Battlefield 3 or COD MW3?

Just wondering if anyone's been playing the Battlefield 3 beta, what they think of it, what format that was and if you're gonna be buying the full release.

i played it earlier today, and it was pretty dreadful. graphics are worst than call of duty black ops and movement isn't great. think i'll be sticking with call of duty and waiting for mw3

Really? The graphics are a bit rough but then it's a beta, and CoD has never been that pretty. I thought the game modes in the BF series urine all over CoD.

this current battlefield is a near clone of black ops, in my opinion - in terms of graphics. the gameplay isn't free flowing, i know its beta, but still they spent $$$m yet its not as good as i expected it to be.

How different can military based shooters look though?

Graphics are overrated and afforded to much emphasis when rating a game for me.

Cant wait for MW3. Survival mode looks immense:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFPofkYmHjU

No option for Neither?!

Out of interest of those who have played the Beta for Battlefield 3 on what platform did you play it?

Dass wrote:Out of interest of those who have played the Beta for Battlefield 3 on what platform did you play it?

playstation

BALTIMORA wrote:How different can military based shooters look though?

well its common knowledge that ea sports have taken most of the creators of modern warfare 2 in their hope of surpassing c.o.d. they are trying to copy an existing product.

Well as i have been a hardcore, diehard, Nintendo fan (the only true gaming company) for may years, ill have to go MW3 as i believe the other one isnt out on wii. O how i long for the snes era again...

Its not EA that have taken a lot of the Infinity Ward staff at all, most of them have just moved across to Respawn Entertainment instead which will publish its games through EA's partner program but that's it.

If I had Kotick as my boss while at Infinity Ward I'd be looking for new pastures also. There's no doubt though that DICE want this series to rival the CoD in terms of numbers and have pumped a lot of money into the project but DICE are known for good games so I'll reserve judgement till I play the full copy on PC.

Its also nice to see a studio designing a game for the PC market as its lead platform.

Issac Watson wrote:

BALTIMORA wrote:How different can military based shooters look though?

well its common knowledge that ea sports have taken most of the creators of modern warfare 2 in their hope of surpassing c.o.d. they are trying to copy an existing product.

If you mean they're trying to copy CoD then that's absolute nonsense. Dice have openly stated that they're looking to compete more strongly with CoD than they have in the past but that's hardly a revelation. BF3 still looks like a Battlefield game, and it still plays like one. With military shooters though they're always going to look similar to one another if they contain the same weapons and environment types.

CoD4 was fantastic. CoD5 was dull and uninspiring, and the zombies mode was over-rated. MW2 had an awful single-player campaign but online multiplayer was great...except that the prestige system started to grate on me. Whereas I reached the tenth prestige on CoD4, by MW2 I couldn't be bothered to prestige more than twice I think. Black Ops I played a bit of but again it just didn't grab me. I'd become bored of the game modes, and the fact that CoD multiplayer now seems to be home to millions of kids who just want to glitch out of the map or boost their levels. Battlefield seems to attract players who are a bit more interested in actually playing as a team. Free-for-all matches don't really interest me, and that's all CoD really has over BF.

Now that Infinity Ward is pretty much a shell it will be interesting to see what Activision do with the CoD series, they can either prop up Infinity Ward with staff from other studios or place the game with another developer of theirs.

Also looking forward to the first game from Respawn Entertainment, will generate a lot of hype once the EA marketing juggernaut gets going. Supposedly its going to be a Sci-Fi shooter but not much more info at this stage.

It will be the single player campaigns that will make or break these two games for me as I'll get my multi-player fix from the new Counter Strike game early next year. Already leaning towards Battlefield but that's mainly due to a loathing towards anything associated with Bobby Kotick.

The single player campaign in CoD4 was alright but not amazing and since then it's only become worse. I didn't bother with Black Ops but World at War and MW2 had awful, dull, missions with restrictive and uninspired level design. I'll add to this that MW2 had one of the most preposterous plots to a shooter since Serious Sam.

infinity for suing ea sports, so its pretty clear ea sports illegally poached infinity's staff

I don't think any of the guys I used to work with even knew the MW games had single player aspects, or even if they did they only gave it a passing glance and never completed it.

Its a age old problem though across many genre's the balance of developing a good single player campaign coinciding with a equally strong multi-player one. Certainly in the RTS genre its a hard fit for me as I like economic driven games that require planning and thought where the on-line aspect is geared towards a mad rush to creating an attack force before launching it at your opponent as soon as possible. I can see the benefits of keeping a fast moving online experience and in Total Annihilation it was a joy to behold but it sometimes feels a little cheap.

