Battlefield 3

And so we come to the time of year where games forget they are supposed to be happy, fun, blue sky filled alien decapitating exercises in escapism, and turn into potty-mouthed simulations of all the bad things happening in the world. It’s like Eastenders with tanks.

Oh well. It’s fortunate then, that Battlefield 3 is mostly the bomb. It’s actually about the 671st entry in the Battlefield series (following the likes of Battlefield 1943, Battlefield: Bad Company and Battlefield: Chingford) but it’s the 3rd in the main series. It’s a pretty big deal. It’s also been released just before the latest entry in another series obsessed with guns and shooting people from other countries and that. We wonder why?

The Battlefield series always prided itself on its destructible scenery and open environments, so it’s a bit of a cockblock to find the single player follows the formula so beloved by another bit of excessive militaristic fetishism. You’ll spend most of it being harried up a load of corridors, convenient bits of cover jutting out and dramatic QTE’s nipping at your heels constantly. It does the job, but the whole thing seems a bit scaled down compared to the other explosive games in the series. To be honest though, (grant us this slight deviation) most shooters follow this trend nowadays. Remember in Quake and that, where you got by on skill and exploration, where there was a bit of meat to what you awful youngsters would doubtless nowadays call ‘the campaign?’ Now it’s corridors, QTEs and cinematics. Just once this generation, we’d like to be presented with a great big bloody labyrinth to go through and hellbeasts to blow to bits, without having to hammer down on the x button to initiate a slow motion head rip or something.

Anyhoo…

Battlefield 3’s single player is a fun, formulaic experience, but it would be nice to not feel like a spectator throughout the whole thing.

And then you play the multiplayer and it’s a whole different (cannon)ball game. This is where Battlefield stands up and shouts ‘I AM VERY SPECIAL INDEED.’ The competition may boast a tight well formed deathmatch-based approach to multiplayer, but Battlefield 3 adds so much more. There’s nothing quite like standing slackjawed in the middle of an open expanse, some pillock crashing a helicopter into the building next to you and watching it crumble to bits, as you hear your team mate belch ‘BOLLOCKS’ down your headset. The sheer chaos of the Battlefield multiplayer is a million times more spectacular and thrilling than following Sergeant Dick McBeef down a corridor constantly. In addition to shooting all and sundry you can canter around the warzone reviving felled comrades with a defibrillator, like a gruff Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman. You can even run around fixing tanks, because isn’t that everyone’s ideal job? Battlefield rewards you for aiding the team effort, not just shooting the baddies, therefore people who are rubbish and have poor accuracy can feel less awful.

Also it looks bloody amazing on console.

So yes. A by the numbers single player can’t disguise the fact that Battlefield 3 is an explosive, insanely addictive online experience, that’ll likely last you a good long while. Until Battlefield 4 comes out. We hope it’s set in space or something, and has dinosaurs.