Let’s just admit it. Battlefield 4 was never a game you were going to play for the single-player.
And thank god for that, because in DICE’s latest entry in their fantastic, consistently polished military first-person shooter series, the campaign is useless and forgettable.
There are these big set-piece moments — the Michael Bay explosions and extravagantly violent and precarious situations you and your squadmates find yourselves in — that set an exciting tone for all of a few seconds.
The world is on the brink of war, and it looks like you and the rest of the Tombstone squad are riding that fine, dangerous line that circles all around it. Like almost everything hinges on you carrying out one mission on top of the other.
It starts out simply enough, with some shooting and near-death escapes. Getting chased by a helicopter while grounded on four wheels, sliding out the driver’s seat to shoot the chopper down with a grenade launcher. Just a day in the life of a Tombstone marine. You’re grabbing intel on the imminent uprising in China and escorting VIPs stashed away in the country back to safety. All the while you’re unlocking new weapons as you fulfil each mission with a higher score. Basically the more you kill people, and the more artfully you go about doing it, the higher your score. I routinely unlocked the Gold score without much effort, though I consider myself to be a seasoned shooter, so take that how you will.
And then things get a little…monotonous, at least in terms of the level designs. There are repeat patterns of enemies. Large outdoor areas filled with roughly 20 enemies on foot, all with varying weaponry. Some heavy units armed with RPGs or machine guns. Some sharpshooters. Standard issue foot soldiers carrying assault rifles. And then a tank or two.
I did not quite enjoy the routine dance of laying literally dozens of mines on the ground to kill the tank and then slowly sniping my way through the rest of the enemies. See, there are ammo refill crates posted reliably throughout each level. It makes it easy and all too alluring to stand there and pick off enemies while you refill on ammunition like you’re constantly on a mission for the perfectly filled magazine.
I had a hard time having fun in one area in particular. A level about halfway through the game is literally a series of these exact setups. Either my checkpoint system wasn’t working when walking in between them or there just was no checkpoint. If I died, it was way back to the beginning. The first time I died, it was an hour’s progress lost. The next time I had to do it all over again it only took about 30 minutes — I started to get really good at that first clearing.
Occasionally in Battlefield 4‘s solo campaign you’ll meet some variance. Jump out of a plane to land on a ship, ready to attack immediately after landing. Ride a speedboat while shooting down those of the enemies’. Hike around that quintessential snow level. You know the sort of thing if you’ve ever played any shooter ever.
There are moments where this campaign was fun, where I let out a squeal of delight for something awesome I’d just seen or pulled off. But that’s me: I still love first-person shooters. I’ll never get bored of watching a tank explode after I’ve sneakily loaded it with C4. I’ll never tire of placing that perfect headshot or going on a particularly thrilling killing spree.
That I can issue an order to my squad to lay heavy fire on a group of enemies while I swing around to attack them from the flank is also pretty satisfying. Because, really, your squadmates are useless otherwise. Battlefield 4‘s campaign felt like I had to stay on my toes a lot more than I remember the series requiring. Your cover is being destroyed around you and the enemy AI moves around a lot. They’ll even try to flank you, come up from behind. Smart. They throw grenades frequently (seriously, how do they have so many), they work together fairly well, and they somehow know where you are at all times. And they’ll always aim for you. Your friends are not much of a distraction until you’re sending the order to engage. Eventually you’ll start to really keep your eye on the directive’s cooldown.
Battlefield 4 takes some cues from stealth games, as well. The new enemy detection warning meter coupled with the binoculars that let you tag spotted enemies in the trademark Battlefield-orange colour might make you think of Crysis or Far Cry. You’re often encouraged by your AI squadmates to seek out the less destructive path by sneaking around, but let’s get real. You don’t make a game and tease all its cool qualities like buildings that can collapse provided you shoot its walls enough and expect people to take the slow and steady route. Plus, it’s pretty hard to play this game on stealth, which I suppose is a nice challenge to anyone who wants to make the campaign that much more difficult for themselves.
