Zero Punctuation: Battlefield 3

[maturin]

Anyone notice how the MW3 popup appeared at the most critical part?

 

[Excludos]

To quote Yahtzee, from the very video you watched minutes before posting your comment:

"EA recently went on record saying that they considered the single player campaign to be just as important as multiplayer".

Looks like he played a decent proportion of the game. If there's no reason to buy this game for the single player aspect... oh dear!

While you are entirely entitled to reviewing the singleplayer, it is kind of pointless. The game strength lies in its multiplayer after all, and that should be your entire reasoning for buying this game. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to buy it for the singleplayer..unless you like bad games.

Then why do EA pump huge amounts of time and resources into multiplayer and then say otherwise?

Oh, its because they're retarded. I'm sure EA har put a ton of money and time into the singleplayer. And like I mentioned earlier, they came incredibly close to pulling it off. I enjoyed some minor moments of it, but in between every one of those, there where just hours of quick time events and plain boring.

But that doesn't mean the strength isn't in the multiplayer, and always have been. That has always been the entire point of the game after all.

Anyone remember unreal tournament 3? It was a pretty good multiplayer game. However they also dumped a ton of money into the singleplayer..which is probably one of the worst singleplayer games of all times. Still, that doesn't make the entire game any worse, because who buys an unreal tournament game for its singleplayer to begin with?

So like I said. Yahtzee is is entitled to review the singleplayer if he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that the game is about multiplayer, and the value of the game isn't determined by its singleplayer counterpart in the slightest.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Battlefield 3

After a brief respite, Shooter Season 2011 returns with Battlefield 3.

Watch Video

The Multiplayer actually has worse problems if you can believe it.

EVERYTHING has to be unlocked. While this as big a problem for people on the ground shooting each other in the face, since a gun is only so much better with the Red Dot compared to one that doesn't, you need to unlock almost everything for aircraft to.

If your starting the game and you manage to get one of the team's jets, your limited to a machine gun. This makes you completely useless against any target on the ground, but it makes any dog fight basically onesided as well. Since you get the jet's unlocks by destroying things in the jets, you basically can say goodbye to every taking flight since at least one team mate is going to have flares and missles and is going to make that aircraft much better then yours

 

[Dalisclock]

I have to say, Yahtzee's whole ignore-that-multiplayer-exists routine is getting a bit stale. Yes, the single player was woeful, but it's a primarily multiplayer game. I mean, would you review Left 4 Dead without including the multiplayer? After all, it can be played solo.

Although, I guess that EA was kind of asking for it in this case, considering how much they hyped up BF3's bloody campaign.

He's said it before. He doesn't give a shit about the mutiplayer and niether do a lot of people. Something I can sympathize with. It's one of the reasons I've written off Battlefield 3 because it's essentially a mutiplayer game, which I don't like. And it pretty much forces me into the COD camp, because at least COD can do single-player(I played BC2, hoping for a good singleplayer experience, and found it a bit lacking. It really felt they were trying way to hard to stick it to the MW games instead of making an actual good singleplayer game on their own terms).

I'm also disappointed he didn't mention the rat fight.

 

[Excludos]

Battlefield 3

After a brief respite, Shooter Season 2011 returns with Battlefield 3.

Watch Video

The Multiplayer actually has worse problems if you can believe it.

EVERYTHING has to be unlocked. While this as big a problem for people on the ground shooting each other in the face, since a gun is only so much better with the Red Dot compared to one that doesn't, you need to unlock almost everything for aircraft to.

If your starting the game and you manage to get one of the team's jets, your limited to a machine gun. This makes you completely useless against any target on the ground, but it makes any dog fight basically onesided as well. Since you get the jet's unlocks by destroying things in the jets, you basically can say goodbye to every taking flight since at least one team mate is going to have flares and missles and is going to make that aircraft much better then yours

Yes, I agree. However its also a major fact thats keeping people like me returning to it all the time, because I want to unlock everything. And you only need 2 unlocks for the aircraft before you can use it just as well as anyone else no matter how much unlock they have. And thats the flare and missiles.

Granted, I think those 2 should probably have been unlocked before you start off. I think I died somewhere around 6 times before I unlocked those. I did, however, do it in one game where I was a tad lucky with my rubbish opponents.

With the helicopter. You don't really need to unlock anything as long as you have a good teammate who has flares. Of course, 6 perks instead of just 3 is a huge bonus

 

[Taunta]

Yahtzee, you're trying to be funny. We know that.

