By Trenton Smith Posted October 12, 2011
On October 25, one of the most celebrated game franchises in the world releases its newest installment in North America. At the Gamescom convention in Germany, Battlefield 3 blew everyone’s mind.
First, Digitally Integrated Computer Entertainment (DICE) showcased Battlefield 3’s co-op campaign. This campaign is similar to the single-player campaign. A journalist from Gameinformer magazine, Bryan Vore, and another journalist went to Germany to sample the co-op campaign. Bryan Vore commented that the shotgun he was using (which he took from a downed enemy) had all the power you would expect with this series.
During the convention, DICE announced they had constructed a massive 64-player battle that went on for 5 days. Apart from the issues with the computers used for the demo, everyone loved the battles. Except for one feature; the jets, tanks, and other vehicles were not as easy to control as people would hope. The jets and helicopters are like what you could expect from any other game in the series; the controls aren’t very easy to learn, though the view is still worth it most of the time. Also, the jets lack real-life speed, so enemy infantry and vehicles equipped with anti-air weaponry still have a shot at getting a few kills. Other concerns are that Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (PS3) users will not be able to support a 64-multiplayer battle of this scale.
Here’s Battlefield 3 by the numbers: there are 9 maps, 55 weapons, 27 weapon attachments, 16 pieces of equipment, 14 soldier specializations, 22 vehicles, 28 vehicle specializations, nearly 100 ribbons and medals, and 350+ dog tag customizations. This means they can go toe-to-toe with the first-person modern shooter genre juggernaut Call of Duty series, which will soon come out with their new Modern Warfare 3.
The developers of Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 have been talking a lot of smack about each other’s game; you can’t blame them, they are rivals after all. Activision (Modern Warfare 3’s developer) CEO Bobby Kotick said, “So far I’ve only seen Battlefield 3 on a PC, I haven’t seen it on a console where the bulk of the business is. If it’s just a PC title, as it looks like today, that’s just a small audience to participate.” In response to this comment, EA (Battlefield 3’s developer) said, “If you went to our press conference, you saw the PS3 footage and the Xbox [360] footage. If Bobby thinks that is PC footage, he’s in real trouble…Battlefield 3 is designed to take [Call of Duty] down.”
For all of you wondering when this game comes out, it will come to North America on October 25, to Australia on October 27, and October 28 for Europe. This is one of those few games that are definitely a must-see among video games.
