By Jim Rossignol on October 25th, 2011 at 12:24 pm.
Initial question: why do these US military guys have a nice green pot-plant on their war-planning table?
Initial thought: I like the Johnny Cash soundtrack bit. Good choice.
Pot-plant update: there are pot-plants on every flat surface in this part of the game. I guess the marines had them there because they’re buried in the things.
MORE BLOGGINGS BELOW, AS THEY HAPPEN.
1. I am on a train!
2. Many dudes have died. Sorry, dudes. You WERE wearing balaclavas.
3. Quicktime event! I had to duck and then jump. Exciting stuff.
4. Whoa, that dude is NOT wearing a balaclava. He looks like he might be In The Plot.
5. CUTSCENE: Stuff, blah blah Blow Up New York something something.
6. In Iraq. Pot plants abound.
7. We have to rescue the marines! Running, running. SNIPER! FIREFIGHT!
8. Ah, good old scripted shooters. I can stand at the back here and shoot these dudes ALL DAY. But if I shoot the guy on the balcony it’s time to go back inside for a chat.
9. Stuff from the videos. More stuff from the videos.
10. The audio is great. I do have a 400w subwoofer though, so audio is always great. Hm.
11. What’s happening now? My chums found more dudes to shoot. Wow, I have already shot a lot of men. More to come, I guess. I wonder when the cacodemons show up.
12. Alt-tab out and notice noise that graphics card is making. That is the loudest it has been, ever, I think.
13. This next bit – where I am shooting a lot of men – is awesome.
14. And crashed. Time to post an RPS article, I think.
15. Ok, BACK. What the hell, I have to launch the game via my web browser the second time I run it? What is this WITCHCRAFT?!
16. Okay, now I keep dying. And again. Man!
17. Seriously, give me a break game. You are just being a dick.
18. Checkpoints, of course, mean I can’t quicksave-attrition my way through. Have to keep dashing back from the hole where I battered a man to death.
19. Crash.
20. The audio is amazingly good. Absolutely great.
21. Just got the bit where the earthquake drops a building on me. I’m okay!
22. “Press [LMB] to stab.”
23. Looks like the earthquake fucked the pot-plant population. No sign of them.
24. Oh, wow, amazingly well done being-dazzled-by-searchlight bit.
25. In a fairly intense fightfight now. On my own in the dark with an AK. Quite a bit trickier than scripty-shoots so far! Liking this bit.
26. “There, shoot the dog!” Dog? Oh, they mean me.
27. The guys in the interrogation room cutscenes seem EXTRAORDINARILY unimpressed by the story being told here. They are like “meh” and I have just killed about 1000 dudes, survived having a tower block in my face, and then fought my way to escape on an Osprey, while under heavy fire. It’s the most incredible war story ever told and these guys aren’t interested!
28. I am on an aircraft carrier!
29. I am going to fly a jet fighter!
30. What I mean, of course, is that I am going to get a ride in a jet fighter.
31. The plane is an unconvincing on-rails shooty bit. Not great.
32. No plants of any kind.
33. Flying bit finally over. Somewhere else now. In a ditch. I can’t move. People are talking about “the wheels of fate”.
34. It’s war!
35. Crikey, this bit is intense. A night battle for a city. Lights and gunfire and explosions. Running down a riverbed, under a motorway, under fire constantly. This single-player might be a bit shaky but it’s something when it pulls out the stops. (And doesn’t trap you in an aircraft.)
36. Brain hurts. Going to make a cup of tea and stand outside in the rain for a bit. More soon!
37. BACK! Long firefight through the city, complete with getting ambushed by a tank and then killing a bunch of its tank chums. This bit is a pretty good firefight, but I am getting a little annoyed with the rigidity of the scripting. Your chums do not see you and are immovable objects that push you around if you get in their way. (And in the game!)
38. Yikes, just stabbed someone that was being held by an NPC chum. I don’t know exactly why that increased the gruesomeness, but it did.
39. This man is dead :(
40. Yay, this man is asleep on some money! Not really, he’s dead too.
41. He is also asleep on the carpet down the hall. He gets around, that guy.
42. Ooh! Plot twist. I won’t give that away, but it’s exciting!
43. And now I am a Russian guy. My friends look nice:
44. Haha, superb over-the-top violence as Russian chums run over a guy, whose head goes through the windscreen, where it is then fired into with a pistol by the passenger. Nasty.
45. Dude!
46. Dude!
47. This bit where I am a Russian is the best bit so far. Amazingly intense fight through a car-park, and now doing something in a gas-mask. It’s pacey.
48. Hmm, seems like you only get the quicktime melee fight bit when the game wants it to happen. Get too close to a baddy by accident and they auto-stab you. Instant death, nothing you can do.
49. Noooo!
50. The Russians have fought their way through a stylish corporate office block (very Mirror’s Edge) and out into the Paris streets. Loads of particles, loads of destruction, loads of visual cleverness. It really does look and feel incredible. Yes, the baddies are all pop-up drones, and it’s a linear as a laserbeam, but it’s impressive in places, and this is one of them. I’m genuinely amazed by the variety of environments, too.
51. The fucking scripting! I never know if I am about to open a door, if they NPCs are going to do it. Have to wait to see what they will do, over and over again.
