a game that delivers on both single and multiplayer fronts, but in the end feels like a taste of things to come.
DICE has created a new game engine, the Frostbite engine, featuring detailed graphics, capable of rendering lots of terrain, units and explosions without hiccups on the xbox 360 and the ps3, but it's strength lies in the particular perk of: Destructability
By focusing exclusively on the consoles in this new installment, DICE really tried to differentiate this game from the remaining Battlefield games, so they created a single player mode to showcase the capabilities of the new engine, which also serves to warm players up for the multiplayer aspect.
Personally, I got this game for the sake of it having Battlefield written on the box, so that was a warranty of good multiplayer, but, jumping into the single player, I was surprised with the documentary style of the cutscenes and the light humour that the characters provided. The story has a simple setup, with some influences from "Three Kings", "Band of Brothers" and it makes a good use of the stereotypical cast of war movies, presenting a squad composed of the "veteran sergeant", the nerdy "this is a bad idea" guy, the "lets blow this up" man and the "new guy" which will be the one through whose eyes we see the story unfold.
Soon we are thrown into the war field, and what grabbed my attention immediately was the feeling of the weapons. The sound of weapons being fired is incredible. while on the open ground it echoes through miles, inside of a small building it's really loud, bullets flying near you sound like a whistling threat, explosions sound like they'll make you deaf...the sound in this game is really well conveyed.
The story is blockbuster war movie fare, it is not surprising, but it fits, and the progression has the right build up, it has a slow beginning, to show you the ropes and then it evolves into a tale of 4 men detracted from the war they were thrown into, to chase something that could set their lives right when it's all over. it has some references to Three Kings and while its not a surprising campaign you'll feel it was definately a good ride.
But where the game shines is in the Online modes, with Gold rush in the package, but with a map pack and the Conquest mode now available for free at the Live marketplace.
Conquest is just like its pc counterparts. There's an assortment of huge maps, with control points spread, which each team has to capture in the way of approaching a flag. When a team controls a flag, all players of the team can respawn there, and each team starts with an amount of points which decrease when the other team has more flag captures overall. Then there's gold rush, which pits a Defenders agains Attackers, in maps with gold boxes, defenders start in a gold box area and if attackers are to succeed in destroying it then the defenders retreat to another gold box area on the map, until there's no gold box areas.
Those who may think these modes only seem to provide the same old online FPS thrills
would be surprised by the depth of team work, since there's distinct classes to choose, and each team is divided in squads, letting the player respawn near squad mates, and with each class being allowing for different kinds of support. Recon, Assault, Engineer...you get it. Also there's the frostbite engine backing the online gameplay delivering a level of destruction not seen on other games of this kind.
When a match ends, you may be surprised by a skyview of the map showing the crumbling buildings and craters that you witnessed or had a hand in provoking.
To complement the awesome gameplay, there's a ranking system, lots of kit unlocks, like airstrikes, c4, health injector, weapons...
So here it is, a game that delivers on both single and multiplayer fronts, still with a small online community, but in the end feels like a taste of things to come.
Absolutely recommended