Zero Punctuation: Battlefield 3

[tehbeard]

The most important thing I took away from the video.

 

[CopperBoom]

This critique fulfills the minimum requirements of suck my cock.

 

[Aprilgold]

As I predicted here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.319929-Zero-Punctuation-Kinect?page=2#13062231] some weeks ago, no mention of the multi player game which is the main point of the Battlefield series. The justification for this by Yahtzee was pretty laughable.

The bit complaining about not being able to fly a plane and that the engine would be good for a flight sim, would been very funny if that was not precisely what happens in the multiplayer game.

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....

Total Biscuit did point this out very well when he talked about the game and single player, if your going to make a single player experience, by god, make it a experience. The point of single player is to prep you for the multiplayer, correct? Well why aren't YOU flying that plane and learning how to use vehicles. If your going to make a single player campaign for a multi player focused one then you BETTER do it well.

Hell, he defined this way back when why he doesn't review the multiplayer portion, you can put so much work into it only for one person to tread on it. The experience will never be the same or as fun all around unless your playing the same exact way each time. Basically, multi player consists of random experience, while single player is crafted to be fun.

As I predicted some weeks ago no mention of the muti player game which is the most main point the Battled field games..

That wasn't really a prediction Yathzee has gone on record that he doesn't like multilayer. Ever. We all know that's why people buy these particular games but he thinks that's exactly what's wrong with the game.

Out of sheer pseudo-curiosity for your answer, I shall pose this question to you:

What then, was the point of his review? If you have managed to condense his whole opinion of this specific genre?

Because it had a single player. Thats the only answer why he reviewed it, it had a single player.

They say a singleplayer is as important as multiplayer. So why is it so bad?

I'm surprised he didn't complain more about the lens flare. I got killed in one part several times because I couldn't see who was shooting me due to a large floating orange glow. When I finally got through I went to see what was causing it: the relection of a street light in a small puddle *shrug*

Thats my justification, I liked this review out of a lot of them.

Absolutely no one buys Battlefield games for the single player. You're probably the only person on the planet who even played it Yahtzee. Review the multiplayer or just don't bother. This is like reviewing Counter-Strike and saying it's no fun to play offline with bots.

Conter Strike doesn't have a offline mode, but I digress, what did he say about this earlier in the video:
"Electronic Art said that single player was as important as multi player."
Which is the key line here, and yes, they did say this.

In total, if your going to make a structured experience for single player, don't hack it toghether. Make it a experience. On a online game, its a luck of dice, you could end up with trolls, or a good experience, but since you won't ALWAYS have a good experience, the creators can take no credit for the fun that you have.

 

[Lunar Templar]

What's his deal with multiplayer anyway? Does he not have any friends? Is he just a total n00b? I get the impression he's terrible at shooters from his reviews.

no, i remember in one review he him getting some people together for a game (SSBB case you wanna go veiw it) but as a general rule of reviewing he just dosen't, "a game must be able to stand on its single player alone" is the rule he works under.

sides, its an online first person shooter -.- whats there to say?

or rather how dose one review it? as the experience will be vastly different for every one, and i guess you could say the some about single player, but there's far more consistency there then the online modes

 

[QUINTIX]

Multiplayer-focused series?
REVIEW SINGLE PLAYER ONLY.
Someone make a meme with captcha and so on...

Yahtzee already did an extra-punctuation on multiplayer. For now I won't find it for you.
This was being pushed as being as better than COD4, and even the multiplayer obsessees admit that the single player campaign falls on its face.

I would dare claim the the market for single player games is much larger than the multiplayer exclusive/focused market (outside of F2P/MMORPGs). A lot of wealth and hype was poured into this game. That can't be made back on multiplayer alone.

 

[solidstatemind]

{stirs the ashes with the toe of his boot)

Yup. About what I expected. Some good lines in this review tho. Sad to say, I was kind of hoping that he reviewed Uncharted 3 instead. I'm honestly interested to see his take on it, control issues aside. I know he has a mild dislike for the earlier iterations, but I think this one might be a little different, so...

 

[KelsieKatt]

Conter Strike doesn't have a offline mode,

Nor did Battlefield up until a couple years ago. Which is why nobody cares and doesn't want to hear about it.

but I digress, what did he say about this earlier in the video:
"Electronic Art said that single player was as important as multi player."
Which is the key line here, and yes, they did say this.

Of course they said that, they're trying to pull in extra sales from the Call of Duty franchise by throwing in a half-assed knock off campaign. It's just typical marketing bullshit.

Overall, the vast majority of people who buy Battlefield games have probably never even played the campaign mode, if they even know it has one (considering that older BF games "campaign" was just offline maps with bots.)

 

[Aprilgold]

Conter Strike doesn't have a offline mode,

Nor did Battlefield up until a couple years ago. Which is why nobody cares and doesn't want to hear about it.

but I digress, what did he say about this earlier in the video:
"Electronic Art said that single player was as important as multi player."
Which is the key line here, and yes, they did say this.

