-Little graphical touches like seeing a faint red glare on your screen if someone with a red-dot scope is aiming on you, the light from the tactical lights has already killed me once (I turned the corner and saw this bright light coming at me and I was like ‘What is tha…’ and then I got killed. By the guy with the tac light on his gun).The onscreen text in BF:BC2 was pretty flat and while not stylish or pretty, served very well – it was easy to read at a glance and that extra second or two you sometimes need to decipher the text in Battlefield 3 can spell your doom.

-Also noticed that it’s still very easy to get caught up on friendly soldiers as well as environmental pieces and debris. It’s most noticeable when more than a few soldiers are trying to get through a narrow opening but these kinds of collision detection shenanigans have already resulted in my death a handful of times.

-While on the subject of glitches, keep in mind that this is just a beta, there are plenty of graphical problems you’ll encounter. The most annoying one I’ve come across so far is that randomly the screen will flash white or green for a frame or two. While it doesn’t usually interrupt the action, it can sometimes happen very frequently and almost started giving me a headache at one point. Other glitches are pretty minor – some collision detection problems, some instances of people or items falling through the map, etc. I also noticed a lot of camera/character movement that seemed pretty unnecessary and annoying while moving around in the prone position that I hope will be rectified.

-Speaking of, players will finally now be able to lay prone on the ground – an addition that fans have been wanting for some time now. While playing BF:BC2 with some friends recently, I made the claim that prone really wouldn’t change the game much and really only serve to make snipers an even bigger pain to deal with. And while that claim is partly true - snipers are an even bigger pain now, but I’ll get to that later - I really feel stupid for making that earlier claim (and now even stupider for publishing it on the internet). Being able to go prone has already saved my life more times than I can remember and I’ve played the beta for maybe 2 hours.

-The post-death screen, which shows your killer’s stats, also gives players a “you vs. that enemy” statistic which keeps track of how many times you’ve killed that player and vice versa. Nice little touch that lets you know just who to stay away from – or hunt down depending on your mood. Also on the post-death screen there is a large graphic that shows your killer’s dog tags – perhaps DICE will let players customize their dog tags the way COD lets players customize their icon and banner? Just a guess since the dog tag graphic (featuring that player’s gamertag) is rather large and otherwise only changes when you level up.

-The kits have changed slightly. There are still four classes but now they are assault, engineer, support and recon. Assault now has the capability to throw medkits and support throws ammunition – engineer and recon are basically the same. I haven’t unlocked many guns but did unlock a light MG for support so the medic class no longer also has the biggest gun on the field. Also, recon isn’t strictly confined to sniper rifles. I saw plenty of people using them but the class also now contains many high-powered, semi-automatic rifles in addition to the long-range death dealers. I’d assume motion tracking and mortar attacks are also still apart of the recon class but I don’t know for sure.

-I encountered a disturbingly high number of people playing as the recon class so far – and using it very effectively. With the addition of the prone stance and semi-automatic powerhouse rifles in addition to long range sniper rifles, the recon class seems to be the most prevalent so far. I’m not a big fan of it. Anyone who’s played with me knows I’ll generally be one of the first to complain about a sniper who’s doing nothing but sitting back, popping heads and calling mortar strikes literally everywhere. Battlefield is not a game about maintaining a high KDR (like some other FPS titles) – it’s about completing a set of objectives as a team, especially in the Rush mode. Playing against a 12-person team with, say, 3-4 really good snipers can turn a fun, intense match into a game of “lets see how far I get this time before I’m dropped by someone I’ll never see.” And giving these people guns that are almost as powerful as sniper rifles and fire much faster only exacerbates the problem.

-I’ve also noticed some recon/campers taking advantage of the glitches already. I’ve seen more than a few guys go prone and basically wedge themselves into small corners or just into pieces of the map itself that they really probably shouldn’t be able to.

-Where was I? I feel like I went off a little bit of a tangent. Umm…oh yeah, the kits! On the subject of kits, the deploy screen has changed slightly. In BF:BC2, spawning and changing kits took place on two separate screens and is now condensed into one. Moving up and down chooses your spawn point while left and right chooses your kit. Pressing X will bring you to the kit customization screen where you can outfit that kit with all sorts of nifty gadgets and enhancements, like barrels to upgrade damage, various scopes and a bipod that increases accuracy while prone. There is allegedly A LOT more customization options for kits in Battlefield 3 compared to BF:BC2 and unlocking them all is supposed to take much, much longer than in the previous title. Also, you are able to change weapons and your active gear (like ammo packs and medkits) in the main deploy screen as well so you don’t need to bring up the customization screen just to change weapons.

-Being revived by a medic (assault now, I guess?) is a little odd at first this time around. Instead of just being brought back to life right in that spot, you’re given the choice to hit A to accept the revive or hit B to re-deploy. I guess it’s a nice little feature when you think about it, so you aren’t just being killed over and over again if you’d rather respawn. Just that it was a little odd to experience at first.

-It would be nice if, when you spawned on a teammate, you spawned in the stance they were taking. A few times now I’ve spawned standing with a teammate who was prone behind cover and I get torn to shreds while they remain safe behind cover. It’s easy enough to drop into prone if you’re quick but sometimes that isn’t enough.

-Also on the subject of respawn, I hope it’s tightened up some before the full game launches. Right now there is a couple seconds of black screen between when you click on a teammate to spawn and when you actually spawn. And as anyone who’s played an FPS knows, a few seconds can be the difference between life and death. Just another annoying little beta glitch that I’m hoping gets fixed.

-Sometimes I feel like I play too many video games, that maybe I have a problem. Then there are other times when I’ve been playing the beta for a game (that hasn’t even been available for a day at this point) for a few hours and have only reached level 3 and I see guys that are level 17 and above that things are put in perspective and I don’t feel so bad about myself anymore. Yup, at about 10 a.m. this morning, I’d been playing Battlefield 3 for maybe an hour and a half and had only gained a level or two when I saw (and was killed by) someone who was level 17. And then I saw a different guy who was level 17. And I felt good that, at least somewhere in the world, there are people with even less of a life than me. Then after they killed me a bunch more times I felt less good, but still not bad overall.

-Also speaking on levels, I noticed that some people who were at the same level as me, and maybe even below, had different equipment than I had access to. As far as I know there wasn’t any pre-beta way to access different weaponry so I’m kinda confused as to how its happening. Unless I’m just completely wrong - which is possible, just not probable.

-One more thing real quick - when I quit out of the game for the first time, it basically froze on me. I quit out of the game and it went to a loading screen before presumably bringing me back to the main menu and telling me to preorder now. Well instead of taking me anywhere, the game was content to leave me sitting at that loading screen for an indefinite period of time. I eventually had to quit to the dashboard and I'm really hoping it saved my progress during that last match.

Wow this turned out to be pretty long. Kudos to you if you’ve made it this far – I barely remember what I wrote about at the beginning. If you haven’t played or even downloaded the Battlefield 3 beta yet – what are you waiting for? The beta ends Oct. 10 so get your fill as the full version won’t be out until Oct. 25.