Battlefield 3 Day 1: First Impressions

First of all, I apologize for the poor quality of my pictures. The Nokia N70 camera surely isn't up to the task of giving high quality pics.


I'm very excited right now as I get my hands on my limited edition of Battlefield 3. It comes with the disc, a few snippets containing the online pass code and the unique code for Physical Warfare Pack Bonus Items (Type 88 Light Machine Gun, DAO-12 Shotgun, Flash Suppressor For SKS Sniper Rifle, and Flechette Ammo for DAO-12). And if you've availed the Limited Edition like me, you're in for another surprise. Another snippet contains the M1911 Pistol reward which requires you to login to EA Gun Club (www.gunclub.ea.com) and on its back it grants you early access to the multiplayer portion of Mass Effect 3 Demo which will be released this coming January 2012! Can you believe that? You also get access to Mass Effect 3 N7 dog tags in BF3 Multiplayer (like I care about any of it).

As an added bonus of Datablitz for pre-ordering the game, they give you a limited edition Battlefield 3 t-shirt. I can't say I like it, it looks half-assedly done with the ugly print quality but it's for free so I can't really complain. I'll go back to Datablitz Shangrila tomorrow to have it replaced with a medium sized one. I've already lost some weight and this large sized t-shirt looks ugly on me.

The whole package costed P2050 (around $47.50 USD) which is much cheaper than the full price in when you buy the game in North America. I remember when someone told me that EA sells their games much cheaper here in the Philippines due to the much lower wages here compared to other countries. I'm pretty glad about that.

Anyway, the moment I snapped the BF3 disc in my PS3, I was like "what the hell? A day-1 patch?" and it started downloading a 220 MB patch. After patch installation, it started installing 2 GB game data in my PS3 HDD as well which is probably the High-Res installation that I've mentioned in this article. When I played the game though, I was pretty amazed with the improvement in terms of graphics. Frostbite 2 is truly a beast. This is PS3 but I'm stunned by the amount of detail - the lightings, the swaying of the trees, the reflection on the water, the billowing smoke, the explosions. You'll be equally stunned when you fly a chopper or skydive in Damavand Peak and you look down and see the terrain below. It's beautiful.

I was so dumb to forget to redeem my online pass through Account Management and jump into multiplayer right away. Took me hours thinking what's wrong and why I am always getting the "online pass check failed" message everytime ^__^ So I activated first my online pass through my Asian PSN account because my game is R3 and activated multiplayer through my main US account. Phew. However, if you also happen to have R3 version of the game and you don't want to go through the hassle of creating an Asian PSN account, you can contact EA support and ask for a R1 online pass.

The first map that I've played was Noshahr Canals which is a pretty large map and as soon as I entered the fray, I found myself riding on a chopper as it crash landed to my doom. Talk about bad luck. 

Damavand Peak is pretty weird map for me. It took me a while to figure out where I'm going before I realized I need to skydive like 20,000 feet high into the fray. It was a very impressive view in my opinion. However, a little later the 10-second timer appeared on my screen that says I'm out of the battle area even though I'm pretty sure I'm about to land on the right spot. It disappeared a few seconds later but it seems like a bug.

There are still other bugs from what I've seen, though none are game breaking. When I played conquest in Operation Metro, my first spawn was inside the burning train! I couldn't do anything about it as it depleted my life helplessly because I had to wait till the countdown timer drops to zero. Another one is when I was playing on Caspian Border map and I respawned inside a big rock, kinda hard to believe and I didn't figure it out right away but I couldn't move, my shots aren't really hitting my enemy even at point blank range, and my enemies didn't notice me at all. I couldn't do anything but commit suicide.

I find the large maps a bit boring to play especially as defender in Rush Mode due to the fact that the console version of the game is limited to 24 players per session, unlike the PC version that can accomodate up to 32 players for Rush Mode and a whopping 64 players for Conquest. Big-ass maps like Kharg Island is pretty tiresome, especialy when you're the defender. I find myself running for 20 minutes figuring out where the heat of the battle is, just to be sniped later from out of nowhere (I could have just followed my squad mates' trail). I know that we're restricted by hardware limitations, but depending on the person playing, it can greatly affect the multiplayer experience. I find that Rush mode is more suitable and fun to play in smaller maps like Operation Metro and Seine Crossing, while the larger maps can only be fun to play for me in Conquest mode.


The pic below shows probably the largest map in the game, Kharg Island. For more photos, check out my Flickr account below.

So far I had a lot of fun playing through the maps. A lot of things have changed since the beta and I can't stop playing for 5 hours straight. If my head didn't hurt I would probably go on further. That's probably my body limit. I've noticed that the guns have been balanced out. SVD and MK11 MOD, which were probably some of most overpowered guns in the beta, now takes like 2-3 shots before they kill someone unless it's a headshot. The vehicles like tanks and choppers can easily shift momentum of the battle but are not overpowered in any way and can be an easy kill for engineers with RPGs. I'm not sure about jets though as I wonderfully suck in flying them and I haven't encountered someone who flies them fluidly and uses them offensively very well. One thing I truly like about the game is it is rewarding you for doing your role, supporting your team, and accomplishing the objectives, not just gaining kill streaks. If you're a noob like me then you can take the role of supporting your team mates by giving them ammo or med kits. Or maybe you arm or disarm M-COMs or capture flags as your veteran allies cover you. This makes the game equally fun for everyone.

While I haven't really touched the campaign or co-op mode, I've heard a lot of negative feedbacks about them. Though I would agree that more than 90% of players bought the game for the multiplayer component, it's still a big miss for DICE considering the competition, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, offers a compelling single player experience. However, a Metacritic score of 92 (that's for PC btw) is still very solid, and everyone agrees that if not for the boring single player and co-op mode, the game is almost perfect in every way.

Again, as I've mentioned a hundred times before, I'm not a FPS guru in anyway so I can't tell if this game is the COD killer like EA claimed it to be. Maybe we'll have to wait and see till Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 comes out this Nov. 8. Unfortunately, I might not be able to buy it as Call of Duty games seems a more expensive investment for me and I might not have much time to play both FPS games and other games that are coming out as well (I'm very excited about Tekken Tag Tournament 2 this December btw). I'm very interested on what MW3 has to offer though, and I'll definitely agree that buying both games is much better than picking a side.

So what are your first impressions about Battlefield 3? Let me know in the comments! 

Now if you haven't done so, get this game now through my links below.

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Posted in: video games