So I am 40 hours into playing Battlefield 3 now. Why do I keep playing a game that I hate so much? Mostly because I hate how difficult it is. I've gone on about that way too much already. The problems still remain and you learn to work through them as you gain familiarity with all of the diverse game mechanics involved with the whole BF3 experience.
On The Other Hand... I got 3 things with my BF3 game:
- A pass to play online without getting bonked for an additional $10 (that apparently you have to pay if you rent the game!?)
- Downloadable content: Return to Karkand & the Advanced Ballistics whatever...
- Downloadable content: Battlefield 1943 - The Whole Game
Perhaps in one of the mildly hallucinatory pits of my slightly disturbing adrenaline curves that seem to accompany playing this game I started poking at BF1943.
WOW!
This is a Whole Different Experience! Certain things are missing, sure: Crawling on the ground fully prone, quick-switch to pistol when you're out of ammo & animations showing who killed you & most noticeably the Knife
However - and this is a weird thing to find myself saying - the graphics not being so intense actually makes the game more enjoyable. The stark noon-day-beach lighting applied to every map - the absence of the 1,001 distracting little animated objects blowing around - and the higher contrast of the enemies against their background - all of these contribute to what amounts to an easier game.
I have been playing this more or less exclusively now for several days and I find myself getting just as engaged in it, but I don't get stressed out by it. Interestingly the voice-overs don't seem to include the word 'fuck' at all - whereas in BF3 every sentence uses it as punctuation. I find it odd that I even notice that but the absence of it is conspicuous when you switch from one to the other.
I am certain that I picked up BF1943 faster because of the intensity of learning to aim & run & throw grenades in BF3 in live combat. Ironically I love the tutorial mode in 1943. This is a deal-changer. If they simply added a similar tutorial mode in BF3 where you can walk around a base & try out all kits & all of the vehicles - on their own - the game would be far more enjoyable for beginners and casual players when people played on-line.
The only thing that I can point out as being weird and negative is the odd sort of Japanese stereotypes that seem to appear in the graphics. I try to ignore it as there is nothing that is distinctly offensive - but it is very very weird and surreal.