52. This Paris streets bit is brilliant. Best shooting gallery in years. Incredibly dramatic ending. Good work, DICE.
53. Woohoo! The tank bit at last.
54. Blimey, tank bit is much, much longer than I expected. I have shot many tanks. Now in some kind of city, rescuing the person I was earlier. Hmm!
55. And I’ve been murdered. That’s one of me down, anyway. Still two left!
56. Time for dinner. Looks like the game is wrapping up, though, so I’ll finish off this evening.
25/10/2011 at 12:25 Ergates_Antius says:
More important question. Can you smash the pot plant?
25/10/2011 at 12:37 Shortwave says:
Yes please shoot the pot. KILL IT.
25/10/2011 at 12:47 Jim Rossignol says:
Later pot-plants can be smashed, but that one is untouchable.
25/10/2011 at 12:55 Ian says:
What if you could TALK to the pot plants?
25/10/2011 at 12:59 Lobotomist says:
Please dont
M. Night Shyamalan might sue you for copyright infringement
25/10/2011 at 13:00 Lars Westergren says:
Or sneak past them?
25/10/2011 at 13:14 Ergates_Antius says:
That first one must be a civilian pot plant.
25/10/2011 at 13:28 abremms says:
invincible pot plants? seems like a challenge. I predict an unprecidented number of BF3 players spending thier first hour in the game coming up with new ways to test that invincibility.
25/10/2011 at 13:33 jezcentral says:
Gronda, gronda!
25/10/2011 at 13:58 Hoaxfish says:
do pot-plants contain loot, or are they highly explosive?
25/10/2011 at 14:18 Stranglove says:
Maybe the invincible potted plant is plot integral?
25/10/2011 at 14:46 BooleanBob says:
Stranglove: That would make it a plotted plant, then?
25/10/2011 at 14:57 FupDuk says:
smash all the pot plants for an achievement, but wait, no steam.
25/10/2011 at 15:47 Ralphomon says:
Time to pot plant
25/10/2011 at 15:53 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
It’s not a pot plant. It’s an insurgent.
25/10/2011 at 16:16 Groove says:
That is the most important question, it’s what I was going to ask too.
25/10/2011 at 16:19 mrjackspade says:
If it could talk, it would probably say something very deep and profound which would only be explained in a later episode.
25/10/2011 at 16:31 bear912 says:
Shoot the plot as well!
25/10/2011 at 17:10 TomA says:
The pot plants are obviously green herbs from resident evil, you just weren’t using them right.
25/10/2011 at 19:52 DigitalSignalX says:
Clearly if the small potted plant could speak, it would say “Oh no, not again.”
25/10/2011 at 21:11 lijenstina says:
The wars are orchestrated by pot plants. Operation Photosynthesis.
25/10/2011 at 21:17 MonolithicTentacledAbomination says:
I know the internet has no oceans and such, but here in ‘Murrica, a pot plant means marijuana. I was disappointed not to find marijuana. 420, chaps.
25/10/2011 at 21:45 Olethros says:
DigitalSignalX is my new hero for the “not again” quote. *thumbs up*
25/10/2011 at 23:34 Arbodnangle Scrulp says:
It’s not pot plants, it’s plot pants
This is the problem with blogs becoming too popular, quality comments get lost in the signal-to-noise ratio.
26/10/2011 at 02:49 grundus says:
To anyone who has played this yet and is potted plant-savvy, did you spot the pair that were pretty much in a fire but perfectly fine in the mission after the thing wot happened at the end of the mission before that wot was in the videos wot they released earlier this year? You know the ones, with the guns, shooting, weird visual noise and obnoxious bass?
25/10/2011 at 12:25 Brumisator says:
So will this post be a blog?
As in, updated periodically.
25/10/2011 at 12:48 Jim Rossignol says:
Maybe.
25/10/2011 at 13:29 Edawan says:
Yo dawg, I heard you like blogs…
25/10/2011 at 14:29 Smashbox says:
Honestly, I think it might be wise to end on the “dashing back from the hole where I battered a man to death” thing.
25/10/2011 at 12:27 madaday says:
I want it to be Friday dammit. Its just sitting on my hard drive taunting me.
25/10/2011 at 12:42 Charlie Brown says:
Madaday, add me on Steam.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198029119770
26/10/2011 at 11:47 BrotherCabbage says:
You could try the VPN trick. I did it Monday morning and it got me in. If you try it though, remove the VPN right after you do the date check. Probably not the best idea to have all your connections get routed through korea. There are probably VPNs from, say, the US you can use now, since we’re through our release date already, but I don’t have a link to one.
http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield3/comments/ln794/play_bf3_now_vpn_instructions/
26/10/2011 at 12:32 Howl says:
There have been UK multiplayer servers up since Monday at 4pm when it unlocked in Korea. Pretty much everyone I know has used the proxy server/VPN trick to unlock it days ago. GET GOING SOLDIER!
Minireview: Campaign is nonsense. Multiplayer is pure bliss.
25/10/2011 at 12:27 kyrieee says:
Maybe they’re just occupying that part of town and snatched someone’s table in a hurry
25/10/2011 at 12:28 Tams80 says:
Taking the plant pot and then placing it on the table? There must be a marine biologist. =D
25/10/2011 at 12:29 pblackburn says:
*applause*
25/10/2011 at 12:30 sneetch says:
Magnificent work Tams80!
