My review on Battlefield 3 Beta

Many people who are enjoying the beta or playing for fun have no vitriolic reason to go to the BF3 forums. Perhaps they’ve visited once or twice to find out if the servers are down for maintenance or if Caspian Border will be making an appearance on their console of choice.

Then you get threads that completely miss the mark and just blindly hate on an unreleased game. You want DICE to kill the game because flashlights are extra effective? Relax, breathe, and try again.

Of course, there are also proper threads with proper arguments and outlined reasoning on why a feature’s inclusion (or lack thereof) is harmful or dissatisfactory to the game experience. For example, the full release will probably see some sort of revamp to the squadding functionality. DICE and EA have probably seen the myriad of threads on that issue. People want to play with their friends. Let’s call them out on it, because this is a major oversight.

Sometimes you’ll find threads that point out flaws about a certain gameplay decisions (e.g. sniper glare). These go back and forth then someone eventually comes up with a “this feature isn’t implemented realistically” argument. The popular retort is that “Battlefield 3 is a game and not real” then we land in a situation where names are called and the general forum public prepares some popcorn and enjoys the show.

We can’t really measure everyone’s true feelings about the beta even if there was a simple one question survey at the end of each match asking the players if they enjoyed the experience or not. Teams that get stomped would vote with a resounding ‘Hell No’.

It has become something of a pastime lately. I sit on my computer for a couple hours longer than usual. I scan for anything interesting and I click when a promising target appears. Seconds later, he’s killed and lies unchanging as others appear nearby, carrying the torch for their fallen brother.

Many gamers have been logging hour after hour into the Battlefield 3 beta since it has opened. There have been technical issues as well as modded server issues and a general cloud of discontent over one of the biggest releases of the year. It has definitely been an experience of sorts.

Is it all that bad, though? I really don’t have anything too negative to say about it. I’ve enjoyed the preview opportunity that we’ve all been given.

I believe that a lot of this bad blood stems from the vocal minority that gets upset and immediately heads to the forums to vent with their arms flailing dramatically. Here are a few things that have helped me have fun in my beta experience.

This goes without saying but EA and DICE even felt that people needed to be reminded. This build that we’re all playing is a beta build and stands on shaky legs. It looks great (in my opinion) but it still has plenty of bugs, a lot of which have fixes on the way.

I’ve had my share of random framerate drops along with the most annoying clipping issues I’ve ever seen. But, I’m confident that an important franchise like Battlefield will get the tweaking and care that it needs to fulfill everyone’s AAA expectations.