We also know that you don't like multiplayer. And aren't very good at it to boot.

So why you insist on wasting our and your time reviewing games primarily based on multiplayer which we all know you're either A - Not going to play or B - Hate anyway is beyond me. Why not simply just stick to reviewing games that are more your preferred style? The Dark Souls, Zeldas, Painkillers, Portals ETC.

You'd still find plenty to rip on and plenty to say you like, without wasting a week on a game you'll never even see 90% of.

Erm...he's not wasting anyone's time. You're the one wasting your own time watching the video even though if you've watched any of his previous videos, you should know that he hates multiplayer.

Secondly, he's already reviewed the current Zeldas, both portal games, and he wasn't really a fan of Demon's Souls, so I don't predict him chomping at the bit to play Dark Souls. Thirdly, this is shooter season 2011. Ergo, he reviews shooters.

 

[tokae]

Yahtzee should just recuse himself from reviewing battlefield games if he is only capable of reviewing at most half the game. I have an excuse for not reviewing it as well. Blame the spyware you would have had to have loaded to play the best version on the PC. That could have been quite funny....

Would be a valid point if he was a reviewer, alas he is not. He is a critic, a comedic one at that.

On a totally different note I truly dislike the fact that I can't watch videos on the escapist from my iPad. Ah, Well, I'll have to wait until I get home...

 

[Lordmarkus]

Why must we have the next in the streek of brown-Grey shooters,,,

We should have a technicolour, fantasical shooter, you know,, one thats fun??

Stop stealing my crackpipe and get on the bandwagon hippie.

Spent two hours playing Battliefield 2 and then one hour Battlefield 3. Can't decide if BF3 is a proper sequel or not. I'll guess I have to wait for Back to Karkand to arrive so I can judge it properly.

 

[Calcium]

This review made me happy. Happy enough that I don't even need to palmface over the people complaining about no multiplayer review.

I really feel like I should be adding something else to my post... But that's probably just me procrastinating in order to avoid actual work.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Ah yes. As he himself pointed out in the Gears of War review: if you trash the singleplayer, everyone defends the game by saying "no one plays it for the singleplayer."

This is an argument that never ceases to become less retarded the more times its put out there. A singleplayer campaign is a big investment for a studio, it means a lot of time programming scripted events, creating a level design that fits the mission, it means paying extra voice actors, it means producing lots of cutscenes... in short, it costs at least a substantial amount of money.

Given how happy certain major publishers are to cut out anything that's not considered 'vital' to the game and either not give it to us or make us fork over DLC for it, why on earth do these games keep coming out with singleplayer? If so many people apparently have reached the consensus that no one cares about it, surely EA would have gotten wind of that and thought "Great! That's a whole less team we have to employ for this game!"

If it's in the game, it can be judged accordingly. Meanwhile, it doesn't matter how compelling the multiplayer is, because the greater internet fuckwad theory will be enough to ruin the experience if you don't like being screamed at through a headset mike.

 

[Madara XIII]

LOL

[HEADING=2]"You must reach a minimum level of Suck My Cock Battlefield 3"
[/HEADING]
Yep. Read my mind on that one. I just DGAF anymore with these FPS games anymore. Everyone wants to focus solely on the multiplayer that the campaign itself falls short of Anemic.

Hell MW2 proved that and I can only hope to God MW3's story doesn't contain just as little content as its predecessor.


So until then I shall await for Yahtzee to review Sonic Generations

 

[Allan Carlisle]

The Fry and Laurie reference near the end made my heart warm.

 

[Something Amyss]

Everyone wants to focus solely on the multiplayer that the campaign itself falls short of Anemic.

Kind of a shame it sells so well

 

[Something Amyss]

Erm...he's not wasting anyone's time. You're the one wasting your own time watching the video even though if you've watched any of his previous videos, you should know that he hates multiplayer.

Additionally, I have a feeling most of the people complaining would be complaining about him NOT covering the game. Remember That co-op shooter that everyone was clamoring for him to review? Tetris (I might be mistaken on the name)? Yeah, he played that, after people kept whining about him not reviewing it, then a lot of people still complained because he doesn't like multiplayer.

Y U NO REVU BATTLEFIELD YOTZY?

I'm not saying this so much to defend Yahtzee, but because we've seen it before. I think it was similar around Smash Bros.

