Battlefield 3 Preview: Set-pieces and atmosphere

09 Oct 2011 at 14:30:00 by John Robertson

My immediate response to playing the first two hours of Battlefield 3’s campaign was (and still is), “do we need another single player experience like this?” We all know that Battlefield 3 is trying to overthrow Call of Duty’s market dominance, but what we didn’t know is that Battlefield 3 is trying to be Call of Duty.

At least as far as the first two hours of the campaign is concerned.

From the opening second to the finale of our 120 minutes of demo, this is a game constructed of set-pieces, QTE’s, a moody atmosphere and unrelenting intensity. Whether that sounds like heaven or hell will come down to your personal tastes. No matter which way you look at it though, Battlefield 3’s campaign is closer to recent COD outing than anything from Battlefield’s past.

If you’re reading this then you’ve probably seen the ‘fault line’ series of trailers EA/DICE released earlier this year. If you haven’t seen them (or you need your memory refreshing), they showed various segments of gameplay - a rooftop sniper attack, the defending of a highway, an ambush in a small parking lot – set in Iraq during a series of earthquake tremors.

Just watching these videos was an intense experience, playing them is even more so. The sniper attack on your precarious rooftop position is particularly dramatic - the boom of the enemy rifle, the slow breakdown of cover and the barely managed fear of your squad creating an atmosphere akin to most memorable moments of Full Metal Jacket or Enemy at the Gates. There’s no doubting the skill of DICE when it comes to crafting high-energy scenes that make you feel involved.

The reality of the opening couple of hours, however, is that moments of similar ferocity are strung together ad nauseam. Yes, the style of gameplay changes between all-action firefight and stealth/survival, but the relentless pace never lets up. Whether you’re playing an action game, watching an action movie or reading an action novel, the pacing is absolutely critical to the audience’s enjoyment.

Battlefield 3’s opening certainly has a particular pacing; only it’s the kind you’d expect from Usain Bolt. Unless you’re running a sprint, ‘flat-out’ tends not to deliver success. Sometimes you have to slow down to set the best time, and the same is true for games – players need time to reflect on what they’ve just played in order to prevent their memory of the gameplay becoming a blur. A blur of a campaign is exactly what COD delivers, and (from what we’ve played) Battlefield 3 is the same.

I hope that what I’ve played thus far is simply a punch-in-the-head intro, and that the game does open up and let you make some of your own decisions later in the campaign. It would be a shame if the open environments, the wise-cracking teammates and the ‘organically’ destructible environments that made the likes of Bad Company 1 and 2 so enjoyable were abandoned completely.  

Perhaps the best indicator of what to expect from Battlefield 3’s campaign came during our final mission. Set on an aircraft carrier somewhere off the coast of Iran, your goal is to fly a fighter jet into enemy territory and put a military airfield out of business.

The presentation, the voice acting, the sense of playing at Top Gun is palpable. Rain pours in sheets over the deck, the music is pure Hollywood thriller and your co-pilot speaks in a military slang so masculine it makes your own balls seem feminine. Climbing into the cockpit, closing the ‘lid’ and becoming one with your elite weapon of death causes the adrenaline and excitement channels of your mind to flood.

Then the gameplay kicks in. Oh, wait a minute… so, I don’t get to fly this thing? No, instead you get to point and shoot.

Turns out that your co-pilot is actually the pilot, you’re the gunner. On the surface of it that doesn’t sound half bad, but I’ve shot things in every modern-military shooter out there. How often have I gotten to fly a jet in a game like this?

Playing as the gunner is essentially an on-rails sequence in which you must hover a target reticule over enemy planes until the words ‘lock on’ appear on screen. Then you press ‘RT’ and watch a homing missile take it out. Sometimes ‘Warning’ will flash on your HUD to indicate a missile coming towards you. That means press ‘LT’ to launch defensive flares.

Again, there’s no doubting the presentation and the visuals but the gameplay feels like something I’ve played many times before. It’s stretching it to say that what I’ve played is all style and no substance, but it certainly favours the former over the latter. The fighter jet sequence ends with a bombing run resembling a certain AC-130 moment from another game, albeit (this time) not as well produced.

To its credit, not everything in Battlefield 3 is in line with the competition. The story is comprehensible and told in such a way (through gameplay and cut-scenes) that makes you want to find out what’s going to happen and why. The characters don’t have the same charisma as those from recent Battlefield’s, but that’s clearly not what DICE are aiming for. Enemy intelligence is also a notch better than we’ve come to expect from this sort of thing, presenting enough of a challenge to force you to take note of your surroundings and use cover.

It also does multiplayer a lot better than most, but we promised EA we wouldn’t talk about that just yet.

Our time with Battlefield 3 so far can be summed up like this: What it’s attempting to do, it does well. Extremely well. The issue is that we’ve seen it all before, albeit perhaps not as stylishly presented. My worry is that COD fans will love it, but Battlefield fans might have second thoughts. I really hope the game opens up beyond those initial two hours, because I want to like the campaign as much as I like the multiplayer.

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