Zero Punctuation: Battlefield 3

[Dalisclock]

Any game is better playing with friends or the like. Hell, tetris is better with another person. You cant get as much enjoyment shooting an in-animate object as you could shooting your friend (lol) add a gun and online multiplayer to Dynasty warriors and will it get a 10? no, but it would certainly boost the score. (The single player would be crap as expected but you get to shoot your friends in feudal china woohoo! -.-

I can think of a couple games that would only be hurt by Mutiplayer. Off the top of my head, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

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??

We have one: Halo.

Anyways, I wouldn't call Battlefield a brown/grey shooter. It's pretty colorful, actually, but it's hard to tell from a firefly burning it's silloute into your retina due to the bloom.

I really think Yahtzee needs to start treating multiplayer as a part of the game, and not having the two be mutuality exclusive. I understand he does this most of the time due to the type of people you often see in multiplayer, but battlefield especially has entire communties that revolve around polite and strategical play.

And yes, that last part annoyed the hell out of me too.

 

[cheese_wizington]

I could understand Yahtzee not playing multiplayer years ago, but now it just seems ridiculous. Especially in a game like this which no matter what it's stupid publisher says is very much Multiplayer centered.

Didn't watch.

 

[ezeroast]

The facebook comments on this video are funny. So many people think they're clever for agreeing with Yahtzee.

Lol yea i know what you mean, the internet is full of up your arse "intellects" though. This site is getting a little more like that these days.

OT: I realise Yatzee has some retarded rules when it comes to reviewing games but this one was kind of annoying. There really isn't any point reviewing the singleplayer here.

 

[Alexnader]

Wow, the tears of butthurt Battlefield fanboys are delicious.

They're the ones who said the SP was as important as the MP, comrades.

Your post indicates you lack knowledge of the context surrounding this game and you make an impossible assumption in order to get across your snarky disdain for a game you no doubt do not appreciate. I've read through several anti-BF3 posts on this thread but only yours made me sick enough to actually reply.

How can you possibly say that the BF3 fanboys as a collective said that SP was as important as MP, especially when that line was spouted out by EA marketing. I'm a BF3 "fan" and I'm male but I think the SP campaign can take a long walk off a short pier and I've had this opinion since Bad Company 2. Bad Company was actually funny in some ways but BC2 was too serious with their idiotic "Scalar weapon technology".

You thinking butthurt-ness is delicious is highly abnormal and indicates that you may be someone who has been slighted by BF3 "fanboys" attacking a favoured game of yours such as CoD and as such are getting some kind of schaden-freude from Yachtzee doing what he always does, attacking games at their weakest points.

To everyone in this thread who has not already noticed this, Yachtzee is not a reviewer of games. He is a commentator and a determinedly negative one at that. The only thing separating him from those on youtube who troll games for views is that he is good at it. That is why I watch his show.

 

[Metalrocks]

makes you wonder how come he even reviewed team fortress 2 or the coop for fear 3 ...sorry f3ar...
i havent played BF3 because of origin, but i know that the MP is the main factor of this game. and i think we all know that he will review with MW3 the SP only.
i have played few levels of the SP of MW3 and well, its a simple run and shoot stuff. wile the MP is actually really fun, fairly well balanced with the perks and what you can switch free for the weapons. at least you have to use this specific weapon and not just level up your character just to switch free new stuff for the weapon.

 

[thirion1850]

Yes, lets take a multiplayer focused game and review it as a single player shooter.

Next thing you know, CS:GO will be reviewed in a bot round.

 

[Urh]

Absolutely no one buys Battlefield games for the single player. You're probably the only person on the planet who even played it Yahtzee.

Funny you should say that, because my friend (who pre-ordered, no less) played through the single player twice in the first week or so he had the game. Although that probably has more to do with the multiplayer not even bloody working for him that whole time. FPS games have been doing the whole internet multiplayer thing for what, 15 years or so? You'd think studios would have that shit sorted by now.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Yes, lets take a multiplayer focused game and review it as a single player shooter.

