The controls for Battlefield are your standard First person shooter controls. They can be customized, but the default setting is pressing L1 to aim and R1 to fire, movements done by the left analog stick. The right analog stick allows you to move the camera around. Holding down the analog stick allows you to sprint. Pressing triangle allows you to change weapons, circle is used to interact with objects in the top hacks is used for reloading or picking up a weapon, and the X button is used to jump.
The right and left diagonal buttons are used to switch between technologies you have, the up button is used to toggle laser sight, and down is used to toggle between firemodes such as automatic and burst fire. The R2 button allows for a quick knife, while the L2 lets you throw a frag grenade. The controls are easy to learn, but difficult to master. Learning the controls for driving a tank or flying a jet can be confusing at first, and do have a small learning curve. Overall, the controls are fantastic for Battlefield 3.
While the graphics, great sound quality, and interesting story all powerful and set the foundation for a game. None of these things hold a candle to the most important part of games. The gameplay is the heart and soul of games. DICE had a bold task when creating gameplay that would be fast, exciting, and intense enough to knock Call of Duty from it’s throne as console gaming king. The team at DICE delivered in many areas, but also fell short in quite a few.
Battlefield 3 uses the Frostbite 2 engine. This engine allows for fully destructible environments, advanced physics, and real-time radiosity. All of these things basically mean that the physics and graphics of Battlefield 3 are vastly improved for every pretty much every game before it. Bullets are able to penetrate through walls seamlessly, the front wall of a building can be blown open from a tank shot, a grenade can send debris flying everywhere when it explodes. Battlefield 3 is one of the most realistic FPS games out there. So many things can happen, but the frostbite 2 engine streamlines them and allows the game to run smoothly by rendering textures at a fast rate. This allows the action and excitement to happen without any lag. There are 3 modes of gameplay in Battlefield 3: the single player campaign, a co-op mode, and multiplayer mode.
The single player campaign looks great and has many different locations, however it can get a bit repetitive. The fact of the matter is that Battlefield 3 is primarily a multiplayer game. The single player campaign is a good way of learning the basics before you go online or in co-op, but it offers no real replayability. It would have also been nice to see the offline map mode from Battlefield 2, where you can play with bots. However, Battlefield 3 does not offer this.
The co-op mode allows you to team up with a player online and complete 6 missions. There are a variety of objectives that you and your partner must complete in each mission. Co-op can be a lot of fun when your playing with a friend, however Battlefield 3 doesn’t offer any split-screen co-op. This can really suck if you have friends over, as theres no way to play together unless you have 2 PlayStation 3s.
The multiplayer mode is the main attraction of the game. In Battlefield 3, there are 6 multiplayer gamemodes: Conquest, Rush, Team Deathmatch, Squad Deathmatch, Conquest Domination, and Squad rush. Each gamemode has a different objective and playing each one is a different multiplayer experience all together. Some gamemodes require precise teamwork, while others can be every man for himself. The Conquest gamemode is the classic Battlefield 3 gamemode, in which two teams fight in a large scale map for control of various bases. This gamemode is best suited for teamwork and vehicle warfare. In my opinion, conquest is still the best gamemode. It’s exciting and you have a variety of ways to gain points.
In Rush, there are two teams. One team tries to attack and destroy an M-COM station, while the other defends it. Squad Rush is essentially the same, but in a more confined environment. Team Deathmatch is another classic mode where you are part of 12 person team vs another 12 person team. The objective is basically to kill as many enemies as you can and reach a certain amount of kills as a team.
This mode doesn’t have any vehicles and is all about just going out with guns blazing and killing as many people as possible. Squad Deathmatch is the same as Team Deathmatch, but instead of 2 teams of 12, there are 4 teams of 4 people battling each other to reach a certain amount of kills. Conquest Domination has two teams of 8 people fighting in a close quarters location. It’s similar to Conquest, essentially the same, except for it’s more confined and has more tactical planning when attacking a base.