Players are encouraged to personalize their soldier, earning new equipment to use as you gain ranks. This mostly involves just participating in online games, as even the losing team gains experience points that bring them closer to the next rank. Personal excellence is also rewarded, as medals (and additional points) are handed out to those who display mastery of any given class of weapons or accomplish other impressive milestones. Thankfully, you don’t have to be a lone-wolf for the game to recognize and reward what you’re doing; it also hands out points for things like laying down cover fire if a teammate scores a kill shortly afterward, or gunning down someone attacking an ally. Even just riding in the same vehicle as someone scoring kills is good enough to receive some points for being a team player, so while I am not fond of this ’rank grinding’ system it’s clear the developers made sure nobody will be left too far behind. Even the unlockable weapons aren’t overwhelming, and a low-rank player with just basic gear yet gets the drop on an enemy running around in the best equipment will probably win.
Despite all this praise, there are some real issues. Along with the rank grinding issue, Battlefield 3 uses the ’online pass’ system several other recent games have and I am not fond of it. There is also the matter of educating players, or rather not educating them. Some of the vehicles, particularly the helicopter, are hard to use if you don’t understand how they control. Since any random person can hop in to pilot or drive any vehicle, this often results in a flaming crash that kills the entire crew; providing a few ’tool-tips’ just isn’t enough. Likewise, some mission objectives aren’t made very clear and I’ve seen far too many players just wander off to act like it’s a team deathmatch session even on stages with actual goals to meet. Lag in online sessions is also somewhat inconsistent, as I’ve had matches that play perfectly but also times where my soldier will be forcibly yanked back to where he was two or three seconds ago. Such ’lag teleports’ are rare, and I suspect they’ll become even less common once the server load situation improves, but they are present all the same.
On the other hand, some of those flaws can be easily forgiven due to the things Battlefield 3 gets right. The most prominent are the weapons themselves, which all have very good sound effects and ’feel’ right. Most guns behave exactly like you’d expect them to, being suited for fights at different ranges and having various terrain they’re best at; something made all the more relevant by being able to destroy some kinds of terrain and cover. The developers deserve special credit for getting shotguns right; far too many first person shooters make them ineffective at any range much further than your knife can reach. Battlefield 3’s are still very short ranged weapons, but ’short range’ for them is much more in line with realistic shotgun behavior and offers a very satisfying feel of power. Most maps emphasize the use of assault rifles backed by a few snipers, but anyone who can successfully get in range to use specialized weapons will be rewarded with kills and points for a job well done.
Battlefield 3 is a pretty underwhelming single-player experience, but this is more than made up for by great online play. Even though I’ve taken issue with several design choices (use of an online pass, ’rank/level grinding’ to get new weapons, and so on), the game’s core is solid. If the idea of a modern military first person shooter built around strong versus play, with some neat vehicles to use and plenty of weapons to customize sounds interesting to you then give Battlefield 3 a try. Just understand that it is only worth buying if you are interested in playing online since the story mode won’t hold your interest for long and co-op only goes so far in helping with that.; shooting non-AI opponents is where the real fun lies.