Though it shouldn't be a issue in the FPS sphere as the game is essentially the same except the enemies in a multi-player aspect are more difficult to predict and should be off a higher standard. All you can really say if the single player is bad is the developer has been lazy and added it in as a after thought but who cares since the money will still roll in regardless.

Are we getting to a stage where the single player aspect in FPS games are becoming more obsolete, at least in games that are also heavy multi-player based. Will it get to the stage where certain games just only have a on-line aspect much like Counter Strike.

Issac Watson wrote:infinity for suing ea sports, so its pretty clear ea sports illegally poached infinity's staff

Its Activision who are suing EA, though it seems a belated and petty move to counter attack the fact the former Infinity Ward (now Respawn Entertianment) employees were suing Activision first for breach of contract due to being sacked by the company over alleged tapping up by EA. I'm not sure anything's pretty clear in this saga and Activisions subsequent counter sue attempt proves nothing other the fact that this situation is seriously messed up.

You would think if EA were properly tapping up the lead guys at Infinity Ward then when they left they would actually join EA and not form another studio albeit with publishing links to EA in exchange for start up money as part of the EA partners program. Its not like any IP's that this new studio creates will belong to EA or they will have any say on the development of games all they get out of the situation is the ability to take a little bit of the pie due to them being the publishers.

The feeling I get is the ex members wanted to be their own bosses again and develop new games where as Activision seemed to want them to just churn out CoD games instead, its a proven moneymaker and we all know how much emphasis Activision puts on money regardless of poor quality in their games. You get the impression that they were ready to jump ship to form a new studio and decided to see how EA would feel about giving them some money through the partners program to help with the start up. It wouldn't surprise me if there was contact between both parties while they were still employed by Activision but I'm just not sure if EA was leading those talks.

There's definitely still a place for single player campaigns in FPS games but I agree with your point that many developers just stick it on as an afterthought. I'm not really familiar with PC games of late but as far as console shooters go the Halo series is one of the few which has (with the exception of ODST) both decent single and multiplayer modes. The single player gives a decent illusion of freedom while being built around Bungie's principle of 'thirty seconds of fun'. Of course the best example of a sublime single player FPS experience has to be the Half Life franchise. I'm glad Valve DIDN'T cheapen their games with a poorly thought out multiplayer, such as that in Bioshock 2 and Dead Space 2 (yeah, I know it's not a FPS but still). I just don't think CoD has what it takes for me to be interested anymore. Activision seem keen to milk it dry and churn out sequels until the franchise is dead, like they did with Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk's.

It's funny in a kind of ironic way Dass, because ten years ago EA were the ones with the reputation for churning out low-risk dross, whereas now they're the guys who have some genuinely quality titles.

Riccitello changed EA, he came in knowing that EA were seen as a joke/devil in gaming circles and he wanted to change that and in the past 4yrs he's done a pretty good job.

They have tried giving their owned studios more creative freedom and stopped trying to attach the EA moniker to every studio they acquire which often felt likely a tacky attempt to plaster their name everywhere. They also realised that acquiring well respected studios and leaving them alone could make them money and by association raise their own name by virtually doing very little.

They ruined a hell of a lot of good studios and they are only now just starting to repair that damage. The biggest problem they have for me now is they are so large they need the mass market sequels to keep them running through the profits they generate, I can accept that as long as they also develop some new IP's along the way.

Then you have Bobby Kotick who seems to have felt with Ea trying to turn over a new leaf that there's a vacancy opening up and he can fill it all by himself. Hell he seems to want to go even further than EA did taking it to a new level where its not so much a company thats hated but one solitary figure.

I'd agree I still think the single player campaign still has its place but I often think its scary when talking to certain groups of gamers how often they never actually play this aspect of the game.

Half Life was a great experience as a single player game and it was interesting that Valve didn't see the need to tack on a shoddy multi-player aspect just cause they could. They seemed to take the approach that this was their single player game and if people wanted multi-player they could play Team Fortress or Counter Strike instead.

The on-line experience has boomed and its often sad to see games that should just stick to what they do best often cheapen themselves by tring to jump on the bandwagon.

Speaking of Dead Space one of the new IP's along with Mirror's Edge that EA have tried to create in the past few years in their new approach. Both released the same year and seriously hampered EA's profits, they would have made far more money milking an existing IP even if it was rubbish. Which is a sad state of affairs.

I must admit that while I really enjoyed Mirror's Edge I'm not blown away by Dead Space 2. Never played the first one but #2 is just too rigidly scripted for my tastes. Takes away much of the replay value. Didn't EA buy up Pandemic, and...what's the guys who made Burnout? You're right, they've certainly turned their image around. I remember when all they churned out was Command & Conquer, poor FIFA games that benefited from licensing the official teams etc, and a slew of Bond/Harry Potter/Simpsons/Sims rubbish.