 

[Norix596]

I understand his argument about focusing on single-player in reviews but in this case it seems a little ridiculous. I don't think there are any or nearly any customers who are going to buy Battlefield 3 because they thought the single player would be any good. Yahtzee said in the past that he considered himself a critic above an entertainer so surely it would make sense at least in the case of Battlefield to spend some time talking about the multiplayer since that is the criteria on which everyone who buys the game will judge it.

 

[Something Amyss]

I understand his argument about focusing on single-player in reviews but in this case it seems a little ridiculous. I don't think there are any or nearly any customers who are going to buy Battlefield 3 because they thought the single player would be any good. Yahtzee said in the past that he considered himself a critic above an entertainer so surely it would make sense at least in the case of Battlefield to spend some time talking about the multiplayer since that is the criteria on which everyone who buys the game will judge it.

And a critic is still not a reviewer.

If you want a review, there are ton of them. There's probably one on the Escapist. I don't know, because I don't give a damn about MW3, BF3, GOW3, ROFLMAO3 or RESP3CT. Still, an interested person could probably find people who are actually going to review it.

 

[Dalisclock]

I understand his argument about focusing on single-player in reviews but in this case it seems a little ridiculous. I don't think there are any or nearly any customers who are going to buy Battlefield 3 because they thought the single player would be any good. Yahtzee said in the past that he considered himself a critic above an entertainer so surely it would make sense at least in the case of Battlefield to spend some time talking about the multiplayer since that is the criteria on which everyone who buys the game will judge it.

He has reviewed some mutiplayer only games before, and he usually doesn't like them(more so then usual). Even World of Warcraft, which considers the best of the lot, he still didn't like it and only played it because he had a free week(end?).

And when he talked for five minutes about how much he hated having to play the mutiplayer, or at very best, coming up with new and interesting things to bash about the experience, mostly due to the kinds of people one often sees on these kinds of games(everyone knows exactly what I'm talking about), people would still be whining.

He didn't even like Team fortress 2 that much, and probably only said as nice things about as he did( It's really polished) because he's pretty much a valve fanboy(still pining for Episode 3, like so many of us out there).

 

[Kermi]

Yahtzee reviews a game heavily geared towards multiplayer and complains the single player wasn't very good.

If I like the game, he is wrong.
If I don't like the game, he is right.

Anyway, I only buy games for multiplayer if it has a good single player as well. From all accounts (not just Yahtzee's) BF3 does not.

Enjoying the MW3 single player though. Can't wait until Yahtzee calls it shit in 2 weeks.

P.S.: I'd like to point out that in MW3 that's a part at the end of the first mission where a chopper comes to pick you up while you're in the middle of a gunfight, and you can get into the chopper as soon as it shows up. No fucking around waiting for the right dramatic moment. It's there, you're there, you're free to jump in as soon as you like. You got shit to do.

P.P.S.: In my view, even if a game is heavily SP oriented the single player should showcase the game mechanics. The multiplayer can only really be reviewed on the experience a person has in multiplayer. To this, I'd like to raise two points:

1) Yahtzee DID review the multiplayer. It seems to me that getting sniped while you're busy looking for people hiding in shrubbery is a pretty apt summary.

2) Multiplayer is pretty much user-generated content. Your experience hinges on whether you have a good connection, a good team, opponents who are playing in a way that provides a positive experience for you, etc.

This is basically like asking Yahtzee to review Little Big Planet based on the quality of the user-created levels.

 

[NortherWolf]

Ah, BF fans. The Nintendo fanboys of the FPS and PC world. How lovely.

Awesome little video, and one I figured I'd liked since I consider the BF series a mediocre time sink at best, something you play with your mates when you have little time.

 

[Jezzer]

Wait, when did you ever start trusting the EA marketing department, Yahtzee?

OF COURSE they'd say the single player was just as important as the multiplayer. And not just because they're EA. Hell, they let BioWare get away with saying that ME3's multiplayer is purely ancillary.

It's common knowledge by now that you play Battlefield 3 for the multiplayer, and almost every single review of the game acknowledges that. I don't think you gave the game a fair shake overall, but then again, ripping apart a mediocre campaign is kind of your forte.

Stick with what you're good at, I guess. Just don't act like the entire game is unoriginal just because one part of it is.

So, what precisely is original about yet another multiplayer shooter? Do the 12-year-old trolls teabag you in new, exciting ways?