Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm sure I'll receive flak for this review, and it is what it is. Here is my opinion on this game I was very excited for. Single Player - The single player take the I out of A.I., as enemies are outright ridiculous. Shooting at nothing for no reason. Often times I've found myself standing right in front of an enemy who didn't recognize I had my gun pointed in his face at 2 feet away, he was looking directly at me in the same hiding position. Friendlies are no better, more than once there have been firefights going on, I would be raining bullets on the enemies and (because the script says so) your teamate will non chalantly walk a foot in front of your gun with his head at the nussle when I'm in mid fire and HAVE BEEN firing and reloading for quite some time. Then the game has the audacity to say "Friendly Fire Will Not Be Tolerated!", but it wasn't really friendly fire, it was a friendly purposefully committing suicide. I'm sure the dialogue of these words aren't portraying how absurd it looks on screen, but it is pretty lackluster. The campaign is also extremely scripted, and yes I'm aware that every single player is scripted. That's exactly what a game (or software program in general) is, a series of scripts. Many series of scripts, but this is to the point that the game may as well been a rail shooter. That way, you can enjoy all the pretty backgrounds without having to worry about anything else. For example: On the first level there is a portion where you are called to man a LMG up on a bridge (the same level shown in the first trailers, which ends in an Earthquake). Well, if you run up on that bridge, grab the LMG, and then position yourself behind a piece of the bridge that hasn't had it's cover blown off. It doesn't matter, you die a cheap death from an automated RPG or the bullets from everyone focusing on you. If you grab that gun, take a step back, and begin firing like Scareface (but actually hitting people), you'll still get that RPG visit, so say "goodbye". However, if you grab that LMG, then immediately aim thus posting against the fence, everyone's attention goes elsewhere, and that RPG? The guy(s) weilding that RPG will purposefully shoot elsewhere. ^ Is Dice serious? That's a direct Call of Duty attribute, where you must hit specific points on the map to truly progress, and you learn this in those games in brutal fashion once you play it on Veteran difficulty. Meaning you have to memorize the script points rather than disposing the enemies 9/10. It isn't about your accuracy or teamwork, but rather about being at the right place to progress in the game, your teammates will shoot those magical bullets that don't allow the infinite respawns to continue. Oh, and Battlefield 3 does have it's moments of infinite respawning enemies, in the same Call of Duty fashion I just mentioned. Personally, I do not find any of that interesting. I know this may sound shallow, but why was Halo Combat Evolved superior in its campaign to this game in almost every single way? I say almost because it obviously couldn't in terms of graphics. In that game, fights changed just about every time I played. The enemy AI was very dynamic, and you could literally keep your men alive for additional firepower if you were skilled enough because of this dynamic feel. In fact, there were many places (take "Assault on the Control Room") for instance where you could play cooperatively, and through communication guide the other to assassinate entire rooms full of enemies without firing a single round. Just from simply playing stealthy and remaining undetected. On that same stage, when you would be spotted in one area an Elite once he spotted you (because they actually had a field of view) would bolt for a nearby Banshee. The thing is, he doesn't always make it to the vehicle, because with a well placed grenade or shots you can stop him from entering and even weild the powerful arial vehicle yourself. Things were so free, and yet full of action and wonder in that game. Why does Battlefield 3 not have any of this? What is the problem? You are literally guided through everything like they want this to be you watching a movie that a few hours too long and not really all that interesting to begin with (the story is almost a dejavu of Black Ops). If they wanted to give us that feeling, why not just give us customers a long movie to watch so I won't be burdened by having to move a mouse, I can just sit back, and chow down on some popcorn or fall asleep. You can't even pilot a jet in the game, you're just along for the ride, and while the sky is pretty, it's a very boring ride. Last 2 notes about the Campaign: The Xbox controller integration was completely half-___ed. You cannot do any of the quick time events with them. You do not get the actual 360/PS3 controller set up integration, rather, you get a PC control scheme with some of the button set ups mapped over. What do I mean by this? One instance, there is no sprint toggle, none. So if you want to