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Battlefield 3: After a few Days of Multiplayer

A few days ago I managed to acquire my lately pre-ordered PC copy of Battlefield 3 (BF3 for future reference), and whilst I could go on about the single player campaign, I'd just rather not, because I don't think that there is a single person in the world that honestly cares, so I'd much rather talk about the Multiplayer.

I've been a pretty solid fps player for almost a decade now. I've played pretty much all of the "popular" fps games that have been released from then up until now, working my way through them and picking up followers along the way. It started about the quarter way point through the life of  ye olde Counter-Strike, and moved through onto Battlefield 2, Vietnam, a brief stint on 2142, eventually moving through to the Milk Train that is the Call of Duty series, where I settled for a long time, hundreds of rage quits later I find myself at the heels of Battlefield 3, and I can honestly say that this game without a doubt delivers a Multiplayer Experience that quite frankly pulls its trousers down and Squats on every other shooters face.

After installing the game and waiting well past midnight to activate my copy, I loaded up the game...actually, No I didn't, my mistake, it loaded the Battlelog, which has already gained tons of notoriety for apparently being plain awful. I will say this on the matter though. People talk bollocks because they like Bollocks, it's absolutely fine, short of a few errors here and there it has with certain anti-virus programs you probably don't even need.  It's simple, clean and functional, the polar opposite of what 30% of people or more or saying, I assure you. It acts as a Universal hub for pretty much everything to do with the game (aparts from game settings themselves) and it does it well, whilst I can't help look at some aspects of it and wonder what point they serve, like the social networking almost twitter like messages, it has everything serious Battlefield players should like to have, stats 'n all. But even those that despise the Battlelog can't honestly argue that the game itself is the bees knees.

The game loads in fairly quickly when you join a server and it's not long before you're running/driving/flying around firing your big guns at people, and it's great. The game has a nice collection of maps, some better than others, and some that have some very little and some very large annoyances, take the Tehran Highway map for example, in 64 player conquest, no matter the server, the game will undoubtedly lag, not the server, the game itself. I don't want to nitpick at every little bug in this game though, I'm sure that particular one will be fixed relatively quickly. The guns look fantastic and sound great, they look like they have a genuine kick to them, and you really get the feeling when you're shooting someone that you've just filled their pitiful souls with Lead. The Vehicles for the most part are responsive and easy to use, The ground vehicles are all exactly as you would expect. The Air vehicles are kind of a mixed bag, the Helicopters aren't all that difficult to maneuver, and doing so with a mouse and keyboard is fairly easy. The Jets however, for me at least, are damn near impossible to control with a mouse and keyboard, hook up a dual analog controller or a joystick and you'll have a much easier time getting to grips with them.

There's a real feeling of Teamwork when you're going about the large maps with 3 others in your squad attacking and defending objectives, if you have a group of friends to play with who own headsets or microphones then it's absolutely terrific, and it easily compares to any 4 player co-op based games, even though it's a competitive shooter. The squad system works alright for the most part, but it does get annoying when a game auto balances teams, regardless of whether you're partied or in a squad with others, it may switch anyone, there is no prioritisation for squads of friends, which can become rather annoying, but overall it's definitely the best squad based gameplay yet, especially after you or your squadmates unlock the Squad perks, such as Squad Sprint, which is pretty self-explanatory.

Of the many additions this game has got over Bad Company 2, suppression is almost certainly the best, it adds a whole other dimension to the gameplay. If you fire at somebody or in their general area, their screen will blur and their aim will worsen, which will get worse and worse the more they are fired upon, this gives you and other players a real feeling of intensity when you are being shot at, and you'll know after a certain stage that it would probably be best for you to run for the hills. There's no greater feeling than charging head first towards a sniper on a hilltop whilst your squad lays down suppressing fire from your rear, which is something that has existed in many military sims for a few years now, but has only now just crossed over into a real mainstream title, and it works Beautifully. Another edition is the sniper scope lens flare, which allows you to spot snipers from large distances, this is to encourage a more aggressive play style in snipers, with less camping, something many people are currently hating on, brings a tear to your eye doesn't it?

26 ranks and 24 hours in and I haven't got tired of this game in the slightest, and I don't think I'll stop playing for a very long time, I can't recommend this game enough for anyone who likes online shooters.

GastroMan, Out.

A flashback for iD game Doom 3

Hello all, after playing Rage (which I think is a brilliant game technical issues aside) I looked around steam forums and people were claiming 'Oh you can make doom 3 look better than this with graphics mods' instead of replying I decided to see if they were right... the answer was no, just trolling.

Never the less I enjoy returning to older games with slightly improved graphics here is one screenshot I particularly like :

Last pun : I'd better HEAD off ahhahahaha

Of course it's nothing compared to bf3 or any of todays standards :

It does liven up something from the past though, the whole idea of unrealism instead of the realistic games we get and the pathetic attempts to act unrealistic (Bulletstorm being one) Mocking the very shooters it takes mechanics from, I'll quickly try and describe what doom 3 is.

Doom 3 is a horror sci-fi shooter set on Mars you take the place of an unnamed marine arriving there to replace a lost soldier, you quickly find yourself fighting off zombies, imps and other demonic creatures from beyond the gate to hell, your job and only choice is to get out alive one bullet at a time.

The game I personally enjoy alot, being that it came out 7 years ago now so when I played it I was quite young and it may of left an impression even since then many PC Gamers use it as one of the groundbreaking moments for the FPS genre raising the bar higher for all the other dev's out there and so it did.

Now I'll be heading back in there killing some zombies with an insane amount of bloom!

Ciao, Gardiad

Rage screenshots