25/10/2011 at 12:56 Ian says:
Tams80 wins an internet. No, TWO internets.
25/10/2011 at 13:55 machinaexdeus says:
this is where I wish we had some form of ‘like’ button. You all win internets today for I actually lol’d and at work. Perhaps we can have something measured in a percentage of horace, or just give a horace thumb up, better yet I award you all scotch eggs.
25/10/2011 at 14:37 Ian says:
You can’t have a percentage of Horace, he is endless!
You haven’t thought this through.
26/10/2011 at 19:13 Dozer says:
OK, I was hoping someone else would ask but no-one did, so it must just be me who’s dense. What’s Tam’s comment all about? Is there a stereotype that marine biology consists of putting plants on tabletops? Like how geography consists of colouring in maps, and civil engineers build targets for aerospace engineers?
26/10/2011 at 19:15 DainIronfoot says:
They are marines.
They have a plant on the table.
A plant is biological.
Marine Biologist.
26/10/2011 at 19:22 Burning Man says:
He’s a marine. The plant features biology.
Don’t worry, I didn’t get it for a long, long time either.
28/10/2011 at 00:29 Dozer says:
Oh dear goodness my brain is slow and yes, Tams80 absolutely wins an Internets and a GMA award too.
25/10/2011 at 12:28 pblackburn says:
Not only are they bringing democracy to the Middle-East, they’re also making the place a little less brown and a little more green, one potted plant at a time.
25/10/2011 at 12:31 Shortwave says:
That potted plant is ruining the immersion of this game, it’s totally unrealistic being there.
Glad I didn’t preorder.
25/10/2011 at 14:22 Battlehenkie says:
Spoken like a true modern day gamer.
26/10/2011 at 00:45 Rambal says:
They have destroyed the franchise. And the dead guys will clearly awoke as zombies. Plants vs Zombies EA conspiracy. Now everything is clear.
25/10/2011 at 12:43 Kandon Arc says:
Just because they’re at war doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy the soothing qualities of potted vegetation.
Still trying to decide whether to get this or Sword of the Stars 2. DECISIONS!
25/10/2011 at 12:43 Chris D says:
My pot-plant theory: They were missiles until a few minutes ago when someone activated an infinite improbability drive.
25/10/2011 at 12:45 _PixelNinja says:
They’re in for it without their towels…
25/10/2011 at 12:57 Styles says:
At the end it’s revealed that the REAL enemy are those hyper-intelligent-pan-dimensional-beings!
25/10/2011 at 13:17 MiniMatt says:
They’re clearly in league with the unicorns
26/10/2011 at 00:29 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
Yes! And their puppy overlords.
25/10/2011 at 12:49 WhatKateDoes says:
Start-to-PotPlant (STPT) – a new game design methodology.
25/10/2011 at 13:42 buzzmong says:
STPP surely?
25/10/2011 at 14:01 WhatKateDoes says:
ya, I mentally added on “time” to the end lol
25/10/2011 at 12:50 frenz0rz says:
My guess is the pot plant is preorder-only day one DLC.
Want pot plants on your table after release? Well tough.
25/10/2011 at 13:33 TeraTelnet says:
Either that or Gardener’s World is taking in-game advertising very seriously.
25/10/2011 at 14:02 Hoaxfish says:
That’s ridiculous. If only a few have pot-plants you won’t be able to sell everyone the pot-plant armour DLC.
25/10/2011 at 12:53 diebroken says:
Glorified paper weight?
25/10/2011 at 20:09 xGryfter says:
Glorified paperweight?
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/grifter_66/KGrHqZhoE5ds4i8dBOjoQ4hpMg60_3.jpg
25/10/2011 at 13:00 hemmingjay says:
While being deployed to these “lovely” brown and tan parts of the world I often was most bothered by the lack of green. On my most recent deployment I grew a small patch of grass(not ganja) for myself and compatriots. Perhaps the potted plants are a morale booster.
25/10/2011 at 13:10 Altemore says:
I subscribe to this idea, having a brother who has been deployed to Afghanistan. I remember seeing a picture of a tiny green sprout jokingly labeled “Green Zone”.
25/10/2011 at 13:03 Brosepholis says:
If you bought the game through Origin then you can play now; just log in to a VPN in the USA (there are providers that do a day for a couple of dollars) and it’ll activate. You’ll have to be logged in every time you want it to start, though.
25/10/2011 at 13:14 Cruyelo says:
You can definitely activate using VPN or a proxy, but I don’t believe you need to be connected every time you want to play.
I activated the game once (from Canada, while using a Korean proxy since they got it early) and once activated I could play as much as I wanted without anything extra, could play both SP and MP. (Battlelog became active at the same time as the game was released in Korea)
It’s possible to find free VPNs, I know flyvpn was popular for BF3.
25/10/2011 at 13:16 fishmitten says:
You can just set up a proxy in your web browser settings, start Origin in offline mode, attempt to launch BF3 and let it unlock.
Once this is done, you can stick Origin back into online mode and remove the proxy settings and you’re good to go! No VPN software required.
