Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 is part of a new generation of games that focuses almost exclusively on the multiplayer aspect of gameplay. Its single player, though better than that of the previous instalment, still leaves much to be desired. As such, I'll only be discussing the multiplayer component of Battlefield 3 in this blog post, particularly about the aspects I find noteworthy and unique.

Battlefield 3's single greatest strength is how it facilitates teamwork like no other game. When playing one of the objective-based game modes (e.g. Rush or Conquest), you can choose to spawn on someone in your squad instead of some random or faraway location in the map, unlike in most first-person shooters. And before you spawn on a fellow squad member you get a real-time view of what you will be seeing if you were to spawn at that moment. That way, you know exactly what to expect once you get back into the game and whether it's actually a good idea to spawn on that squad member at all. The game also allows you to "spot" enemies for your team-mates so that they show up on your team-mates' HUDs, and you actually get credit for "spotting" enemies that are killed soon after.

"Kill stealing" is also something that happens a lot in multiplayer FPS games, most games alleviate this annoyance by giving you an assist if you damaged an enemy that was killed by someone else on your team. Battlefield 3 takes it a step further, not only does it have assists, but it rewards you a number of points equal to the number of health points you took away from an enemy. For example, if you did 90 points of damage to an enemy and one of your team-mates ends up killing him, you get 90 points and your team-mate gets 100 points. This is the fairest system I've seen so far for dealing with "kill stealing."

Destructible environments is the next highlight of Battlefield 3. If you see an enemy shooting at you from a window and you see them duck, just pull out your grenade launcher or RPG and shoot at the part of the wall your enemy's hiding behind. The enemy will be killed, injured, or at least have their cover destroyed, any of which is to your advantage. Let's see you do that in Modern Warfare 3!

Battlefield 3 is highly underrated compared to Modern Warfare 3. Perhaps its advertising budget is relatively lower. Perhaps its weaker single player undermines its overall standing. Regardless, I think Battlefield 3 goes beyond the call of duty.