Of course they said that, they're trying to pull in extra sales from the Call of Duty franchise by throwing in a half-assed knock off campaign. It's just typical marketing bullshit.

Overall, the vast majority of people who buy Battlefield games have probably never even played the campaign mode, if they even know it has one (considering that older BF games "campaign" was just offline maps with bots.)

And right there is the smoke. Its a multiplayer game that threw in a badly made single player, he is complaining about the single player because they decided to put that in there.

Single Player = STRUCTURED FOR MOST FUN!
Multi Player = Roll a D20 and we'll see how good your experience is.

Multi player is random, you will never, EVER have the same experience twice, this ALSO means its more likely to get shitty experiences, and the devs can't take credit for good or shit times without it being a structured thing, which it is not.

If the single player point of Battlefield 3 was to prep you for multiplayer, why aren't they teaching you mechanics that could be used in multiplayer.

 

[Movement_Machine]

to be honest the singleplayer is a frickin snore fest so he really shouldve looked into the multiplayer a bit more. like jumped in a tank or something i dont know.

 

[Carnagath]

As I predicted here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.319929-Zero-Punctuation-Kinect?page=2#13062231] some weeks ago, no mention of the multi player game which is the main point of the Battlefield series. The justification for this by Yahtzee was pretty laughable.

The bit complaining about not being able to fly a plane and that the engine would be good for a flight sim, would been very funny if that was not precisely what happens in the multiplayer game.

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....

Sigh... There was mention of the multiplayer. He said it's repetitive and full of tossers. In short, he didn't enjoy it and didn't play it for long. That's called an opinion. You may not like it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. And I, for one, agree with it. I can't stomach multiplayer shooters, I fall into a catatonic coma after playing for more than 10 minutes. Just enjoy what you enjoy, there's no need for anyone to validate your preferences for you.

 

[jpoon]

Hah, funny shit but ZP's a lazyass if he's not even giving multiplayer more than 2 fucking seconds especially for this game (which is known only for MP). Sloppy work ZP but still funny, so I'll give it a thumbs up!

 

[Frostbite3789]

I guess the search for profit inevitably led EA to model itself around Activision's golden-egg-laying duck. My greatest excitement over the release of BF3 and MW3 was Benjamin's review of those games. One down, with one more to go.

Yeah, Battlefield isn't an established franchise already or anything like that.

 

[Giest4life]

I guess the search for profit inevitably led EA to model itself around Activision's golden-egg-laying duck. My greatest excitement over the release of BF3 and MW3 was Benjamin's review of those games. One down, with one more to go.

Yeah, Battlefield isn't an established franchise already or anything like that.

My sarcasm detector Firefox plugin is not working really well. Please chose from the following responses:

Spoiler: In case of sarcasm.

Do you know what's better than money? More money. I bet EA knows that more than anyone else.

Spoiler: In case of sincerity.

No comment.

 

[Beryl77]

Meh, I don't even know why he bothered reviewing this game. Yeah, the sp is pretty boring and bad. It does pretty much everything he doesn't like. So it was obvious from the start to pretty much everyone what he was going to say.
Also, of course EA would say that the sp is just as important, anything else doesn't make sense. If someone would say the truth that it's just a tech demo to show off the pretty new engine and the sole reason of the sp is to get new customers, meaning more money, then he would get fired pretty quickly.

He should just stop reviewing the mp focused games and stick to sp games. Skyrim, now that's a review I'm really looking forward to.

 

[Elyxard]

It's completely legitimate to focus on the single player. If they're going to tout that as one of the main features, they had better expect it to come under scrutiny. Too many of these big site reviews just completely ignored it, maybe mentioning it in passing, but it's a large part of the product that they tried to tack on just to match Call of Duty. They should definitely be criticized much more than they have been for it. Either do it right or don't do it at all.

I'm like him, I feel like I've already played every online game to death already and I don't even play them all that often. It's all dumb fun but in the end it's not substantial enough to leave any impact that a well written narrative can achieve.

 

[Brinnmilo]

I got the impression from the single player that it was trying to strike out in a new direction, making you another average Joe instead of a gun toting super human. It felt fresh.
As you can probably tell I really enjoyed the singleplayer.

The multiplayer was disappointing. With the BF2 multiplayer I was hooked straight away and it kept me hooked until I changed my laptop in July, and the only reason I lost interest then is because I couldn't be arsed to reinstall everything (and the clan I was in had gone through a break up while I was away D': ). All the little things in BF3's multiplayer just keep nagging at me and so I've not played it in a week.

 

[Sabrestar]

People,

This is not a review. Yahtzee doesn't review games, he bashes them. That's What He Does.

OF COURSE he only covered half the game. He does what's FUNNY. There are plenty of writers for this site who will actually do reviews. Read theirs if you want the full story.

Yahtzee is a comic. Not a game reviewer. Stop expecting him to be something he's not.

 

[Paragon Fury]

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.