Now, I know that I’ve glazed over the characters and the story a lot, but that should automatically give you an impression of how the game treats them itself. There’s China, on the verge of revolt since the apparent death of its leader, Jié. There’s Russia, who the US believes may be planning on supporting the next Chinese leader, Chang, also known as the villain in BF4. There’s Tombstone, the fearless, reliable squad of marines. It’s made up of mainly you, who they call Recker, a young yet capable and loyal mate named Pac, and Irish, who is a spitfire but is equally dedicated and seems to be a good person. You’ll bond with these guys a bit throughout the game. You’ll have the usual conversations — the ones that alternate between military guy “oorah” speak and a few personal moments thrown in for good measure.
You are a silent protagonist. One of those whose personality and voice I suppose you are meant to insert into the moving arms you see on screen. That’s usually the intent behind silent protagonists — to give you the room to implant your own motives and thoughts and deep and foreboding voice if you so choose. But that’s not what happens here. Recker feels like he’s thoroughly incapable of speaking. You’re spoken to without any expectation to answer questions. You’re given at most an opportunity to gesture back, maybe once, throughout the entire game. Worse still is that you’re supposed to be this squad’s leader. And yet it seems like Irish is the one making the calls. Granted, it fits his personality some, as he tends to act on his own accord without much respect to anything but his own moral compass.
But the weird, unspokenness of it all is reflected pretty much everywhere else, too — except for the battlefield, of course, where you’re king. An example: we’ll go talk to Garrison, the guy giving us our orders throughout the game, and he’ll speak as if he’s talking directly to me, but my squadmates have lined up in front of the guy, literally not giving me any room to face my boss. Another example: someone will lay a map down on a table and I can’t swing around close enough to get a good view of it. A third: we’ll come upon a big slice of scenery, setting the establishing shot for the next mission, and I can’t get around my mates to check out the view they seem to be in awe over. Once they’re finally done talking, they run up ahead. I take a moment to stand where their boots once made footprints, in front of the perfect view, soaking it in. They’re already calling for me to hurry the hell up. I feel like I’m along for the ride when I’m supposed to be directing the show. I feel like I stepped into someone else’s game, with someone else taking charge, and I’m just there to kill people. I’m the tank. I’m a meathead who can’t even respond to a question with a simple Yes or No.
If a silent protagonist is handled well, you’ll feel like it’s right for him or her to not say a word. You’ll fill in the blanks of what’s going on in his/her head. But Recker feels like a drone. Like the only way he got to where he is today is because of his usefulness in battle and nothing else. You’re certainly not calling the shots. You’re certainly not moral support. You’re not smart or witty or a leader. You’re just a good shot.
But, really, who cares? Battlefield 4 could ship without a single-player entirely and I would not begrudge it. In fact, in a few months’ time when everyone is knee-deep in ranks and customising weapons, no one will remember Recker and his meatheadedness. No one will care about the facepalm-worthy ending. Because no one gets Battlefield for the story.
It would be great — a breath of fresh air! — if we could have a quality campaign, but I was never really hanging on for one and I don’t think most Battlefield fans are either. We’ve certainly seen military first-person shooters succeed there in the past — perhaps, you’d argue, even in Battlefield itself — but it’s not something I expect anymore. Especially considering how much longer the shelf life is for something like multiplayer in a first-person shooter. There’s just no challenge quite like honing your skills against the kids that seem to have infinity hours to practice while you’re away at work.
Which brings me to, of course, the multiplayer. It’s a difficult thing to gauge when you’ve only had roughly two days of playtime with it, in which you’re still playing under a limited experience. I’m reserving judgment until I play on public servers, until I can meet all of you out there on the battlefield. But I do have some notes to share from my experience with it so far:
- The new knifing system is interesting. First off, there are of course several knives to choose from. Eight, to be specific — shanks, machetes, that sort of fun thing. But more importantly there’s a new counter-knife prompt that if you hit *just* right you can knife your knifer. It’s one of the most pleasant kills you can get if you manage to foil your attacker’s knifing plans, and one of the most aggravating if you’re the one whose plans are getting foiled. You’ll never get a counter-knife prompt when you’re getting knifed from behind, though. It’s pretty neat and is especially fun to play around with in knife-only rounds.