25/10/2011 at 21:17 boldoran says:
I can confirm that the method described above works. No installation of software required.
26/10/2011 at 02:29 grundus says:
Yep, this works, and it’s the reason I’m only just getting to bed at 2:30. The campaign is not as bad as I was expecting, not great, but the bit where you shoot that guy was pretty cool.
Seriously, though, the on-rails jet sequence, while not exactly engaging, gave me a funny feeling in me guts. More fun than the Ace Combat: Assault Horizon demo I played, even though you don’t even pilot the jet in BF3 it was STILL more interactive than that piece o’ heap.
Also, an ATI 4870 just isn’t cutting this graphical mustard. Must get on with selling stuff so I can buy the i5/580 combo I’ve been speccing…
25/10/2011 at 13:05 GenBanks says:
That looks like a very dirty water bottle.
Also, Sulaymaniyah: I’ve been there :D
25/10/2011 at 13:09 McDan says:
Games journalism at its best here, excellent stuff. The pot plants are clearly up to something.
25/10/2011 at 13:16 Vinraith says:
Any chance we’ll be getting a WIT of today’s more interesting release? I’m dying to know if Stronghold 3 is worth my time/cash.
25/10/2011 at 13:24 Jim Rossignol says:
I believe that is being dealt with for publication tomorrow.
25/10/2011 at 13:29 Vinraith says:
Good to know, thanks Jim!
25/10/2011 at 13:45 Khemm says:
I’m also interested in S3. 2 unfortunately sucked, so I hope they got back to the gameplay of the 1st one.
26/10/2011 at 06:00 Diving Duck says:
The virtual implosion of the Firefly forum and the bundle of unadulterated joy that is the Steam forum do not look too positive for S3 unfortunately…. looking forward to the WIT on this one immensely to see if it is just a few very vocal bods or not.
26/10/2011 at 09:02 Chris D says:
I had a catastrophic willpower failure and picked up Stronghold 3 yesterday. This is very much first impressions but the omens are not good I’m afraid. No skirmish mode, no rebinding controls, not a huge fan of the interface and from my experience of the first two levels of the economic campaign it’s very much in the “Read my fucking mind!” school of game design.
25/10/2011 at 13:29 Cim says:
Pot plants are the new crates of level design.
25/10/2011 at 13:38 Khemm says:
Does the single player copy CoD absurdly linear gameplay or does it allow you to fool around at least a bit while remaining linear?
Most importantly – would you recommend buying B3 for the SP?
25/10/2011 at 14:13 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
I’m just a wee bit further than the first big earthquake but it does feel like CoD if there ever was one. Would not spend that amount for the SP only!
25/10/2011 at 14:39 Moleman says:
Yeah- don’t get it for the singleplayer only- it’s not, strictly speaking, bad, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before (CODesque- not quite a total corridor shooter- but it’s very much in the guns and spectacle genre). The real draw is the multiplayer- the SP is mainly just a bonus (it’s got one benefit for MP, though- it’ll give you a chance to see how later weapon unlocks in MP handle).
Wierd little thing that I liked- that the player character (Blackburn) is actually kind of goofy looking, and not the usual roided-up Hollywood soldier type- he’s realistically lanky/wiry in scenes without all the combat gear.
25/10/2011 at 20:28 Spider Jerusalem says:
Do not buy for SP. It’s amazingly dull.
25/10/2011 at 13:38 Unaco says:
I reckon the pot plant is there because the sound guy and one of the artists were talking next to the Shasta machine one afternoon, and the first said “I know how to make these really cool pot smashing sounds”, and the other said “I know how to make these really cool pot smashing animations” and their eyes both lit up at that… thinking that nothing would be better in a firefight than all of the pottery surrounding the player to be shattering and exploding, throwing shards and soil all over the place.
At that very precise moment, Lord Vader (head of EA) happened to be inspecting the Death Star prior to its mission to the Alderaan system, and he happened to be walking past the pair. Seeing them stood, idly, next to the Shasta machine, sharing some kind of look, he immediately reasoned that they were part of the rebellion, and had them (and their spouses) rounded up, tortured and executed. Coincidentally, the artist actually was part of the Resistance, and his confessions lead to the discovery of the Rebel Outpost on the Orphanage Planet of Klaatu… EA Death squads cleansed the entire planet with Plasma and Fire… Death toll is currently unknown because, sh*t, who has time to count all those orphans?
Once both of them were dead, and their bodies had been recycled into the Death Star’s systems, a low level clerk was given the task of compiling a report on their shared activities… They had been discussing something together, Vader reasoned, and what that was, he wanted to know. The pot plant smashing idea was the only thing that was common between the two confessions (except for an appreciation of Shasta), which angered Vader greatly, as it wasn’t a link to the Rebellion at all. After he smashed the low level clerk into something resembling strawberry jam, Vader was called infront of the board of shareholders, due to the exceptionally high employee turnover rate.
As the evidence was presented on the latest incident, the plant pot smashing idea was brought up. One of the shareholders was somehow awakened from his aderall funk, and started mumbling about how he owned a large potted plant business, and that the exposure from the game and the destruction of already existing potted plants would lead to increased demand and sales, and that the connected revenue streams and planned obsolescence would be perfect. Vader held his tongue at the obvious disconnect, realising that this new idea had diverted the boards attention away from his summary and brutal execution of 45% of the EA work force.
