All this MW3 chat is making me rather ill, So lets talk Battlefield. I am not going to comment on the single player component for the sake of fairness since I have not played more than 30 minutes of it. The multiplayer on the other hand is a completely different story…

I won’t bore you with the details of what the game contains, the number of maps, guns, modes etc. I feel that you can find that information anywhere on the internet. Here is what I think of the core game though.

You spawn in your squad-mates helicopter as he is hovering over the enemy M-COM stations you have been commanded to destroy. You quickly switch to the side mounted gatling gun to rain bullets down upon the enemy. Your squad-mate tries to fly around and steady the bird, but to no avail. Your bullets miss practically the whole world. No matter! You jump out of the heli and whip out your parachute while bullets whizz around you. You look up to see a missile fly directly where you used to be and the remains of your burning squad-mates hurting towards the ground. Close call. Hitting the ground with a thud you immediately prone and double tap an approaching engineer with your red dot scoped SCAR assault rifle. You sprint up to the M-COM station as a tank explodes beside you, blurring your vision. You see some allied soldiers pinned down by a heavy MG and then witness a RPG removing them from the face of the earth. Suddenly you hear 3 small thuds as a sniper peppers you with holes. You fall to the ground your vision fading before finally going black. You then see which fucker killed you, how many times he has before and what gun he did it with.

It is these type of moments that make me absolutely love Battlefield 3. It makes you feel like you are actually participating in a war. If you achieve something good, it actually feels heroic and you’ll be rewarded for it.

What about the nitty gritty stuff? The graphics, even on the Xbox 360 (The worst graphics version of the game) looks absolutely brilliant. Smoke effects, lighting and just the textures all blend in to give a truly realistic feel. Even the camera shakes and blurs when under suppressive fire or near explosions.

There is a traditional levelling up system similar to that of previous games and it works perfectly fine. You feel rewarded with a big wad of points after a log gruelling game and you can receive various badges and medals for completing challenges.

The combat itself is weighted and feels great. It is satisfying to fire the massive range of weapons and vehicles, especially driving them jets. Infact all aircraft in the game are absolutely brilliant. Although quite difficult to drive they offer a fantastically rewarding experience if you manage to pull off a few kills and assist your team.

I love the way that you are rewarded for teamwork. It definitely shows when you have good squads who work together, covering each other and backing each other up. Unlike certain other first person war shooters, it doesn’t feel like you are just playing by yourself even though you are in a team.

Well whats bad about it then. The only thing I can honestly think of is a common problem across all multiplayer games ever created. You need to be semi-competent or you won’t enjoy it. No game is fun if you die all the time but to keep a fair environment not much can be done to assist new players. Just practise makes perfect!

War. War never changes. Battlefield brings war into your home, where you can sit down beside a nice warm fire with a cold beer and help your team to victory. It immerses you so much that you will be on the edge of your seat shouting at the screen for your friends to help you. You’ll even feel a twinge of sadness if your squad gets mowed down around you. If I had to describe it in one word: Beautiful.

A+