- There’s a new system that lets you peek over a ledge. It’s pretty useful, keeps you under cover, is not too far from other, similar features you’ve seen in other shooters, but it’s a nice addition. It’s hard to angle just right to get the prompt for it, so it’s kind of useless in multiplayer as far as I can tell. At least if you’re the kind of player that likes to be quick on their feet (which you kind of have to be in these games).
- You’ll see all the same modes you’re used to, plus a few fantastic new ones. The standard Battlefield specialities that include capturing and securing areas or devices, as well as the go-to, straight up killing modes. Everything you’re used to, you’ll see here again. The pre-launch servers haven’t been too diverse, so I haven’t logged in enough time in all of them, but so far I quite enjoy the new Obliteration mode, which tasks you with grabbing a bomb and setting it off in the enemy’s base. It’s a game of tag and inspires more laughs at failures than rages, in my experience. I guess its smaller-scale brother, Defuse, is pretty fun, too. Once you’re dead in Defuse, though, you’re dead, and I didn’t feel like the mode was as robust as Obliteration because of that. Every mode can be tweaked, as well, with specifications ranging from whether or not there are vehicles allowed in that particular game to including a kill cam feature or friendly fire. It goes deeper, too, like whether you’ll spawn randomly or if you’re allowed to pick where you want to spawn or whether or not you have regenerative health. Changes like that can drastically impact the pace and feel of the mode.
- Lots of crashes. A few bugs. I wasn’t unlocking anything (weapons, gear) for the first few hours of my playtime until the developers jumped on a fix for it. Of course, this is just the status of the game pre-launch, so they could be up and ready for the public by the time this review runs, but I can give a better impression after I’ve spent time checking out the post-launch situation. But the game has completely crashed more than a few times (in single-player, too).
- Levolution is a dumb name for a cool feature. There are a handful of different maps — the ones that are more close encounter and the ones that are wide open, ripe for vehicular combat, including the brand new naval combat — but there’s more to the variation than just what you can pick and choose on a server. Everything from weather to the far cooler feature of being able to watch as buildings collapse because of the damage you and your battlemates unleash on it will impact what a map looks like. The side of a building crumbling to bits means you’ve got a new exit or attack point. An entire building falling to its death means a sniper can’t perch on top of it anymore. You can destroy levees and flood part of the map, forcing everyone to swim. You’ll block off paths and create new ones. Battlefield has always been a playground of death, and now DICE has given you even more play-doh to work with.
- It seems like customisation from guns to vehicles is pretty robust, and also fairly standard in games like these. I haven’t leveled up enough to play around too much, but there are all sorts of guns and things you can put on guns once you start playing enough of the multiplayer. You can also customise your field upgrade bonuses to change how your character plays. That last one works to reinforce Battlefield‘s already naturally-encouraged team-based play (at least compared to most other games of its kind). Some of these bonuses emphasise your abilities as a medic, engineer, etc. and others change how you move or how much defence you’re getting. The better your team does out there on the field, the more upgrades you’ll have access to.
I’ll have a lot more to say about customisation, the different modes and what kind of tweaks you can add to them as well as battlepacks that you can unlock to drop goodies mid-game. Hopefully soon we can talk about the more massive 64-player rounds that Battlefield 4 can support on next-gen consoles. But basically: I need to rank up a hell of a lot more to get to the in-depth stuff and see you all out on the killing field before I can give a firm judgment on Battlefield 4‘s multiplayer, but it sure as hell isn’t getting a Kotaku-branded Yes for its single-player campaign. I’ll update with more impressions as soon as I’ve got them for you.
Comments
84 responses to “Battlefield 4: The Kotaku Review”
My EA boycott continues.
Your loss. It’s awesome multiplayer.
Yeah. And it’s a loss I’m willing to take. I enjoyed BF3 multiplayer until they shut down nearly all of their servers and then opened up ‘Premium’ servers and player-rented servers.
Wait so you stopped playing BF3 when they made it better???? backwards much
If by ‘better’ you mean every server being 300%tickets Caspian Border or Metro Rush. That’s fine sometimes but whenever I wanted to find a regular match, I couldn’t.
