Nowdays everyone around gaming talks about the Battlefield3, and I was excited as well so once the BETA was out I did download it 1 minute after it became available.
After download which was very fast and suggests that EA was ready for the load, the testing had begun.
First of all the installation needed Origin, which is EA alternative to STEAM… no big deal but another client? Ok , let’s say that this is not a big deal for most of the players, but then you need to install browser plug-in in order to access features on http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/ so you can join server via web browser… weird enough but I see what is their aim. Since people use facebook or google+ or any other social network it is only logical that EA thought that the interface and look of BF battlelog will appeal to the users.
Ok ok, that is not important, everyone want’s to know if the game is any good.
So I did get to start the game and join the server super fast without issues, again sign that EA was ready for the load of players. That’s all good but the game started in window, that was odd. Fine, re-size to full screen was super fast, probably due to new engine. I did set the game to ULTRA settings and tried. Was not that bad, 25-32 FPS , it is playable but not smooth, when disabled AA and filtering lowered to 4x, everything went 30-50fps. (using : i7 2600, 8GB RAM, Radeon HD5850).
First thing I did notice was inability to set any options while dead, so if you want to setup button layout, graphics or anything else, you have to LIVE ingame, if you get killed while changing the settings the menu will close, canceling your changes, great…. If you want to correctly exit the game, again you must be alive to do so or else there is only ALT+F4 option which works (thanks god).
The graphics are a bit odd for my taste but I got use to it in about 30 min of game-play. Ability to customize the guns and the menu system is not much confusing but certainly different as it was at BF BC2. I am use to hardcore mode so the guns did feal a bit weak for my taste but that’s fine. But after just few minutes of play I noticed so many bugs that are just absurd for game that has to be on the shelves next month. Sure it is BETA, but it did sound like PRE ALPHA to me. White flickering of whole screen, clipping problems, I did walk under the map for a while, walking with exploded weapons that extend several meters above the players body etc. Even the chat edit window was super odd.
Generaly I am not happy what I did saw, however there are some super cool featuers that are done very superficial and I realy hope it is only due to the BETA.
[UPDATE] I did play it today on PS3, and the game feels much more better on the console , controlls feel right even the menu system makes a bit more sense.
What are your thoughts on the BETA?