EA/DICE then spent 18 months working on the pot destruction algorithms, thinking it would be a breakthrough in video game technology (and, somehow, lead to increased sales of actual potted plants). Unfortunately, just as they were nearing completion of these algorithms, some guy dropped a bomb or something in their exhaust port, destroying their facility, and all work on the algorithm. Unfortunately, the plant pot smashing had become absolutely fundamental to the game itself… it had been used as a huge selling point, videos and trailers highlighted it, it was trumpeted in press releases and tweets, hundreds of faked reviews had been written praising it and encouraging all right thinking individuals to go out and buy their own, official, BF3 Potted plant (and then to shoot it and buy another). The game released in 3 months, and they had no plant pot smashing.
In the end, they had to script all of the plant pot smashing incidents, rather than have it freeform and generated on the fly.
25/10/2011 at 16:02 MrYo says:
Unaco, you just made my day :D
25/10/2011 at 16:24 gwathdring says:
That was a truly beautiful story. I would tip my hat, but I’d rather just give it to you.
25/10/2011 at 20:00 DigitalSignalX says:
Seriously? Shasta? Suspension of belief faltered there. Everything else sounds legit though.
25/10/2011 at 13:41 LGM says:
When you folks in the UK say “pot-plants” are you talking about plants that are in a pot (potted plants) or are you talking about marijuana plants? Because here in Canada, if you say pot plants, you’re not talking about random plants in a pot! :D
Also, instead of BARRELS OF DOOM will it now be POT-PLANTS OF DOOM? :D
25/10/2011 at 23:27 shitflap says:
Sadly, the filth take a dim view of Pot Plants, and we don’t see enough of them to not, every single time, inquire incredulously, “Are you growing fucking weed?”, like it’s arcane magic.
Soo, Potted plants sadly…
25/10/2011 at 13:46 Etherealsteel says:
The potted plants are used for emergency camouflage 0_o Anyway doesn’t surprise me it crashed. I’m staying tha hell away from this game. It’s not terrible, but I just wasn’t pleased with it especially them requiring to use Battlelog and Origin just to play the game. I think they could of kept the normal server browser in game and still had battlelog there for people to use if they wanted. I just want to start the game, not jump through clicks to finally play it.
25/10/2011 at 16:31 PoulWrist says:
You mean how you have exactly the same amount of clicks to start BF3 that you do to start any other modern game?
Yea, totally awful, I can tell how this is all the reason to stay away from the best MP shooter in years :p
25/10/2011 at 20:30 Spider Jerusalem says:
no?
you launch the game through origin, which launches battlelog, through which you need to click on some things for the game to actually launch.
normally i just hit play on steam and i’m, you know, playing.
26/10/2011 at 13:13 CilindroX says:
@PoulWrist : Plus, what happens in about six months, when EA doesn’t update your browser plugin and Google/Mozilla do upgrade their browsers?
Fuck their retarded system I say.
25/10/2011 at 13:51 Nero says:
Plants vs. Soldiers
25/10/2011 at 14:01 Cruyelo says:
Make sure to use the latest drivers, Nvidia users are getting random crashes.
25/10/2011 at 20:02 DigitalSignalX says:
“Hah Hah” say ATI owners who are still trying to play Rage.
25/10/2011 at 14:01 SuperVPN says:
Awesome game! I am using http://www.supervpn.net/ to play it and everything works great. They have servers in Korea, Indonesia, Japan… and in many other countries.
25/10/2011 at 14:05 westyfield says:
I have a pot plant on my windowsill. OMG SO REAL!
25/10/2011 at 14:07 Aaarrrggghhh says:
So, there are more pot-plants than dinosaurs in BF3?
I’m disappointed. This game is just heading into the wrong direction…
25/10/2011 at 14:08 bill says:
Get me a shrubbery!
25/10/2011 at 14:09 Makariel says:
Crash, crash? How many crash/hour? Was/is there also a day 1 patch?
I don’t like to be beta-tester for a game I pay full price for :-(
25/10/2011 at 16:23 gwathdring says:
Whoa, slow down. He mentioned a single crash. This is not surprising. There are a lot of permutations of the PC platform and not all of them are going to match even the most thorough platform testing.
25/10/2011 at 16:39 Makariel says:
My original posting was at about 20.) and there were 2 crashes mentioned already. Looks like no other joined yet. However, this year already saw some big release *cough* Rage *cough* that was almost unplayable on a lot of gaming pc’s for the first couple of days (including mine, thanks to my radeon and the ATI driver support staff apparently being collectively on holiday when they’re needed). I also remember plenty of bugs in Brink for days and weeks. If a game has too many issues on launch I don’t want it right away to play beta-tester. I rather wait some months, until the inevitable bunch of patches and fixes have been released and buy it then (cheaper, btw.).
Also, how is Origin holding up?
25/10/2011 at 16:59 gwathdring says:
Ah. I guess I just don’t mind that sort of thing as long as it gets fixed on a reasonable time scale. There’s only so much you can do to prevent some of these issues. It’s simply not worth while to test out every single driver and video card combination. I’d rather have the game released buggy and fixed quickly than released with very few bugs … that don’t get fixed for months on end.