run (and you will be wanting to RUN a lot in this game), you'll have to mash down L3 (analog stick) and hold forward simultaneously. Not only does this wear down the buttons, and your hand from its awkwardness, but it's just clunky and will often release because you unintentionally stopped pressing down hard enough. The campaign drastically holds back on destruction (outside of scripted events such as the Earthquake you saw in the trailer). So I essentially can't do what I want because it's so scripted, the A._. obviously is missing it's intelligence, and I can't do much more than cause a car to explode if I'm using heavy artilery, or chip away at small pieces of cover on a building side? Please Dice, lets not try to make this any more boring and unmemorable. Please. Multiplayer: Gun mechanics work well. I guess they made the tank firing sounds more realistic, however they sound rather non threatening in Battlefield 3 because you don't get that rocking "Boom!" anymore and screen shake when you're near a firing T-90 like in Bad Company 2. However, if this is more realistic, no problem. I wouldn't know since I've never been near one going off. The action is rather intense in many places and that's always cool to see. Those mechanics they have down well. As expected... However... The map is an obvious downgrade from Battlefield 2, I don't understand the purpose in it, but I digress. This isn't a huge issue to me so I let it slide. I cannot use the quick match function nor can I see pings of servers to find a game that I would connect well too (nor can they be viewed in game). Fortunately I have an extremely good connection. Maybe this is an issue that could be addressed by port forwarding? I'm thinking it could; however I have not bothered to fiddle with it, but it results in me finding a server that winds up being fairly laggy. To the point where I will unload half a clip into someone (showing as registered), they turn and kill me in a shot, and my death screen shows that very person with 100% health. Nice. It also means you'll find a ton of rubberbanding in 64 player servers (at least those I have chosen in my time with the game). HOWEVER, because the ping issue, not being able to see it, maybe just be something I can address with port forwarding, AND maybe because I may have just joined a bunch of laggy servers back to back (no way to verify) -- I'll let this slide for now. Now, you see, my friends all got this game on consoles. However, I could afford to buy this on PC because I have a fairly strong rig (can run this and every other game I own on Ultra with no problems), so I did. I don't have any friends on PC, and this game does not support in-game VOIP (basically, voice chat). Basically this means I'm playing a tactical game where I cannot speak in real time. I'm playing a tactical game without tactics, and many complaints from people about this in game through the chat system. This causes a LOT of problems. Example: You're playing on Caspian Border, there is one vehicle left and one of your squad mates grab it, you are right behind them and they flat out leave you behind because they do not know you're there. You're then forced to run, run, and run some more across a gigantic map - hoping you don't get murdered IMMEDIATELY as you get to your destination. Cool. Now remember me mentioning how there was no sprint toggle? (Mouse and Keyboard OR Controller, whichever method you choose) The result? You feeling like you're one step closer to rheumatoid arthritis with each asinine venture. How hard would it be to implement the same thing TES games do? Click one button to toggle on Run, click another to run straight until you either toggle it back off or tap backward on the keyboard. It isn't hard... ALSO imagine you want to cover your squad's 6? Well, they won't know that because you can't tell them, but what makes it worse is that you can't tell them of any threats. There have been times I would get rushed by multiple men and I couldn't inform my squad to assist with support fire from their 6. The result is I die, and my entire squad dies along with me because there was no way for me to inform them of the oncoming threat. I do what I can to defend them for naught, because it's me vs a group, and my group has no opportunity to have an idea... It also makes for very silent games as well. Very boring games... An essential element to squad based teamplay is tactifully making your way to an objective, but this cannot be done (the commorose does not make up for chat by any means what so ever) and to top it off, there aren't even squad leaders. ^ Essentially, no chat option for people who aren't friends (and I do not have friends on PC) breaks the game. They may have well added a "lone wolf" mode since I can't communicate with my team and rather find myself having to chase after them becuase they just don't know what's on my mind and I don't know what's on theirs (what objective we're to set next or how to complete the one we wish to pursue at the time). I've been told on forums