For several years I have been solely a single player gamer, but seeing Battlefield 3 made me want to get into Xbox live, and the multiplayer side of the First Person Shooter genre. When the release date arrived, i signed up for Xbox Live and was excited to jump into this new experience.
I have never played the others much, maybe once or twice but I had no clue on what I was really doing. When BF3 came I was eager to try it out. I installed the multiplayer disc first of course, got the update and as luck would have it I was able to stay home and play it instead of being at work. A good a friend of mine also was home and we jumped in whole hardily….I was pumped, I was ready, I was engaged to do battle on the field of honor…then I was killed immediately right after I had moved to a flag by a ranked 28th level Recon class.
The game was only out a few hours before at midnight and yet here we had people already encroaching on level 30. Which to me seemed impossible! Really? Level 28 already….So I kept playing trying to find a good mix of tactics and strategy. The battles were intense. Explosions like a Michael Bay film going off everywhere and sometimes intense moments of extreme silence. The occasional jet flying over interrupting that calm, bullets whizzing by at supersonic speeds. I was paranoid, sometimes paralyzed to do anything. Its was overwhelming at times.
90% of the time my kill death ratio was negative by this I mean that I would kill 2 enemies but have 19 deaths. Sometimes from very far away in which I had no defense against a (Recon), or random tank blast from out of nowhere…and yet I continued on trying to get better. I believe in the month and a half of playing I had a total of three good positive matches…. that’s it. I played everyday and was only at 15th level rank.
Many times I knew that I had killed an enemy first. I seen the hit markers and yet all they had to do was shoot one time. (and not just a head shot mind you.) Yet still I continued to push past the battles, made my way through the smoke, with unending shells, motor fire and grenades blasting every which way. I watched helplessly as my friends that I didn’t even know or got the chance to know dropped like flies. Lambs to the slaughter and yet I continued on.
It was then that I realized BF3 wasn’t the game for me. It is an amazing experience, DICE is an incredible company that has made me feel like I am suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. This game is intense at times, but for me it became a simple exercise in total frustration and not because I wasn’t victorious at times, or got creamed a lot. It’s because of Recon soldiers sniping from a mile away, people jumping in tanks and firing randomly at “Flag C” over and over hoping to get anybody in the way. Spawn killers….oh, you know who you are. But that’s just a small number of the online community.
So I am not soldier, but BF3 is about as close to a real war as I would want to be a part of. It’s a glorious game but for me fighting against 40th level people and higher was something I just couldn’t hack. When the game was no longer fun, well then I decided to take it back to GameStop. I got $30 in trade and purchased Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3.
I know what your thinking, ok why would I go from one battle game to another, let alone Dice’s competition? First I don’t care about the whole debate between these two incredible franchises. Second of all, COD players hate BF because it is too real and they are terrible at the game like I am. Why is this? Well simple, COD is fast arcade like experience that requires very little thought and if you take out all the perks and customization you basically have Unreal Tournament which Battlefield is not.
BF players can’t stand COD because there is no hiding a mile away, no vehicles, and no real tactics per say. Run and gun is the name of COD. People feel the need to defend their product of choice. they’re both awesome and may they continue to be made for years to come, but I digress…..So I play Unreal tournament 3, Section 8 (my favorite), fast arcade MP games all the way back from Time Splitters to N64 Goldeneye. MW3 I bought and within three days or 17 hours of playing the game I was at 42nd level. I did well from the get go.
The maps, the battles, the frantic pace, the weapons, random thrown grenades, flashbangs, explosions here and there and instant respawn…yeah just as I had thought. My years of Goldeneye, Unreal, Quake, Red Faction 2, Section 8 paid off and I became an instant fan of Call of Duty. The Dutes was in me and I relished it. Sometimes I would get creamed and other times dominate. This was my game, the game I should have been playing.
People were complaining about the differences between Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3. People were complaining about Call of Duty not being like Black Ops and so on and so forth. I had no point of reference, I was new to this online stuff and have never played the other games. Guess what? I didn’t care either. If you are a new player to the Xbox Live multiplayer community let me leave you with this….
You want a life-like battle experience with strategy, team playing, tactics, large-scale battles and incredible skirmishes. Do yourself a favor and go buy you a copy of Battlefield 3. But if you want that fast arcade like experience that is well-balanced, great customization, and frantic pacing then go get a copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. I don’t regret picking up BF3 nor getting rid of it because ultimately while BF3 wasn’t my cup of tea per say it did lead me directly to Modern Warfare 3 and the fun I am having with it. But take both games with a grain of salt because while you may think you’re a good multiplayer gamer both games will test you to your limit. Good Gaming out there and maybe I just might see you online, hopefully from the end of my Acog Scope….
–Tom
