Battlefield is one of those games that are beloved by many PC gamers
and held in such high regard that to consider putting the game on a
console is blaspheme, but they rest easy when I tell you that this game
is fantastic. I held off buying this game on launch day because a part
of me always thought this game wouldn't be any good but boy was I
wrong. The single player is great and has a fulfilling story as well as
some remember able characters who exchange some witty dialogue, through
out the game you grow fond of the rest of B company and genuinely care
about them (not that they can die though, because they can't) A great
feature of this game is the destructible environment where a lot of the
terrain and buildings can be damaged. Don't want to go around the
corner because of an enemy tank? Then don't, pull your grenade launcher
out and go through the building. It really does add a whole new way of
going about a level. This leads me on to my next point, the explosions
in the this game are incredible, they may not look as good as
mercenaries 2 but they certainly are impressive; from blowing holes in
the walls to shoot strategically placed barrels, this game has a great
array of explosions and each one makes you look on in awe.
Now the multiplayer is where the true meat is at, those of you who
have played COD4 will fit in like a glove here; you have your basic
rank up system which is very welcome, as well as a system where you
collect dog tags, patches and wild cards which require you do complete
certain actions to obtain them. The maps are huge and are varied enough
to make each one feel unique, but at the moment there is only one mode
available which requires you to either defend or attack gold crates,
but I for one think its great because it rewards team work far more
than a basic death match would.
Now for the negative points. The first is that sometimes the game can
suffer from 'black' syndrome (no I am not being racist, it is a
reference to a last gen game), where by there are lots of barrels and
explosive boxes which are a convenient red colour, the problem with
these is that it can sometimes make you feel like if you aren't blowing
up walls etc then you are playing the game wrong, where they are placed
so sparingly that it is harder to try to avoid hitting them than
actually try, but this is easily forgiven seeing as the game definitely
has the destruction as a key element of the game play. Another negative
point is that there are certain 'extra' weapons that can only be
accessed through buying the gold edition of the game, visiting
battlefield.com or reaching level 4 in the demo first, but the weapons
on offer are not incredibly better so it isn't such a big deal. This
leads me on to one problem with the environment and that is why can we
not shoot through thin walls? The thing is, I understand that the thick
walls cannot be blown down but why are we unable to shoot through a
fence? When you consider that environmental destruction is such as
large part of the game it doesn't make sense that they wouldn't
incorporate this idea into the final product.
Now I will discuss achievements. There your basic achievements such as
complete level X on medium/hard (although if you want to get both you
will have to complete the game twice because you don't get the
achievement for medium is you part on hard), there are also
achievements such as collect x number of collectable, plus X number of
gold. And others such as kill 25 enemies, climb to the highest point of
the game and then some multiplayer ones such as reach rank x and
collect 50 dog tags, so basic stuff then really.
Overall I would definitely recommend this game. Great single player and
very involving multiplayer make this a complete package, even if you
love COD4 this a welcome change with some great vehicle combat.
