MW3 looked like every CoD game, so I pre-ordered BF3 after playing its beta. The trailers got my hopes up, but it looks like another bullshit "There is one terrorists and he is objectively evil, and everyone is bland HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE FUCKING TECHNOLOGY." I'll probably like it in the end, but fuck are these modern war games getting shitty.

Even if I wasn't harping on the narratives like a total douche, can we at least stop the hand-holding? Do I really need damage indicators and big orange "HERE ARE THE ENEMEES!" dots? I'm really sorry if I'm bringing in negativity. I really am looking forward to BF3. The single player looks tense and fun, and the multiplayer beta was incredibly enjoyable. It's just annoying that such a cool product is being reined in by a few key people without drive or sense of adventure in the industry.

ToGdor wrote:

Cue "FPSes are the cancer of gaming, I would never buy games that ruin the industry like these"

I won't say it. It's my favorite genre. Over the years, I've seen incredible games like Doom 2, Blood, Deus Ex, Half Life 2, Painkiller, Brothers in Arms, Cryostasis, Bioshock, and others. It's just the currently most profitable genre in western markets right now, with war games at the head of the pack when it comes to sub-genres. This makes it profitable if tweaked right, copying in some spots, and making distinctions in few others. Nobody expected anything new from Call of Duty, but Battlefield looked tense. There were seconds rolling by without pre-scripted action. It looked like the game went beyond "There is this terrorist and he is truly evil, and war is the cool solution, now look at us all base jump and shoot terrorists!" Then I found out it was another six hour Michael Bay knock-off with cliche, stilted dialogue, and a plot that would be lost among any modern war story, movie or video game.

We shouldn't condemn a genre, we should just discuss good ideas and bad ideas, and lord knows a discussion on modern FPS's would be a fruitful dialogue, because there are just so many bad ideas.

Slayer1 wrote:

just picked up BF3, popped it in my PS3 and... bam update :\

Worse on Xbox. Installed single player, 187 megabyte update, then had to install texture pack (which meant changing discs, installing, then changing discs back). Still have to install the multiplayer. Buh.

So far it's insultingly easy on normal mode. Lots of corridors. The jet mission was an eyeful but I actually was offended by how dumb the game treated me the entire time. On the other hand, the ground missions are very tense and atmospheric, with a few very challenging segments thrown here and there. Montes, the soldier you're typically paired up with is very likable and his company is welcome. In a genre full of two heterogay bros high-fiving over corpses, it's nice to have a companion who's thoughtful and capable. props for also making a an execution scene that can actually stir an emotion, unlike that completely juvenile one in CoD: Black Ops.

As I predicted, the paperback novel crap with the CIA is fucking stupid and pulls me right out of what could have been just a great war game. While the in-game sequences are very well done and build a nice atmosphere, it's constantly interrupted with these two laughably stupid CIA spooks interrogating your character, busting out horrible dialogue and "We will die later in the game because we don't believe you" bravado that you expect from two fat cops in a Home Alone movie or something. It's like they saw those great, poignant little mission breaks in Brothers in Arms 2 and decided that Robert Ludlum fanfiction would be a better fit.

Overall, I'm enjoying just playing the game. The first night mission shows promise with great atmosphere and gameplay segments. Even the easy parts are entertaining, and I'm looking forward to the multiplayer, and actually getting some vehicles.

I loved the first half of MoH. It based itself on true stories to give at least some information on the beginning days of the Afghan War, albeit a dramatized one. Then it turned to another paperback flag-waiver with the rescue missions (I know, based on true events, but they didn't even come close to doing the real story justice).

Back to BF3, finished the single-player. What a fucking pile of shit. CoD may be brain-dead gun porn, but at least it's a damned game, not a bunch of QTE's and interactive cutscenes. Multiplayer is incredibly fun, though. I can see myself being occupied with it for months.

I'm pretty good with flying. The mini-birds are my favorite. It's gotten to the point where I can do quick little strafing runs on spotted infantry and cars.

Also gave the co-op missions a run today. I just thought it was co-op campaign, but they're their own little standalone missions that unlock stuff in multiplayer. The graphics are toned down, and they're not as refined as the SP, but I find them to be a lot more fun, and I wish that the single-player had followed suit with them.

I like competitive multiplayer if I play some kind of a role. If I'm not doing to well shooting one day, for example, I can help my team by focusing on driving, healing, repairing, or in the old days of the BF series, artillery (Probably the thing I miss most from the first game, but it's nice to at least have the deployable mortar in BF3). This is probably why I still play Enemy Territory religiously.

As far as CoD goesI don't like running around in circles shooting everyone over objectives I really couldn't care about, but I guess I can at least see the appeal depending on your tastes. MW3 might be the first game in twenty years or so that I'll rent, mainly because I just want to play the campaign for something mindless and action-y.

After playing Bad Company's more open-ended sections, and Bad Company 2's destructive levels, BF3 felt like I was watching a movie that would occasionally let me actually play it. The jet mission was basically just "put crosshairs over orange symbol, then press button." Funny how the gorgeous, cinematic sequences are the most boring parts, but when you do actually get to go into a regular old fire fight, such as in the invasion on the arms dealer house, it's great fun. I just wish I was allowed to actually play more in the single player.

Storywise, Dice continues its streak of making great supporting characters and weak villains. Where in Call of Duty, you're either a dumb jingoistic soldier who loves violence, or a smart, jingoistic special forces member who thinks violence is the only way, it was nice to have Montes around in BF3 to question some of the stupid decisions of his commander. But that was the only highlight of the writing. Serdar, Flynn, Redford, Hags, and Sweetwater are some of my favorite video game characters ever (great voice acting too, the little hidden "Sarge's joke" riff in BC2 gets a chuckle from me every time), but even after playing both games a million times, I honestly can't remember the villains beyond "bald mercenary leader," and "bald Russian guy." I guess I'm also just tired of "missing nukes" stories in general. I loved the Brothers in Arms series because it follows a group of likable, well-written soldiers just trying to survive (with a lot of them not making it), and it was more engaging than any "Russians blowing up the world" story of today.

Multiplayer is insanely addicting. Got a team of about 7 guys over two squads playing last night, and I had a coordinating our squads so that we all attacked the right spots, and dropping mortars and smoke rounds for my teammates. The recon choppers are my heroin, though. I'm getting good at dropping people off at weird spots really quickly, and if I have a team that actually knows how to spot targets, I can usually wreak some havoc with the thing.