Just figuring out what drivers I need to use for my own computer can be a hassle sometimes. Trying to imagine figuring out what parts of a game do and don’t work with the computers used by hundreds of thousands of customers sounds terrifying to me.
I know you weren’t asking me specifically, but I’ve used Origin a bit. I got two games on a pretty good sale. I haven’t had any problems. I don’t like the interface very much and I realize now that I’ve been spoiled by Steam’s install-as-you-download system. Mostly I don’t like that it’s so clunky. Steam wasn’t much better at launch, but I rarely used steam at all before it got cleaned up a bit. It was just the thing that popped up when I played Counter-Strike or Half Life 2 until a few years ago.
25/10/2011 at 20:40 xGryfter says:
Yeah, I really don’t have a problem with Origin at this point, it runs about as well as Steam does… maybe even a little quicker. There are some minor UI issues but like Steam it should improve over time. The one thing that may be a problem down the road is how it responds when users have multiple dozens of games in their library but it’ll probably be a couple years or more before we see libraries of that size given the limited selection of games we will see on Origin compared to Steam.
The browser launch system is actually quite nice, it’s quick, responsive and allows me to get all my stat based info and configure any MP settings without having to launch the game proper which I very much like. Although I have very little experience with multi-player based games, never really been a fan of any of them until now so that may be why I don’t mind this “new” system, I never used the old ones enough to get accustomed to them.
25/10/2011 at 14:14 bill says:
YOu are ok, but how is the pot plant?!?
25/10/2011 at 14:25 bill says:
NoooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
25/10/2011 at 14:20 pblackburn says:
Brought to you by Potplant 2.0
25/10/2011 at 14:35 Stevostin says:
“26. “There, shoot the dog!” Dog? Oh, they mean me.”
I laughed a lot.
25/10/2011 at 14:43 Nyst says:
What was the TTP time here? (time-to-potplant)
25/10/2011 at 14:56 machinaexdeus says:
‘In a fairly intense fightfight’ So intense he named it twice!
25/10/2011 at 14:59 machinaexdeus says:
“In a fairly intense fightfight” So intense he named it twice.
If this comment appears twice I apologise but it appeared to disappear.
25/10/2011 at 15:22 Land says:
Oh the irony :-)
25/10/2011 at 16:22 westyfield says:
Oh the irony :-)
25/10/2011 at 15:07 nrvsNRG says:
well i lasted 2 missions before my brain could no longer handle the mind numbing boredom any longer.
nice to see the old tried and trusted “exposition- thru interrogation” routine in the campaign.
25/10/2011 at 15:13 dahools says:
” 27. The guys in the interrogation room cutscenes seem EXTRAORDINARILY unimpressed by the story being told here. They are like “meh” and I have just killed about 1000 dudes, survived having a tower block in my face, and then fought my way to escape on an Osprey, while under heavy fire. It’s the most incredibly war story ever told and these guys aren’t interested!
28. I am on an aircraft carrier!
29. I am going to fly a Jet fighter! ”
It’s amazing what your soldier can do when he smells of old spice and not smelly fighter jet engine oil. . .
I’m in a Tank!
25/10/2011 at 15:38 ShadyGuy says:
I played it through to about the same part as this article now (Nr. 36) and my experience was about the same. There are some brilliant manshooty bits, the obviously scripted stuff is a lot less exciting than the less obviously scripted stuff and the on rails jet plane bit was simply boring.
DICE made a point of saying BF3 was nothing like COD:MW, but while I was playing those I couldn’t help thinking of those other very popular manshoots.
One thing of note is that while this is obviously made for consoles it looks awesome on pc and has a lot of graphics tweaks including Anti Aliasing, Ambient Occlusion and Field Of View. It’s a bit sad that I mention this I guess, but how many console ports have we seen that don’t include this? :)
25/10/2011 at 15:42 Crainey says:
WOOH BATTLEFIELD! Except why on earth can’t we play it in the UK when we have already downloaded it and the UK servers are probably already online? This is a joke, I won’t be able to play Battlefield now ’till next weekend! God damned EA and their “Big lake that takes 3 days to cross” policies.
25/10/2011 at 15:56 D3xter says:
If you bought it Digitally (or otherwise obtained a Key) you can unlock it early using a Proxy or VPN from a country where it already released, for instance: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20387641&postcount=28851
25/10/2011 at 15:49 Payback says:
What about Dinosaurs !!??!?!?
25/10/2011 at 15:55 D3xter says:
And now you know why they didn’t give you a Review copy. xD
Also, you’re playing the wrong part of the game.
25/10/2011 at 16:11 nrvsNRG says:
i think this is more of a case of, “this is what happens if you dont provide us with a review copy on time”
25/10/2011 at 17:56 Inglourious Badger says:
No, they didn’t get a review copy because they don’t use the Start to Pot Plant review score system, obviously
25/10/2011 at 21:01 Jim Rossignol says:
“Also, you’re playing the wrong part of the game.”
No: I am reviewing the right part of the game. We all know pretty much how the multiplayer is going to turn out.