Man did you not get a hold of the server system properly? There was always servers to play. I hate metro and never had trouble finding other servers to play. granted most of my games were 64 conquest but i did indulge in rush and cap the flag from time to time. The only servers i had trouble finding were king of the hill tank and air superiority….. neither of which really hurt my experience. You could always find overseas servers for this if need be.
hell the sydney server and gc servers were still going strong even while the beta was on
I was on pc though cant talk for consoles.
Maybe I was better on PC, I would expect it would be actually as people on PC may have had experience running community servers before. But console, I could never find games with standard rules, and when I did find them (there were a lot of search filters available) they were always empty, or Premium.
Another thing about player-run servers, getting kicked from the server by the owner because I was flying ‘his’ helicopter sucks.
Yeah pc is where this game was born and im sorry but i cant ever see console living up to the same thing. a damn good step in the right direction for 64 man though.
Also that kicking for no reason bullsh*t would leave you with an empty server if you did it on pc. at a guess i would have to say the average age of player might be a bit older on pc too which may help that situation. i know most people i play with are over 20 and some well into their 30’s
the servers improved a lot once the rental servers started, I found the game nearly unplayable prior to that with hideous lag issues, I never rented a server just bounced around other people’s but i noticed significant improvements, BFBC2 was one of my favourite multiplayer games and i was disgusted at how poorly the servers held up at launch, so glad they introduced the new system.
Why wouldn’t you be premium? Cheaper than buying all the map packs. Also the player rented servers created a tonne more Australian servers than existed previously.
When Premium launched, Back To Karkand had only just become available and the next map pack was some time away. Premium at the time was $80 for us PS3 Australians which is more than I paid for the LE game in the first place, it didn’t seem like a good deal to me. I might have picked up Premium later, like say when the next map-pack launched, but before that happened the regular servers had been switched out for Premium servers and plebs like me were left with basically only player-run servers. What annoyed me most is that Premium was unheard of before BF3 was released. If I’d known I’d only be getting a month on the Dice servers I wouldn’t have bought the game in the first place. So now I boycott EA.
You’re boycotting EA and they still managed to release BF4? Crazy-talk.
I’m boycotting Capcom and they seem to be next on the chopping block.
I’m boycotting 20th Century Fox, hopefully that’ll make them bring back Firefly. 😛
Hell no – we can not give them another chance to destroy it. Someone else – almost anyone else (HBO please) – should take the reins.
Same here.
Yes, the sp sucks so much. They even release a video 7 mth ago, showing sp campaign, which the real end product is nothing similiar ( no dual sight) . Im glad i didnt buy it, pirates has its own way. Not even going to play it. Save my money.
I just skip it because I turned off Battlefield when it became so unlock centric, or at the very least BF3 and to a lesser extent BFBC2 had too many multiplayer unlocks. Really ruined the fun.
I much preferred the unlock System in BF3 it made it so not everyone had everything and kind of forced you to specialise somewhat (unless you spent ages unlocking everything) I found it helped team play a lot because we all had different gear and were useful to one another in different situations, whereas in previous versions you could just swap your kit out and be suited to any situation and you never had the need for your buddies as much. Just personal preference I guess, i really like online games that promote team play unlike COD which promotes lone heroes .
I like games that promote team play through good design and mechanics. Natural Selection 2 being a great example.
BF3 I never felt that. In fact, I think the specialization somewhat goes against it. It forces people down a path, and restricts them from enjoying or trying other classes without a significant time (or monetary) investment.
If you think there was no team element to bf3 you weren’t really getting it right. If you worked as a team you could definitely make a huge difference. That’s why i found this game so good. loan wolfing is only good if there is literally no one else ptfo’ing.
Did you play on teamspeak with others when you play? if not most people don’t bother with the common rose commands to attack and defend points so you cant really work as a team if you have no communication.
As for the unlock system it can be a little frustrating but i find it more of a challenge, and did all the premium assignments. It makes you a far better player diversifying into things that your not used to, makes it far better when you pick up a randoms kit after you run out of ammo with your own.