that I should get friends then, but that's absurd. It'd be nice to have friends, sure. But it isn't like I can havea full conversation and seriously play the game simultaneously. Considering I'd have to type out everything thus be inactive and vulnerable to death. Basically I'm being told by those arrogant few that I should just join a game, send out a bunch of random friend requests, hope I end up playing at the same time as them in the future (the point where we can connect on Origin and get paired up in a chat room before manually searching for a game), hope they accept, hope we play well together, and hope we even like each other after vocal discussions. Absurd... ... I can't even tell you how many times I've hopped out of a comrades tank to repair it just for him to think I bailed on him so he/she would just drive away at full speed as I began to repair, and eventually just be killed because I'm standing right out in the open because my mate left me behind... Cool. The chat box on PC is FAR too big. It takes a more than a quarter of your screen, including a big blue box to further render your viewing pleasure. I can't tell you how many times I've died from someone directly in front of me because I couldn't see through the giant chat box that randomly pops up on my screen because someone typed something. Nice one Dice, how about making it a small text area in the corner of the screen like every other modern PC FPS online game on the planet? Lastly, there's a bit of an issue with some hit detection. For instance, if someone is on the other side of a wire fence (where you can clearly see through with it's large gaping holes), you can't shoot through it. I fired at a guy on the other side of a fence for ages (who was directly on the opposite side) while manning a .50 cal machine gun on the back of a vehicle. Not a single bullet hit the guy. In fact he eventually turned to face me and just watched as I fired into the fence. Only once the fence was hit with a knife were bullets allowed to pass. Come on now, how much better is that then an invisible wall then? Considering they'll be able to see you, or you'll be able to see them, and you'll both know that you're essentially behind bullet proof glass and you don't have to watch out for the other unless one plays chicken and takes a swipe at the fence... At least reduce bullet damage, but impenetrable? Wrong type of fence, Dice. This review is mighty long so I'll be extremely brief from this point forward. Origin - Are we seriously discussing this? Any questions can be answered on the other 1 star reviews here, Origin is weak. If anything, they should have just left up their agreement with Steam and allowed people to use that instead. Origin? 0/10. Browser based system - Horrible. Resource consuming. Poorly functioning. Rather pointless. Another 0/10. The console versions seem to be better in this regard. I have no idea why the only method of changing your options without being alive and in mid match online -- Is to go through the campaign option which actually gives you a hard coded game menu (however you cannot choose to go online through this method, only play the campaign and change your settings). Just horrible to me. Flashlights - Way too bright during the daytime. In fact there is no difference in their power from day to night. It doesn't make any sense, it's like they have a star emmulating from their gun. Producing a huge flare on your screen regardless of your setting. I'm sorry, but I don't think I've ever been utterly blinded by a flashlight in mid day with no overcast. The sun nullifies the effect because my eyes have heavily adjusted. In the darkness however, I can see this massive flair making sense. MMO Unlock system - Don't really like having to unlock things for every single weapon, for each team (you may unlock the 4x scope on gun 1 on the American team, but you'll need to unlock it again for weapon 1 on the Russian team). Maybe Bad Company 2 was too fast, but BF3 is too slow. However, other people may like this extremely slow progression because it effectively gives them hardware handicaps or they just like to continually unlock things for hundreds of hours rather than focus of having fun with the mechanics of the match at hand. To each their own. Overall, and sadly I'm afraid. I have to give BF3 a 1 star. I honestly wish I didn't preorder this title because now I find myself only hoping they patch up issues (like the game breaking no in game VOIP feature with your squad), and if they do not, they'll have lost me as a future customer. I know I'm just one of many, and I know when the game is played in optimal form (chat, no encumbersome rubberbanding/lag, and all) the game is very fun so for now (even though I don't get to experience this fun at the time of this review) I will give it the benefit of the doubt and rate the fun level 3 stars. It is what it is and if they fix some things I will be happy to edit this review if I remember to. Sorry for the long review, leave a comment if you'd like. Cheers.