Well, EA did take a multiplayer focused game and market it as a single player shooter.

And the singleplayer does suck all the balls.

 

[That_Sneaky_Camper]

If DICE didn't want their single player to be criticized then they shouldn't have made it in the first place. EA certainly seemed to think the single player part of the game was good because a great deal of the advertising for the game was about it.

Single player campaigns need to be of a certain quality if they are going to be release it to the market, I assure you if the multiplayer had been as half-assed as the story mode was people wouldn't be so quick to defend Battlefield 3. The game shouldn't be half price because it is a multiplayer focused game, it should be half priced because the whole package isn't of the utmost quality. Single player games are worth 60 dollars too, it isn't about the quantity of the content but the quality.

 

[Markunator]

If DICE didn't want their single player to be criticized then they shouldn't have made it in the first place. EA certainly seemed to think the single player part of the game was good because a great deal of the advertising for the game was about it.

Single player campaigns need to be of a certain quality if they are going to be release it to the market, I assure you if the multiplayer had been as half-assed as the story mode was people wouldn't be so quick to defend Battlefield 3. The game shouldn't be half price because it is a multiplayer focused game, it should be half priced because the whole package isn't of the utmost quality. Single player games are worth 60 dollars too, it isn't about the quantity of the content but the quality.

Multiplayer has always been and will always be far more important to the "Battlefield" series than the campaign. It has always been a multiplayer-first game. Only this game and the "Bad Company" series have had singleplayer campaigns. But the multiplayer in this game is just SOOOOOOOOOO damn good! Therefore, I do love this game VERY much, despite actually agreeing with most of the stuff Yahtzee says in this review.

I don't know about the console versions, though. I have heard that they aren't as good.

 

[[zonking great]]

"From our prescription medication we have a weird yellow something creature hanging from the ceiling"" . Har...har?

HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR! YOU ARE HILARIOUS CROSHAW. Seriously. Get a life, Croshaw. More than normal. And I mean this even more every time I watch one of your reviews. Your shtick is old now.

 

[fieryshadowcard]

]"From our prescription medication we have a weird yellow something creature hanging from the ceiling"" . Har...har?

HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR! YOU ARE HILARIOUS CROSHAW. Seriously. Get a life, Croshaw. More than normal. And I mean this even more every time I watch one of your reviews. Your shtick is old now.

Oh, come now. His shtick can't possibly be any older than your shtick for continually watching ZP eps when you know you won't like them.


On-Topic:

Online multiplayer is pointless to review. At best, the only thing you can review for it is whether or not the mechanics and programming make the game playable or unplayable. At worst, the only thing you'll be reviewing is the shiny new feature the company spent the greater half of their marketing campaign pushing as revolutionary. After that, your entire multiplayer experience is at the mercy of who you play with. It also doesn't help that a big-budget title like BF3 will render its multiplayer irrelevant when BF4 comes out. No one will be paying BF3 then. Kind of sort of the same way that Madden clutters the bargain bins whenever we reach a new year. Then there's the inevitable removal of gaming servers for irrelevant multiplayer titles. Does the first Battlefield still have its servers? Even if it does, I bet no one's playing on them.

The only way an online multiplayer experience can be properly reviewed is if the same game continues to update itself without putting a higher number after its title, because in that case the changes are being made to further enhance the experience people are having with other players. For that reason, games like Team Fortress 2 continue to be relevant even though they've been out for roughly half a decade.

Singleplayer experiences in a game are things that are highly unlikely to change. They will likely be the same for a game 5 seconds down the line or 30 years down the line. The player's enjoyment of that experience is based largely on what the developers have presented. For that reason, they are perfect specimens for review. They showcase what the developers thought the player would enjoy, and the player determines whether or not this is true after they've played it. A memorable singleplayer experience can be replayable, classic, or even timeless. There is no such thing as a timeless multiplayer experience if the multiplayer keeps jumping ship at the next installment but with only a few minor tweaks to already familiar gameplay.