Mind you the point about time is very valid, id never pay for unlocks but i did pay in time. I did over 1000hrs and im still playing today. So the $150 or what ever it cost for the game and premium was well worth it for me.
I’m not saying you couldn’t work as a team. You definitely could, and it would be more effective than lone rangers. I’m saying the inherent game design, for team play, isn’t as effective as encouraging it as many other games have. Other games have better design which more effectively encourages teamwork, even without team speak. That’s BF3’s issue. It’s not as well designed to encourage teamwork when it should.
I often use Mumble/TS/Vent etc. That wasn’t what I was complaining about.
Disregarding that, my main issue with BF3, was the extent to which they have pushed unlocks.
It actually plays on the psychological hanging carrot, rather than fun and good game design. The second I see that sort of mechanism, I’m less inclined to play.
Particularly when you have other people kill you with weapons that you don’t have. It isn’t an even playing field and it isn’t fun to grind to make it one. That is very poor game design. It’s akin to the same psychological mechanisms that microtransactions for mobile and facebook games use. It’s manipulative. Not good.
fair enough… i enjoyed the carrot but i missed a few generations of battlefield because of overseas travel so i guess it may have been fresher to me, as i enjoyed it as a challange rather than an uneven playing field. Not to say it wasnt frustrating at times. I started bf3 about 6 months after launch so was always behind the 8ball to begin with and it showed in my stats early…… i used to enjoy playing arma style and be a camping booshwooky on a hill but after i realized that kinda crap was losing the game for my side i actually enjoyed it a whole lot more ptfo’ing
I’m hearing the opposite about the campaign, from people who are playing it atm (albeit, they haven’t finished it yet). I’m a fan of the series and it’s various single-player campaigns across the years. I can’t help but remain skeptical of this review until I play it myself.
Battlefield 3 single player was the worst game I played that year. I gave up after the 3rd mission, it was that bad.
I disagree. Explain why.
he doesn’t have to explain himself. personal opinion. he didnt like it. you liked it. i liked it.
SOmetimes it’s interesting to listen to differing opinions to your own, not just to disagree and argue, but to gain perspective and stretch your boundaries. It’s enriching.
This is true. I agree.
I disagree, most disagreements on the internet end up in name calling and abusive language.
unfortunately yes. a lot of people can’t have a civilised discussion with differing opinions. quite often it’s “i’m right and you’re wrong”
I’m not sure why you feel like you’re entitled to an explanation. If he doesn’t like it, then he doesn’t like it. Simple.
Sorry only just saw this reply…
I’ll explain.
Firstly, I believe it came out not long after Modern Warfare 2. I’m not a massive COD fan but the single player in MW1 and MW2 was amazing. Pretty good story, excellent cinematics, and good gameplay. Even threw in variety like the ice climb with pick axes, using thermal scopes in the snow storm etc…
When BF3 hit it seemed like they tried to replicate that cinematic experience but in my opinion they failed. The jet level was a novel idea but ultimately incredibly frustrating and pointless. Really re-defined “on rails shooter”. I believe it was the level directly after the jet level where I just gave up.
You started in a sewer and tried to run up a slope towards some buildings with big boulders scattered around. I play shooters on the hardest difficulty, I like the realism and danger of my actions potentially killing me (which is also why I’m not a huge fan of COD or BF multiplayer when it’s not on hardcore mode).
Turns out that this level, and I believe the rest of the campaign is horribly scripted and very linear. In the first few minutes of that level you have to run through 2 or 3 choke points. There is no other path. You can’t kill the enemies fast enough because they keep respawning and hiding behind rocks, and you can’t push forward because you die almost instantly. It could have simply been a tuning issue where the respawn rate was way too high on that difficulty setting but after trying to get past that level for 30 min I said “fuck it, it’s not worth it”. I think also at the time you couldn’t change the difficulty without restarting the campaign and I wasn’t going to bother doing the jet level again so I never touched single player after that.
At the end of the day, after the first 2.5 missions, I got a very strong impression that the single player was an afterthought, tacked on to stay relevant and compete with COD, where BF really didn’t even have to.
