By Alec Meer on October 21st, 2011.
DRAMATIC MUSIC SHOUTING MAN SHOOTING MAN FOREIGN MAN SWEARING MAN DRAMATIC MUSIC FALLING MAN FLYING MAN CAR CHASE GUNS GUNS GUNS WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR.
(Also, ‘who’s the real terrorist here?’-style political intrigue, which is presumably the long-hinted-at moral greyness of BF3′s plot).
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By Jim Rossignol on October 18th, 2011.
After insisting there’s room for more than one military shooter in the market, DICE’s Patrick Bach told IndustryGamers than be believes shooters are becoming a “service”: “I also believe that our free social platform Battlelog will make a huge difference in how people perceive where the game starts and ends. Games, especially FPS titles with their deep persistence and team play are no longer just hard-coded discs. They are transforming into a service.” People sure do love statistics and stuff, it’s true. But does that really make it a service?
He also argued that “authenticity” was more important than realism (contrasting the game with the Armas, I suppose): “We are not trying to create a simulator. But the feeling that what happens in the game is plausible and looks real and authentic is important to us.”
By Jim Rossignol on October 12th, 2011.
Not long now until the great beast of Origin stumbles into our gaming crosshairs, but if you can’t satiate your Battle-need, then there’s a useful trailer out. It’s one minute of the game’s environmental destruction features. Few dudes get shot, no-one gets kicked, but a lot of stuff ‘splodes. BELOW.
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By Jim Rossignol on October 7th, 2011.
Hey, DICE have released a batch of images of the single-player campaign. Aside from all that visual noise from the announcement trailers, I still don’t have a really good grip on what this is going to be like, but I can’t wait to see. I am presuming there’s a bit of jet-fight action, at least. Ooh, there could be a fight for the WIT of this one…
Click on images for a full-size version.
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By Jim Rossignol on October 7th, 2011.
The Battlefield 3 beta wraps up on the 10th, and so to get the final stress testing done DICE have confirmed that they will be opening up 64-player Caspian Border servers – meaning maximum 32 vs 32 team counts, vehicles, and everything else – for the final weekend. How many of your are on the beta? We should probably orchestrate some kind of massed RPS man-shoot?
By Alec Meer on October 3rd, 2011.
Oh dear. Cunning gentlethings found a way to hack/mod the Battlefield 3 open beta’s map – Operation Metro – to enable support for up to 128 shooting men. Officially, it only allows up to 32 shooting men, though the full release version may well raise the headcount. That’s not what I’m actually oh dearing about, though. It’s DICE/EA’s response to this that is troubling. In an official statement on the forum – which now appears to have been pulled, but we have a screenshot of it as-was below – they claimed that playing on the hacked servers “can cause your account to become compromised, stats to be altered or other issues to arise which may lead to having your account to be banned by EA.” In addition, horrifyingly, “if your account does get banned it means any other EA game you have on your account would also be unavailable.”
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By Jim Rossignol on September 29th, 2011.
Ah, I should probably mention that the Battlefield 3 beta is now open. Visiting this page will automatically download the Origin installer, and from there you can find the beta in the free games section. See you in there.
I’ve embedded Total Biscuit’s Caspian Border footage+commentary below for you to watch while it downloads.
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By Jim Rossignol on September 29th, 2011.
VG247 points out that one of the people who got access to the 64-player Caspian Border map in the Battlefield 3 beta last night has uploaded 23 minutes of it running at fairly high settings. You can see that footage below. There’s quite a bit of wandering about and taking potshots at distant aircraft, but it gives you a good idea of how impressive the game is looking.
I’ve been playing a bit of the beta myself, and I’ll have some impressions soon. Silly browser-based server browser aside, it’s been a fantastic experience so far. It’s got the solidity of the other Battlefield games, but it feels like a significant step up in terms of look, feel, and scale. Not sure about the changes to the classes or the unlock system yet, but the combat feels right, and that means I can’t wait to have a go at a 64-player map.
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First bite of the new frost
By Alec Meer on September 27th, 2011.
My code has arrived, my megabytes have downloaded, Origin has grudgingly been installed and I have managed to squeeze in a couple of rounds in the Battlefield 3 open beta, which launched for pre-orderers and Medal of Honor special edition-buying mooks today (and goes live for everyone a couple of days later). This is nothing like an informed opinion as of yet: it’s just entirely top-of-the-head thoughts based on my very first experiences of manshooting in DICE’s new game and its new engine.
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By Alec Meer on September 21st, 2011.
As part of an eyewatering 2.6Gb cumulative patch known as Client R11 due for release today, DICE have taken the bad out of Battlefield Bad Company 2. The bad in this case being the icky and pointless SecuROM DRM in non-Steam versions of the game. Hooray for small freedoms! The patch also brings some tasty-sounding performance improvements and bug-splats, as detailed more below.
Sadly, DICE claim expediency required that they didn’t also put out a smaller patch for people who’ve installed all the former updates, so you’ll need to bully your broadband connection into the full 2.6Gb for now. This seems rather cruel, to be honest. They give with one hand, and take with the other, but oh well. Both Steam and the non-Steam versions should auto-update with the new patch right about now.
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By Alec Meer on September 20th, 2011.
A date for you: September 29. That date is when the much-awaited open beta for Battlefield 3 will commence. It will run until October 10.
Another date for you: September 27. That date is when people who pre-ordered BF3 PC via EA’s trouble-makin’ Origin platform or who made the mistake of coughing up for the Limited Edition of last year’s Medal of Honor reboot will get to access the beta.
More details and FAQs and things here, and there are system requirements and some singleplayer footage we may not have already shown you below, if you like. Oh, and some no doubt divisive news regarding the PC beta specifically: “ORIGIN WILL BE USED TO DISTRIBUTE THE BETA INSTALLATION AND RUN THE GAME AND THEREFORE NECESSARY TO PLAY.” Their capitals, not mine.
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