Having played Battlefield 3 for about 20 minutes today I do not think I can go back to playing Bad Company 2. I was a little worried about the new class setup, but having tried them all, I’m in love.
Having previously played Medic a lot I’m going have to get used to the new Assault class which has the medic abilities, but it is more of a front lines player than the Medic was before. The Engineer is pretty similar to before from what I could tell, but the level we played did not have many vehicles. The Support class is a lot of fun with their LMG which can have a bi-pod on the front. You can set it on cover with the bi-pod or when you are prone to get a lot more accuracy at the expense of being able to move. The recon class is also pretty similar to BFBC2, but now when you are camping as a sniper you have to worry about your gun’s scope causing a lens flair which lets you get spotted faster. The ability to go prone is nice but if you get spotted, you are a sitting duck. Most of the time I just would crouch instead. However, when defending a know position, it is nice to go prone and make a smaller target for your enemy.
If you have seen any trailers it should not come as any surprise that Battlefield 3 looks gorgeous. The Frostbite 2 engine is truly remarkable both in terms of the visuals and the destruction it allows. You can see individual tiles get shot off the wall in the bathroom or chunks of concrete chip off the sidewalk. The vehicles can now be disabled before getting destroyed which allows for passengers to bail out or engineer to repair. Dice did this so one bad driver does not make their whole team mad by getting them killed right away.
We did not get to play with the character setups but they did show that for the weapon attachments there are more options than before with things like the bi-pod, which your player will set-up when you lay prone or are up against a flat surface giving you more accuracy. Or you can equip a flashlight, which will blind enemies in dark areas a close range as well as let you see better. Additionally, the vehicles can be customized with different types of optics and secondary weapons. even your dog tags can be customized in Battlefield 3. The match we played was a Rush game set on a map in Paris. It started in a park, and then went into the subway and finished up in a tight urban city area. The way the environment changed from section to section was really fun and made it important to work with your team to be sure you have weapon load-outs appropriate for each situation.
With an October 25th release date, we still have a while to wait for Battlefield 3 to release. From what I played, it will be well worth the wait.