The multiplayer is solid, and while I did eventually get bored of it I put in plenty of hours (94h I believe, according to my battlelog).
I think BF3 (and BF4) have made the mistake of trying to compete with COD. I don’t believe they have to. This was evident in the expansions like Close Quarters which made the multiplayer even more COD-like.
Perhaps that’s where the money is, but I think BF should do what BF does well, large maps, team tactics, vehicles etc and COD can keep the fast paced, twitch shooting.
I’ve found that a lot of the proponents against BF3’s campaign have talked about how they felt like they were fighting wave after waves of enemies and were unable to push forward without dying.
The thing about this, is that this method of gameplay is directly from Call of Duty; MW1 especially. I remember completing levels on veteran by ignoring some enemies, running past them and trying to trigger the checkpoint just to wipe the AI out behind me.
Just because one method works in one shooter, doesn’t mean it works in all shooters.
BF3 did rely on scripted enemy movements, but the difference from COD, was that the scripts were a lot more dynamic. Moving to a different set of rocks, or going up against a wall resulted in a change in enemy AI.
Personally, I don’t understand how you can praise COD for being a great campaign and then mock BF3 for being scripted and linear.
Also if played on the hardest difficulty, it wasn’t any scripting that was killing you; it was the AI’s chest and headshot multipliers. The hardest campaign difficulty had the same hit box multipliers as Hardcore MP mode (which baffles me even more, because you say you loved HC??)
TL:DR – In short; I feel like too many people tried to play BF3 campaign like a COD game and got fed up and quit when it didn’t reciprocate like a COD game. It WASN’T a run and gun campaign. You were meant to move cover to cover whilst exterminating targets and looking for any flanking positions when available (and there were many, even if the game didn’t highlight them).
agreed, it was pretty close to unplayable at times, the only mission i really liked was the jet one cause it looked great but you had no control over the plane itself just weapons so even that was a let down.
hmm, it seems I have a lot of opinions where Battlefield is concerned 😛
I’ve always enjoyed the campaign. It not a bioshock in terms of story, but I’ve always found them fun. I mean if COD can always score near perfect for their games, including their usual 5 hour campaign, I really don’t see the difference.
Exactly. If anything, it’s better than COD because outside the scripted, cinematic moments, the game offers more options on how to advance through a level. COD is virtually shooting whack-a-moles until you move far enough forward to trigger a checkpoint and halt the endless waves of reinforcements.
For me BF3’s campaign was a unhappy medium – it wasn’t nearly as exciting as a highly scripted experience in CoD (I agree about whack-a-mole), but it wasn’t particularly flexible either. In the end it was just this astonishingly pointless exercise in mediocrity.
Agreed, it was an experience of ‘going through the motions’ but in tedium. That about sums the Battlefield 3 campaign.
And besides, who play these games for their Single-player campaign anyways? Isn’t multiplayer the whole point to this series as well as COD? Or am I wrong?
I agree that most people buy for the MP, though I play must CoD campaigns. I enjoy them in the same way I’ll occasionally watch a dumb action movie to relax.
lol whack-a-moles
I wonder about games journalists making big statements like ‘The singleplayer certainly isn’t worth your time.’ Certainly? As is evidenced here, some people – albeit a minority into which I place myself – actually enjoy the single-player experience. I know it’s de rigueur to decry Battlefield’s campaigns but have they really been as bad as suggested? Like Spoonie above, I’ve found them fun.
Shadap
I hate the sp, 1-the chara is mute, probably deaf too! All yhe reviewer say is true, a mute leader! Better make that irish as the leader. 2- this is not crysis, why do i have a binoc that not just thermal, also tag enemy and makes arrow appear on their head? And on map? 3- i know how to select attachment or gadget, why put that 4 way sign at the bottom middle of the screen? Its disturbing. 4- i stand beside a crates and poof, cheats happen, unlimited supply of ammo. This game deserve to be thrown into garbage bin. And no, dont mention how good mp is. If they wan sell mp, make another dedicated mp game. A sp that just there for the sake of being there?
unless you including the bad company series, only BF3 and BF4 have had a singleplayer campaign. 1942, Vietnam, 2142 and Battlefield 2 never had a campaign. Only singleplayer botmatches which is wish battlefield would return too
I was. Bad Company is part of the franchise, and those campaigns (especially the first one!!) were terrific. I was also including the Modern Combat ones. They were a bit of fun.
