Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Nowadays, first person shooters are in every style and flavor. If you like to shoot zombies, aliens, cowboys, and terrorists, there's likely a game designed just for you. And the great thing is, in each of those categories, there's a reigning champion. Now, let's be honest. On the realistic, military side of FPSs, it basically boils down to two competitors: Modern Warfare and the Battlefield franchises. I could go all day comparing the two with a fine toothed comb, but I'll spare you all the nitty gritty. Basically, what Battlefield has done is taken the formula for expansive, realistic, immersive gameplay, and pumped it full of steroids. If destructible environments were your best friends against campers, you'll love the minute details of everything that can blow up or crumble in this game. If you loved being able to take a jeep or truck it on foot, you'll get dizzy flying all the different aircrafts they've now made available.

But we knew that all this was coming. Let's talk about the things everyone compares. Graphics. Basically, if your play box can handle the rendering, it's the best FPS on the market now. And if you've got the PS3 or 360 version, it's not too shabby either. The sound is spot on. The explosions and big booms are still great but it's the small things that make you feel like you're really riding side by side with America's best. The suppression fire whizzing past you makes your heart jump and even blurs your screen a bit. Even reloading the cartridge sounds amazingly accurate enough to remind me of my last visit to a gun range.

But all of this tech talk is nothing without a great multiplayer experience right? Well BF3 has done it again. It's a truly balanced game. No one weapon feels like the Master Sword, where your entire experience is only climaxed by obtaining the weapon that gives you the supreme edge. Every weapon has a different feel and is balanced in a way that more or less, gives players options to choose what feature is important to them. Slower rate of fire for more power? Greater accuracy but less damage? The weapon add-ons are even better. The addition of items like the bipod, tactical light and laser sight are brilliantly woven into the gameplay. Shine your light on your opponents to blind them, but give away your position to surrounding enemies. Scope in to acquire your target but the flash from your scope might be caught in the corner of your nemesis' eye.

That said, with all greatness, there are still some minor quibbles like server issues early on closer to release date and crash bugs that sometimes leave you hanging on a loading screen. But all in all, as these patches keep coming to continue fine tuning a great game, I'm thoroughly satisfied by this latest iteration from a franchise that seems to know what people want and are competent enough to execute on it.