Let's say we're in 2017 and Battlefield 5 is out, alongside Madden 2017. How likely are you to put in Battlefield 3 or Madden '08 at that time? You're not? Why not? They're certainly the same ga--oh... never mind. The only multiplayer games that people will actually put in older installments for are generally fighting games or party games, and even then it will only be for multiplayer than can be enjoyed offline and among friends.

 

[Markunator]

]"From our prescription medication we have a weird yellow something creature hanging from the ceiling"" . Har...har?

HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR! YOU ARE HILARIOUS CROSHAW. Seriously. Get a life, Croshaw. More than normal. And I mean this even more every time I watch one of your reviews. Your shtick is old now.

Oh, come now. His shtick can't possibly be any older than your shtick for continually watching ZP eps when you know you won't like them.


On-Topic:

Online multiplayer is pointless to review. At best, the only thing you can review for it is whether or not the mechanics and programming make the game playable or unplayable. At worst, the only thing you'll be reviewing is the shiny new feature the company spent the greater half of their marketing campaign pushing as revolutionary. After that, your entire multiplayer experience is at the mercy of who you play with. It also doesn't help that a big-budget title like BF3 will render its multiplayer irrelevant when BF4 comes out. No one will be paying BF3 then. Kind of sort of the same way that Madden clutters the bargain bins whenever we reach a new year. Then there's the inevitable removal of gaming servers for irrelevant multiplayer titles. Does the first Battlefield still have its servers? Even if it does, I bet no one's playing on them.

The only way an online multiplayer experience can be properly reviewed is if the same game continues to update itself without putting a higher number after its title, because in that case the changes are being made to further enhance the experience people are having with other players. For that reason, games like Team Fortress 2 continue to be relevant even though they've been out for roughly half a decade.

Singleplayer experiences in a game are things that are highly unlikely to change. They will likely be the same for a game 5 seconds down the line or 30 years down the line. The player's enjoyment of that experience is based largely on what the developers have presented. For that reason, they are perfect specimens for review. They showcase what the developers thought the player would enjoy, and the player determines whether or not this is true after they've played it. A memorable singleplayer experience can be replayable, classic, or even timeless. There is no such thing as a timeless multiplayer experience if the multiplayer keeps jumping ship at the next installment but with only a few minor tweaks to already familiar gameplay.

Let's say we're in 2017 and Battlefield 5 is out, alongside Madden 2017. How likely are you to put in Battlefield 3 or Madden '08 at that time? You're not? Why not? They're certainly the same ga--oh... never mind. The only multiplayer games that people will actually put in older installments for are generally fighting games or party games, and even then it will only be for multiplayer than can be enjoyed offline and among friends.

That didn't make any sense at all. In 2017, "Battlefield 4" will probably be released, not "Battlefield 5". Also, it just doesn't make any sense what you and so many others on this board have said about reviewing multiplayer essentially being the same as reviewing the players. That's not true. You don't think any design at all goes into the multiplayer?

Furthermore, if you bought this game for the campaign, you're an imbecile. It's a "Battlefield" game, and "Battlefield" = multiplayer.

 

[D-Ray]

"you must reach a minimum level of SUCK MY COCK BF3." <------LOL

COD FTW

 

[Aprilgold]

That didn't make any sense at all. In 2017, "Battlefield 4" will probably be released, not "Battlefield 5". Also, it just doesn't make any sense what you and so many others on this board have said about reviewing multiplayer essentially being the same as reviewing the players. That's not true. You don't think any design at all goes into the multiplayer?

Furthermore, if you bought this game for the campaign, you're an imbecile. It's a "Battlefield" game, and "Battlefield" = multiplayer.

And theres the problem, in a few years when the next one is released, almost NOBODY will be playing this incarnation, and so on and so forth. You can put so much planning into the game's multiplayer only for it to become abandoned. Good Griefing grief CoD games all the time because its just that easy to turn a fun experience into a horrid one.]

Single Player games = Structured to be fun.

Multiplayer Only Games = Structured to TRY and be fun, but is completely reliant on the player base to keep that fun up.