Played through the entire BF3 campaign twice.
+ Loved the Russian guys
+ Loved the presentation – there were
+ Loved the more open levels where real tactics could be used – just not enough of them
– Too similar in stroy line to Black Ops which came out months earlier and honestly did the story better
– Stupid AI and corridor setup meant that you’re options in every situation are very limited and you’re basically forced into the same steps each time you die until you get lucky.
– Oh stupid AI with perect aim. The AI relied so heavily on great aim instead of smart movement and flanking. But then not much point in corridors.
– Quicktime events at the end of long sequences forcing you to redo whole sections.
My biggest problem with the story was it’s reliance on CoD corridors and set pieces. When really they should have setup those battlefield experiences and let the player use them. Then the set pieces can wow when needed and the rest of the time you’re playing a smart tactical shooter instead of a shooting gallery throwback.
Note# While I enjoyed the Black Ops campaign – I’ve spent over 400 hours on BF3. I love that game – the campaign was just a little disappointing and could honestly have been left out.
I liked battlefield 3 single player game. Though I got it for free, if I paid for it and never intended to play the actual (multiplayer) game then I would be pissed….but I didn’t so Im not.
Maybe worth mentioning that there are some multiplayer unlocks associated with the campaign.
The campaign is fun if you don’t take it seriously. It’s basically Michael Bay Movie: The Game. If you can set your brain to a level where you can enjoy his movies, you’ll probably have some fun here… and if not, get online and shoot jerks in the face.
This summarises exactly why I generally like the campaigns in CoD and BF.
Honestly I’d rather they just skipped the single player campaign and put all that effort into a 30 hour interactive non-linear tutorial for every aspect of multiplayer (with a half dozen simple objective driven co-op levels). You can’t fake other players reactions, but you can say here’s a helicopter, some slightly randomised markers in the air, race through the markers, bomb the objective when you get there while avoiding anti-air, then race through another set of markers to head back to the spawn. Do that until you’re good. Like a shooting gallery but for everything.
Thats actually an awesome idea. Despite putting approx. 60hours into BF3 online there are still quite a few vehicles/ items I’m a long way from knowing how to use properly, and most of the time I don’t want to use them because someone else on the team would use it better.
Having said that, I liked the campaign in bad company 2.
BFBC2 is my fav, out of that and BF3. 100+ hours spent on that just in the MP.
I played hundreds of hours of BF3 multi and still won’t go near an aircraft of any description – apart from as a gunner. Can’t fly them for squat. I have decided I’ll just never be any good, and let friends pilot.
You guys just have to jump on an empty server and give it an hour or so… watch some of the youtube tutorials especially for jet… chopper is more of a feel thing jets is getting speeds right to be good. I got good in a heli after a lot of hours stuffing up and never really got great at jets but good enough to take non pro’s down.
Without playing a bit of everything your really missing out on some of the game experience.
Yep. That’s exactly why I’ll never be any good in a jet. Scattered once every about every 20 hours of gameplay I’ll be in a match that’s gone to hell where I feel comfortable jumping in one and flying around, but I’ve got no upgrades so if there’s anyone half decent on the other team I’ll get obliterated.
I think with enough time sunk into it I’d be pretty effective, it’s just getting over that initial period where I’m at best being ineffective and at worst actively hindering my team.
you mean like the original singleplayer mode for 1942, vietnam, 2142 and BF2 with botmatch.
I played an hour of the BF3 campaign….I don’t think i’ll even bother with 4. Just put me in a tank on hardcore and shit will go down. 8)
I’ll be pouring hundreds more hours of my life into BF multiplayer yet again, and I can’t wait.
Prepping my virtual forehead, corpse and ego for the weight of thousands of virtual balls that will rain down upon me in a firey storm of teabagging. I’d be lying if I said I was not looking forward to it.
I’m that person who’s buying both Battlefield and Call of Duty for the single player campaign.
