BF3 Open Beta – 1st Impressions

It is said that in the main, people do not like change but change is good isn’t it?

Last night, I downloaded the open BETA for BF3 on xbox and I plan to do the same tonight on PS3. It’s been a long time coming and I couldn’t wait to see what this was like. Once uploaded I headed straight to the multiplayer option and entered a game.

Upon spawning into the game I spun around to look at where I was and wow the sensativity even at default was amazing. I moved forward probably 3 steps and was killed. Hmmmm ok so I respawned as was killed again. WTF

I then had the option to spawn off a squad member (there was only 2 of us at the time) so I selected him and away I went.

The graphics look really good on the xbox, I love the animations (especially when jumping over a wall or the like) but the huge difference is the recoil. Its really noticable and for me will take some time to get used to. I spent much of the first match getting killed over and over and my score was a nightmare. We were defending but no matter where I spawned there appeared to be someone waiting and I really didnt get much of a chance to move around.

We successfully defended but my score was absolutely horrendous. I think from memory it was 5-22 (aarghhh)

I left lobby to play around with a few settings are entered another match. This was even worse but it was the tactics of the opposition that ultimately ruined my first experience of BF3.

Again I was defending and upon spawning in, instant kill. Respawn – killed – respawn – killed… I got to a score of 0-7 before I managed to move to cover. I looked around and noticed a couple of guys flanking to the right so I picked one off but the second one got me. Then I noticed something that was happening everytime in the killcam. I’d worked my score up to something like 6-10 got killed and the whole kill-respawn-kill-respawn-kill scenario started happening but on every killcam the player was prone in some bushes or well hidden somewhere.

I then noticed that after about 8-10 minutes, not one m-com had been armed by the opposing team. I could see a couple of their guys trying but in the main the whole of their team were camped somewhere, picking off our team and not going for the objective at all (probably prone somewhere)

This pretty much continued for the rest of my gameplay last night and I ended up after my first 4 games being 22/66, yes 22/66 which is mainly down to the camping biatches who are obviously only concerned with one thing…having an huge positive K/D themselves which is kinda sad.

Anyways what have I noticed about the game in general.

Prone sucks!!! haha no I joke. I do think it’s correct to have it in the game and it can be a life saver but on a mode such as rush which is a killfest I struggled with so many not PTFO and kill whoring. Anyone who knows me ingame will know I’m not a keen rush player anyways and conquest is my preferred game mode.

Speaking of Rush…. I know a lot of people who prefer this game mode and when I’m in a conquest you can tell that they are itching to be playing Rush but you know what, I think once this is released, far more people will be playing Conquest, even the die hard Rush players. Just a suspicion but let’s see.

As I have already stated I like all of the animations that I’ve come across so far. I like the lay out of the load up screen and everything that I’ve seen so far. Yes I got kicked out of a few games, the last was especially painful for me as I was doing well, was 2nd on the leaderboard and with 2 x m-com armed and plenty of heals plus a 8-10 k/d I was starting to find my feet only to get kicked but in the main I didn’t encounter too many issues.

Hit detection looks ok, well saying that there was one time I killed 1 or 2 guys in a room and there was another prone in the corner. I shot him 2-3 times with my pistol and nothing so I assume he was friendly so turned around to move out and he shot me in the back. This is one area that I think needs looking at. It can be, at times, very difficult to determine are they friend or foe? On more than one occassion I ran past someone thinking they were a friendly only to receive a bullet in my back. Its just not that clear or visible to my mind but maybe thats just me.

I seen videos and comments on twitter of people really slagging this game off, comparing it to MOH (can’t comment having never played it) but it is a BETA. People who were expecting a fully playable 100% legit game are deluding themselves.

I can refer back to #Shitefront (Homefront) as an example. I see a lot of complaints about not being able to squad up with mates in the BETA. Personally I think they have disabled this feature so that lobbies can fill up quickly and server stresses etc can be tested to the max (what BETA’s are all about) but I could enter a game. On release day for shitefront not only could I not squad up with my mates, I couldn’t even enter a game as it was looking for some stupid beacon. After 5 days of trying and having only played about 5 games I gave up.

Will we have the same issues with BF3? I most certainly hope not and the only positive we can take from it is DICE have produced some great games in this series and I’m sure this one will work well and be a huge success.

To sum it up I really like this game, I can see me playing it and getting a lot of fun out of it on both the xbox and PS3 but personally as I’m not the greatest gamer, I will struggle I think.

Do I like change? In the main no because I’m a Brit and we don’t like anything like that. When I first played BFBC2 I was instantly hooked but at the moment I’m luke warm with this, probably because it is so different to what I’m used to. I’ve made a lot of new friends, solid friends and just to get the time to experience this game with them (and get totally frustrated) will I’m sure mean great times ahead for all of us!

Oh and just a reminder: It is a BETA