Both those games had flaws but they held a lot of promise to which was the great thing to see. You already stated some of the problems with Dead Space, Mirror's Edge had the fact it was just ridiculously to short for a game. While neither will go down as games that will leave a lasting impression on me they were positive experiences.

Yeah EA bought up Pandemic when they purchased VG Holdings which was the holding company for both Pandemic and Bioware at the time. The problem Pandemic had was their next 3 games after being purchased were poor efforts including the very disappointing sequel to Mercenaries. It all depends which side of the fence you come down on with regards to EA and if they gave them enough time. Its interesting to see that a lot of their members joined 343 Industries who are taking over the reigns of the Halo franchise now Bungie have left Microsoft.

The studio you're thinking about is Criterion Games and other than Burnout sequels haven't done much else, they seem to have been left to do things at their own pace. They did do NFS: Hot Pursuit recently as a co-development with DICE which was quite interesting to see from both companies. Good studio though that EA seem to have left alone as long as they stay healthy.

Yeah Mercenaries 2 was a let-down. I've been hoping for a new Star Wars Battlefront but as EA bout Pandemic and Lucas owns the rights to Star Wars I dunno who they'd get to make it. Full Spectrum Warrior was great when it came out, and Destroy All Humans was good fun but the sequels were pap.

Criterion! That's the one!! They did Black on Xbox and PS2 didn't they? That was an lright arcadey shooter on the normal setting, but on the hard setting it played totally differently and was a really good blast.

I'd forgotten about Black actually, which was a decent if not spectacular game certainly goes in the plus column for them though.

It was a shame to see Pandemic go defunct which had a lot to do with how much I adored the Battlefront games, in many respects I'd say they were the best game to use the license. There's a few other KOTOR, X-Wing etc that could have a claim but I still have it top of the pile.

I think Rebellion Developments did a PSP game based of the Battlefront series a few years ago and there's been rumours for around 4yrs now of a Battlefront III. Its not been helped with the fact Free Radical Desgin (now Crytek) were brought on board for development (can only assume they could do the job cheaper for LA rather than use Pandemic) before they went into admin and then rumours got bounced around of Pandemic picking it before they went to the wall.

It looks like there might be a 3rd game in the series at some point unless LA have just gotten completely sick of the game but god knows who will do it or if its in development at the moment.

See Free Radical never really impressed me with Timesplitters, and the last decent Rebellion game I can remember playing was AVP on the PC. I loved that game but the marine levels are the only videogame to actually freak me out. I think there's still some life to be had from Star Wars Battlefront. Not sure how much, given that I'm not sure how many people would care for it if it became filled with too much new, non-canon content. Republic Commando was a pretty decent Star Wars game in the Rainbow Six/Ghost Recon mould.

Timesplitters had its charms though in certain areas it got a bit more credit than it deserved, Second Sight wasn't a bad game either but that's been a while ago now. Haze was a massive disappointment and other than that game they haven't done much in the last 6 or so years, though I'm guessing Battlefront III would have been another game if they hadn't went into admin.

It seems under their new moniker of Crytek UK they will be taking over the reigns of the Homefront series now that the original studio has went to the wall. Plus I think they have another Timesplitters game on the horizon, bet you can't wait.

Going on how liberal some of the book series have been with regards to SW cannon I wouldn't worry about it not having a market for that reason. There's always the often mooted lets just scrap it all and start again as in many aspects its monster that's got outta hand. Republic Commando was ok but it wasn't in the same league as the KOTOR or Battlefront for me.

Timesplitters bugged me because it had a poor single player, and the multiplayer wasn't deep enough. It was essentially a tweaked Goldeneye, and I know that may not seem a bad thing, Goldeneye HAS aged. Add to that the lack of hands holding your weapon and the inability to jump or otherwise scale even the lowest of obstacles and it seemed unfinished and poorly designed. If there's one thing which peeves me in games it's invisible walls. That's one thing I like about the Operation Flashpoint games; the in-game boundaries are naturally occurring features like cliffs and shorelines.

I didn't mind the single player so much, although it could get very repetitive and simple at times I've played worse campaigns. Yeah Goldeneye has aged and there's no doubt Timesplitters was in many ways a tweaked version of said game, I think quite a few ex members of that Goldeneye team worked on it, but they are still both fun to play even now for a laugh.

I suppose it comes down to how badly little things annoy you and then build up, for me they ain't that bad and a few of the stated issues were fixed in later incarnations. I'll grant you arbitrary invisible walls are extremely annoying and just shout out poorly thought design.