I can’t understand why Battlefield gets bad reviews for its single player mode, yet CoD gets good reviews for the same shit. I’m not defending Battlefields campaign, BF3’s was nearly as painful as Black Ops.
Either way I’m only in it for the multiplayer (Battlefield, not CoD)
The reviewers probably get bored in battlefield and enjoy cod.
They had better have the optimisation fixed. I have just played the Beta with my Titan, and the performance was terrible. The disc activity was through the roof and it was lagging. BF3 still runs great however. Better have optimised this a a lot more for release, any indication this has happened?
Yeah, there was a Nvidia driver update to address the issue specifically within a day or two of the beta opening.
Thanks man, I did try this out on the old 8800, and it did help, never tried it with the Titan. Hopefully this will be much more playable. Looks fucking tang though!
I preordered the whole thing (game, premium, together for like $103 on OGS) after playing the beta and feeling bad for having missed out on BF3’s run.
I had absolutely no intention of playing the single player.
Some multiplayer guns only unlock in the single player 🙁
Ahh, I’m too much of a gross pleb to know which guns are good and bad anyway.
I’ll get this when all of the bugs are fixed, the servers actually work, there’s an edition that has all the bullshit “pay $20 for maps and gun skins” things included and it’s a reasonable price.
So basically when BF5 is about 6 months away.
try 12 months.
You guys should see the IGN review with 5 different platform. The PS4 video capture is awesome and constant 60fps on multiplayer.
I have to disagree. I’ve played multiplayer on both series, and they both have their pros and cons (I’m not into the multiplayer all that much these days anyhow, what with every man and his dog thinking they are going to be the next esport champion, playing the game day and night until they are getting headshots halfway across the map on the turn of a dime) … but the single player campaigns? COD easily has the better experience for solo play.
*EDIT – supposed to be in response to Trex’s post.
I wish I wasn’t so cynical about BF4. Still feels like it’s EA trying so hard to make a yearly BF release schedule, and during the beta it felt like it was just Call of Duty. No point in spotting since killtimes were less a second long now. Granted, it was the beta.
It felt nothing like cod to me! I’m really good at CoD but I am terrible at battlefield
Do you think the bigger focus on squad play is the reason?
Nah, my bullets seem to go through people without hitting them. The shooting mechanics just feel a bit off to me…
So does the story continues from BF3?
It’s 2013 and you still can’t have a discussion about Battlefield without people moaning about how COD sucks. Two completely different games people. Time to let it go.
I think the problem is, they aren’t different enough. They should be, but take out vehicles and killstreaks and they are identical…
I’m sorry, i thought you were talking about the series that had Battlefield 3 in it.
The problem is EA. They really only care about your wallets, and not making an awesome game with next-gen ideas (just banking on casual gamers being content).
They took commander mode out and limited squads to 4 for BF3, only to place it back into BF4 to get people excited and hype it. Paying $60 for only a multiplayer game(lets be honest here) with the EXACT same online gameplay and small old features/engine upgrades/tweaks that a modding community could have completed 10x faster is no excuse to charge players for it.
If you didnt play BF3, go ahead, I recommend you pay into BF4, play it, youll enjoy it. For us BF3 players and before BF3, we all know what were going to get and its not worth $60 and total of $60+ of future DLCs.
EA has become a corporate monger, sucking up all our favorite classic games/genres. Then using our nostalgic urges to pay into it. Not anymore I say, not anymore.
Well…it sure does look pretty.
I found the campaign most amusing at the part where
Irish suddenly flips his attitude about Hannah after a single story she tells him that for all we know she could have just made up.I refuse to buy through origin until they set the price to something closer to the U.S pricing.
Im more than happy to part my money for bf4 but not when they gouge us an extra $30 for the privilege.
As for their changes to the servers.
Ive never been a fan of the whole premium up-size bullshit.
Now I understand why most of the servers on bf3 are vacant.
The MP experience seems to have changed… where the blind acceptance of pay for DLC and extras and worse, the restriction of the game experience that dumbed down the console generation has creeped into the PC game relm.
That really doesnt sit right with me.
Fuck you EA.