Yahtzee's review is 100% backed up by Dice and the people who worked with them to bring us this game. They believed that their single player was good enough and were behind the idea of single player. Although the single player was just a giant QTE.

Yes, lets take a multiplayer focused game and review it as a single player shooter.

Next thing you know, CS:GO will be reviewed in a bot round.

I've said this before, the dev team was 100% BEHIND their shitty single player, and since you can't rate multiplayer since its fun quality is at the hands of players, your better off with a single player game because you know it will always be good.

 

[Markunator]

That didn't make any sense at all. In 2017, "Battlefield 4" will probably be released, not "Battlefield 5". Also, it just doesn't make any sense what you and so many others on this board have said about reviewing multiplayer essentially being the same as reviewing the players. That's not true. You don't think any design at all goes into the multiplayer?

Furthermore, if you bought this game for the campaign, you're an imbecile. It's a "Battlefield" game, and "Battlefield" = multiplayer.

And theres the problem, in a few years when the next one is released, almost NOBODY will be playing this incarnation, and so on and so forth. You can put so much planning into the game's multiplayer only for it to become abandoned. Good Griefing grief CoD games all the time because its just that easy to turn a fun experience into a horrid one.]

Single Player games = Structured to be fun.

Multiplayer Only Games = Structured to TRY and be fun, but is completely reliant on the player base to keep that fun up.

Yahtzee's review is 100% backed up by Dice and the people who worked with them to bring us this game. They believed that their single player was good enough and were behind the idea of single player. Although the single player was just a giant QTE.

Yes, lets take a multiplayer focused game and review it as a single player shooter.

Next thing you know, CS:GO will be reviewed in a bot round.

I've said this before, the dev team was 100% BEHIND their shitty single player, and since you can't rate multiplayer since its fun quality is at the hands of players, your better off with a single player game because you know it will always be good.

I honestly don't care what EA/DICE said about the singleplayer. Even if it had been a fifteen-hour-long, completely original masterwork of sublime storytelling, it still wouldn't have been as much fun - or have had the staying power - of the multiplayer. This is the sequel to "Battlefield 2", which was multiplayer only, so if you went it wanting to get your money's worth out of the singleplayer, that's your own fault.

And if you're playing on the PC, you won't really have many problems with the community. They know that "Battlefield" is about teamwork, unlike a certain other game I know.

And so what if there's a new "Battlefield" released in 5-6 years? Can't we just enjoy this game now? New installments will always replace the old ones, so WTF is your point?

 

[Aprilgold]

That didn't make any sense at all. In 2017, "Battlefield 4" will probably be released, not "Battlefield 5". Also, it just doesn't make any sense what you and so many others on this board have said about reviewing multiplayer essentially being the same as reviewing the players. That's not true. You don't think any design at all goes into the multiplayer?

Furthermore, if you bought this game for the campaign, you're an imbecile. It's a "Battlefield" game, and "Battlefield" = multiplayer.

And theres the problem, in a few years when the next one is released, almost NOBODY will be playing this incarnation, and so on and so forth. You can put so much planning into the game's multiplayer only for it to become abandoned. Good Griefing grief CoD games all the time because its just that easy to turn a fun experience into a horrid one.]

Single Player games = Structured to be fun.

Multiplayer Only Games = Structured to TRY and be fun, but is completely reliant on the player base to keep that fun up.

Yahtzee's review is 100% backed up by Dice and the people who worked with them to bring us this game. They believed that their single player was good enough and were behind the idea of single player. Although the single player was just a giant QTE.

Yes, lets take a multiplayer focused game and review it as a single player shooter.

Next thing you know, CS:GO will be reviewed in a bot round.

I've said this before, the dev team was 100% BEHIND their shitty single player, and since you can't rate multiplayer since its fun quality is at the hands of players, your better off with a single player game because you know it will always be good.

I honestly don't care what EA/DICE said about the singleplayer. Even if it had been a fifteen-hour-long, completely original masterwork of sublime storytelling, it still wouldn't have been as much fun - or have had the staying power - of the multiplayer. This is the sequel to "Battlefield 2", which was multiplayer only, so if you went it wanting to get your money's worth out of the singleplayer, that's your own fault.