Just seen the official advert for MW3. Cant wait for this, it looks simply immense.

Y I Man wrote:Just seen the official advert for MW3. Cant wait for this, it looks simply immense.

They always look good which sadly doesn't normally give a indicator to the games quality, but they drag you in nonetheless. I have no doubts that it will see immensely well but in terms of quality of the game itself I have huge reservations about this latest incarnation due to the development situation and the previous game not being that great.

Should be interesting though.

Hidden & Dangerous. That's the game I was thinking of. Difficult but a bit of a hidden gem, a little overlooked.

Battlefield 3 is very good fun online, although it'll be better once people get the hang of co-operating. Single player it's decidedly average. Looks pretty but plays like a CoD game.

1 Sleep to go

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

loving battlefield as well tho

Nay Bother wrote:1 Sleep to go

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

loving battlefield as well tho

Too busy on BF3 to care for MW3.

BALTIMORA wrote:Hidden & Dangerous. That's the game I was thinking of. Difficult but a bit of a hidden gem, a little overlooked.

Battlefield 3 is very good fun online, although it'll be better once people get the hang of co-operating. Single player it's decidedly average. Looks pretty but plays like a CoD game.

Hidden & dangerous I loved that game, i remember being stuck on a part of that game for ages, you had to steal a boat in some german town it took ages for me to figure out how to do it.

As for MW or Battlefield i've decided to give both a miss, I'm just so bored of the whole FPS format, and have pre orderd Skyrim instead which by the time I get round to finishing that SWTOR should be releasd

randy-poffo wrote:As for MW or Battlefield i've decided to give both a miss, I'm just so bored of the whole FPS format, and have pre orderd Skyrim instead which by the time I get round to finishing that SWTOR should be releasd

You've pretty much described my plan, with Demon Souls to take me up to Skyrim and a little of the new Counter Strike early next year to give me those breaks from SWTOR that I'll need.

Bonjourno!

So MW3 is going to sell more in a day than BW3 will in a week. I totally understand why. Judging by he number of preowned copies that I seen in the software distributor here in Monza, BF3 seems to have bombed out!

Forza Call of Duty!

Forza the greatest game franchise of all time!

Alessandro Ciambella wrote:Bonjourno!
Forza the greatest game franchise of all time!

This isnt a thread for Mario

Alessandro Ciambella wrote:Bonjourno!

So MW3 is going to sell more in a day than BW3 will in a week. I totally understand why. Judging by he number of preowned copies that I seen in the software distributor here in Monza, BF3 seems to have bombed out!

Forza Call of Duty!

Forza the greatest game franchise of all time!

What are you, twelve?

Balti don't you know sales = quality, its a well known FACT!!! (In dedication to Rowley) up there with using a pad increases realism... get with the times man.

Dass wrote:Balti don't you know sales = quality, its a well known FACT!!! (In dedication to Rowley) up there with using a pad increases realism... get with the times man.

That'll explain that Mr Blobby #1 single then.

I am still confused why you have to like one and not the other

Nay Bother wrote:I am still confused why you have to like one and not the other

You don't, that's just it. I prefer Battlefield because MW2 bored me after a while, and I like the scale of the maps in BF3. Having vehicles adds an extra layer to it too.

I'll be getting them both but, not sure which console to get them for probably get them for Xbox 360, but not overly enthused by either in truth probably a waste of £80 but who cares?

Alex I've had Battlefield 3 since the launch weekend and it's great online when you're playing with people who communicate and co-operate. I've not played MW3 yet. Heard mixed things about it from people I know, so I'll probably wait until I can try it on the cheap. I will say that which you'll like more will depend on what type of game you prefer. If you like the class-based team play of previous Battlefield games, you'll love BF3. If you prefer the slightly more 'independent' play of CoD, then you'd probably prefer that one. Of course, that would make you a 12-year-old fanboy 'fag', but...

BALTIMORA wrote:people who communicate and co-operate.

Well that's you screwed then Balti, off to MW3 for you.

Dass wrote:

BALTIMORA wrote:people who communicate and co-operate.

Well that's you screwed then Balti, off to MW3 for you.

I've got half of it right. It's just the co-operating part I struggle with... Just been watching a video of someone playing MW3 and I must say it's made me glad I opted for Battlefield 3. MW3 just looks identical to the last one.

I've not picked up either yet but based on a number of factors its looking less and less I'll be picking up this or any future COD/MW game. I'll end up picking up BF3 at some point as I've liked the previous incarnations and I'm a big fan of DICE.

It's all about CS: Global Offensive as far as I'm concerned.