26/10/2011 at 13:11 Unaco says:
Do we really Jim? Do we? I certainly don’t. I played some BF2, against bots (I had no internet at the time), and a few days of BF2142 when my brother visited and brought his copy. Aside from that, never played a BF game properly online.
So no… I have little idea of how the Multiplayer is going to turn out. I’ve seen videos and trailers… but what do they tell me? It’s multiplayer manshoots with unlocks and lots of numbers flying around when you do anything (Achievement Unlocked! +500! Baby’s First Steps. You pressed the W button) so I’m assuming it’s COD which, although I can see the appeal for some, really isn’t my thing.
26/10/2011 at 14:14 Jim Rossignol says:
Okay, my mistake.
Put it this way:
1. The campaign is the right part to rview, for now, because it is an unknown quantity that has not been extensively previewed by a playable beta.
2. The multiplayer isn’t worth reviewing now because I’d have to play on US servers.
25/10/2011 at 15:55 thedavehooker says:
Battlefield 3: Potted Plant Simulator… TOP THAT COD!
25/10/2011 at 17:44 Tribunal says:
If it’s a pot-plant simulator then I want to know everything about the physics behind it:
1. In how many fragments does the pot-plant brakes?
2. How many variations in size there are with the fragments?
3. Are those variations predefined, or are they randomly generated?
4. Is the velocity of the fragments in correlation with the environmental factors (i.e. does the wind influence the velocity)?
5. Is the trajectory of the fragments in correlation with the above mentioned factors?
6. Does it hurt when you are “accidentally” hit by one or more of those fragments?
7. Can you kill, or at least injure someone with fragments made by smashing the pot-plant?
25/10/2011 at 23:19 westyfield says:
Can you smash a pot plant and scatter the pieces by a doorway as a cunning trap to injure unbooted soldiers?
25/10/2011 at 16:19 gwathdring says:
Nice to see their zombie defense system in good order.
25/10/2011 at 16:34 alundra says:
How come there are no pot plants in the planes?? What a let down.
25/10/2011 at 16:38 Nallen says:
Jim! Please expand a little on your sound setup. I of course did the obligatory upgrades for BF3, but I spent more than double upgrading my sound vs. my graphics. Is it a ’400W’ Sub from a £200 2.1 PC speaker setup, or are you a bit serious? :)
25/10/2011 at 18:35 Jim Rossignol says:
This, but the one from five years ago: http://www.logitech.com/en-gb/speakers-audio/home-pc-speakers/devices/8642
25/10/2011 at 18:40 Radiant says:
THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY POUNDS!
Holy jesus christ.
25/10/2011 at 19:16 D3xter says:
I recommend this: http://www.teufel.de/en/pc/concept-e-400-digital-p740.html or any of their similar lesser models starting at 250€ over Logitech: http://www.teufel.de/en/pc/pc-surround-51.html
25/10/2011 at 20:58 xGryfter says:
The audio in this game is impressive. I just have a little 200w 8″ sub (it’s a really good ,tight and accurate sub but designed more for music than movies & games) in my office sitting under my desk and it hit’s incredibly hard while playing BF3, I feel every explosion and impact. I didn’t think that little guy was capable of hitting that hard without bottoming out or distorting.
After hearing what the game sounded like on my office system I had to hear it on a proper home theater system and HOLY SHIT! The audio in this game surpasses other games to an even larger extent than it’s graphics do, I just wish I had something better than the GTX460 in my HTPC so I could max out the graphics in the living room as well.
26/10/2011 at 00:03 Nallen says:
Cool, thanks. Although why you’d want to port a 165w Sub I don’t know. On the flip side, I do sort of pine after surround in the bedroom.
25/10/2011 at 17:08 Shooop says:
As much as I’ve grown to dislike DICE, I can never fault them for their sound crews. Those guys always do a slam-bang job at making war games sound like war.
25/10/2011 at 17:23 Vandelay says:
You are making the single player sound much better than the other reviews I’ve seen (not one had mentioned the numerous incidences of pot plant encounters!) It at least sounds as if it might be enjoyable enough with slightly more open spaces than CoD. I imagine something of about Crysis 2 quality.
We all know that the main event will be the multiplayer though. Friday can’t come soon enough (along with my conveniently placed holiday.)
25/10/2011 at 21:12 xGryfter says:
If you generally enjoy the single player war time manshoots, even if only for casual gaming sessions you’ll enjoy BF3s single player. It’s not breaking any new ground outside of the graphics and audio but it’s a fun little addition to the multi-player. I think that’s exactly how people should look at it, as a bonus mode to the mufti-player like how the Combat Rooms are a bonus gameplay mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum/city… or how multi-player used to be the bonus in addition the the single player.
How times have changed.
26/10/2011 at 00:04 boldoran says:
What I played so far (up to the Paris mission) did not really excite me all to much. Never played COD so I can’t compare it with that but I’d say its okay. Justdon’t buy this for the singleplayer. So far I liked the stock exchange level best because it play in a office building with a fair amount of destructible stuff in it.
Weighting it as a slightly higher value Bonus Level sounds about right to me.
25/10/2011 at 17:59 awickedone says:
You’ve done it again, getting money all over my precious blood pools.
25/10/2011 at 18:55 jellydonut says:
These new-age on-rails shooters are like lightgun games.. but without the fun of using a lightgun.