And if you're playing on the PC, you won't really have many problems with the community. They know that "Battlefield" is about teamwork, unlike a certain other game I know.

And so what if there's a new "Battlefield" released in 5-6 years? Can't we just enjoy this game now? New installments will always replace the old ones, so WTF is your point?

My point is that your complaining about him reviewing the same exact way he always has. I Don't care if its a sequel to the god given Jesus baby of our industry, the sequel has singleplayer, and its a load of horse shit. EA / Dice have been screwing over PC gamers throughout the whole god damn dev cycle, its a silly thought to thik that the Multiplayer will be around longer past the next sequels multiplayer.

Dice made the fucking game, thus if they built a single player, you can't complain, because they made the fucking thing. Unless YOU have a job in the industry then you would not quite understand their mindset, they made a single player and tried to sell the game off of it. This is a blatant lie since the single player is a giant QTE, you have nothing to argue here. The single player was shit, and the multiplayer is a random experience, it isn't structured past 'is the multiplayer playable?' Which was my point the whole fucking time.

The multiplayer is like a fucking dice roll, you roll and you will either get below a fifteen for a failing match or utter pub stomp or large amounts of trolls / hackers, then if you make it ABOVE it then you have a winning match, then you have to get a eighteen to see if you don't have hackers, EVEN THEN you have to get a natural 20 just to have no problems. The better the match, the less likely it is to enjoy the game.

Even if we take Good Grief, heres a video of them doing their thing on a game.

I chose this video out of their hundreds simply over the fact that this is a example of what I mean. All it takes is one asshole on a 16 player game match to ruin EVERYONE'S time. In Battlefield this can be god damn worse, its like Feeding a Feeder in LoL, you will lose because they just became more powerful then you. In battlefield, if a greifer kills 9 other players in a attack helicopter and crashes into the side of a building, your team just lost 9 players for several minutes because NOW you and your team have a losing disadvantage, its even WORSE if you are winning because since you just lost those people, you are now going to have the blunt force of the attacking team onto a point, if this happens frequently enough, your going to lose due to the incompetence of one team mate.

No, a multiplayer ONLY game will not be as fun, all the time, as a single player game will be. Because a singleplayer game is structured to give you the most fun, while a multiplayer game, like said previously, is random on the amount of fun. I can't tell you how many times I loved playing Team Fortress 2 and how many times I rage quited from a match due to incompetence of team.

 

[Xandre]

Eh, got the game and I have to say the following: Singleplayer = crap. The Multiplayer has way too many glitches still present and the game feels like a beta. Heck, one of my mates has a tank cannon attachment that, as of about a few days ago, does not fire a bloody round. You get the recoil, but no round. Then there's the unlock system, especially the two separate starting guns for each side that have their own bars, meaning a good streak on one side will have you favouring that class on that side, or just farming the EXP until you get a gun you can use for both sides.

But perhaps the most annoying thing is how DICE claimed ten times the unlockables, a statement only true because - you guessed it - you have to unlock most everything ten bloody times, which discourages experimenting with guns, which is what should, if anything, be encouraged. What will happen is you will get one gun far enough along, and you will use that gun and ONLY that gun from that point on, because the other guns without the unlocks might as well be paintball guns for all the practicality they offer.

But what really sets the issues aside is the fact that I have to run the game on the lowest settings, and the game plays worse than Bad Company 2 on the medium settings, and there's bugger-all graphical difference. I know the scale is larger, but some of the maps are at BFBC2 scales, which should lead to a small hit in performance, not a choppy, nearly unplayable game. There's a whole lot that needs fixing, and a whole lot that could be done better. Still, it has potential under all that beta, so I'll wait a bit.

But folks, if you don't have this game yet, wait until the first wave of patches is through, then get the bugger. It has potential, EA just need to get it out of the Beta stage it painfully shows itself to be in.