25/10/2011 at 21:08 Pie says:
Finished it, short, but good. This is how MW2 should have been, but instead they just sell the same game 4 times….sigh.
25/10/2011 at 21:12 Pelt Hunter says:
Those are not pot plants. I should know because I live in Colorado where everybody grows. I’m not sure what type of plant it actually is but it’s certainly not pot. They look nothing like that and the only leaves that aren’t serrated are the cotyledon’s which are the very first set of leaves wrapped around the seed. I realize it’s nit-picky.. but they certainly aren’t the good stuff.
Great game BTW, I played that short intro train level and went straight to MP. It’s just so damn fun online.
26/10/2011 at 07:55 Innovacious says:
Its a plant in a pot. Otherwise know as a potted plant or pot plant.
25/10/2011 at 21:17 d00d3n says:
Play the game now in Europe:
1. Buy the game at the origin store. (store.origin.com)
2. Download the game.
3. But it does not activate. Why? WHY?
4. Buy access to a vpn service. I use overplay.net.
5. Log in to origin with the vpn disconnected. (this seems to be important)
6. Connect the the vpn right after this.
7. Choose to play the game. This takes you through the activation process.
8. Quit the game and disconnect from the vpn if you want. You now have access!
26/10/2011 at 02:47 grundus says:
Or you can do it for free. I followed these instructions:
Search Windows for ‘proxy’
Open Configure proxy server
Click LAN settings
Tick ‘Use a proxy server for your LAN’
Use: 203.232.208.11 on port 8080
Click Ok
Launch Origin, launch Battlefield 3, enjoy Battlefield 3.
25/10/2011 at 22:03 GameCat says:
That pot plant thing -> you destroyed my mind, I’m not gonna play Pottlefiled* 3, because I will laugh every fucking single POT PLANT.
* POT LE**-FILED
** “le” is actually in french.
25/10/2011 at 22:36 felisc says:
well i’m french and i didn’t understand a word you said.
YOU CRAZY MAN.
27/10/2011 at 05:46 Dances to Podcasts says:
Not man. Cat.
25/10/2011 at 22:30 Carra says:
Are the Unicorn levels not too hard?
In all seriousness though, I’d buy this game for the multiplayer. BF:BC2 had an enjoyable singleplayer but wasn’t quite up to the Call of Duty standards.
25/10/2011 at 22:35 MrYo says:
I guess you’re playing on hard difficulty? I started on normal when you were “going hunting” and I just finished it.
You’re about 60% through now, and just passed the best part I’d say… however, play it through, the end is as great as that Paris mission!
26/10/2011 at 12:08 Shortwave says:
Apparently playing on hard is the only way to turn off aim assist..
25/10/2011 at 22:41 vrekman64 says:
I bet you didn’t find the red ones yet. You are supposed to mix them, you know…
26/10/2011 at 00:12 Dozer says:
Dear RPS. I love all of you. At least three quarters of the comments on this post relate to potted plants.
RPS writerblokes, please can we have an article on upgrading our potted plants in the very near future?
26/10/2011 at 01:59 chabuhi says:
Hey if any of the rest of you have been living under a rock like me (and if you read this deep into comments, like me) just be warned that BF3 won’t run on XP. I didn’t learn this until after I bought it and tried to install. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s been well publicized, it just somehow escaped my attention. And most games still support XP so it’s not like I had much to compel me to check the specs because everything else about my system is capable. Anyway … heads up.
26/10/2011 at 04:24 mR.Waffles says:
I would love to comment on Battlefield 3 but it’s a broken piece of shit and I cannot run MP for more than 5 minutes without crashing.
26/10/2011 at 04:38 lijenstina says:
Props to the guy who did the props in the game. Deeply rooted and organic.
26/10/2011 at 06:26 thedavehooker says:
Imagine how awesome those plants would look through a Battlefield 3 simulator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8Bh5iI2WY
26/10/2011 at 07:48 phenom_x8 says:
Jim, you make me laugh very hard! Thank you very much for helping me get pass my boring time waiting for my new porccessor next monday!
Honestly, I thought it was mr Walker who post it at first!
Did he lost his sense of humor after his marriage??
26/10/2011 at 19:17 Dozer says:
You missed his Football Manager 2012 article then?
26/10/2011 at 08:09 Ondrej says:
So, not worth buying it for the SP, then. I kinda knew it.
26/10/2011 at 12:07 Geralt says:
hahaha, can’t stop laughing at that guy who’s dead everywhere in the same exact position.
26/10/2011 at 12:41 DiGi says:
QTE are soo stupid – because they DON’T USE REBINDED KEYS. So it is always “E” or “Space”.
06/04/2012 at 04:58 gayylalgli says:
It’s kinda boring, yeah. And cheap. Stupid aimbotting enemy AI.
Course, he who buys a Battlefield game for the singleplayer experience needs to have his head examined. Battlefield’s a multiplayer series through and through. Always. And BF3 is no exception to that rule. Well, it *is* different from most shooters on the market. By far.seo service
It just sucks on single player… But who cares. It’s Battlefield and it’s all about multiplayer awesomeness.
13/12/2012 at 12:10 SuicideKing says:
BATTLEFACE