E3: Tanks for the 8 Minutes of Battlefield 3 Gameplay, EA

[John Funk]

E3: Tanks for the 8 Minutes of Battlefield 3 Gameplay, EA

Tank-based desert combat and dinosaurs? This game has everything!

EA showed off this live onstage demo of DICE's upcoming at its E3 2011 press conference [http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-3-Limited-Pc/dp/B002I0HJZO/], but now you can watch it without all the annoying speakers and sports games getting in the way.

[video=3444]

In it, Corporal Jono Miller, one of the game's new protagonists, plays with a toy dinosaur given to him by his son before he and his tank battalion engage enemy tanks of an unspecified nature. It's full of explosions, and features some neat variety in gameplay - I'm not sure why Corporal Miller is the one calling in airstrikes instead of a higher-up, but let's just run with it.

On the one hand, this game looks stunning and the tank combat seems engaging - and given that the Battlefield games have always had vehicle play, that's a good thing. On the other hand, it's really hard to feel like you're being threatened and challenged when you're mowing down fleeing enemies on foot from the well-armored cockpit of one of the most fearsome war machines ever created.

I guess you can't have everything after all.

See all our coverage directly from the show floor. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/e3_2011]

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[Vrach]

On the other hand, it's really hard to feel like you're being threatened and challenged when you're mowing down fleeing enemies on foot from the well-armored cockpit of one of the most fearsome war machines ever created.

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that this isn't the final difficulty, but rather the one appropriate for demoing something at a huge ass convention where you would ruin the whole thing by dying. Battlefield tanks have never been able to withstand that much damage, I think the tank in the video had a healing ability (you can see it getting critical a few times and then it going away after a while).

It could also just be a sort of a bonus spectacle fighting mission. Kinda like you not really being able to die randomly while escaping through various CoD death scenarios despite shrapnel flying all around you.

 

[Keava]

I'm not a big fan of shooters. Especially not the realistic war scenario ones. But damn. This games looks pretty. I'm tempted to get it just to jump around in single-player and push my hardware to the limits with this engine. Must...resist...eye-candy.

I well remember CGI's that looked worse.

 

[TheComfyChair]

The tank also had some sort of god mode enabled there was no sign of any damage, and there's no way it shrugged off those 20+ hits when normally they took about 5 in SP in bc2.

 

[Coldster]

I know were not supposed to be left with a biased opinion of the game after watching a trailer or playing a demo, but damn this looks good!

 

[Awexsome]

Looks good... but lets see some console version of this first. Bad company was a snoozefest online with only 12v12 on such big maps and almost all the gameplay has been on highest grade PC stuff.

If they want to come even close to CoD they'll need to show just as strong on consoles as they will for the PC.

 

[Wolfram23]

That looks SO AWESOME!

Yeah... now show me the jets!

 

[Owlslayer]

Looks damn gorgeous. I don't think my PC can run it, though....
Damn.
But I'd love to see some multiplayer gameplay. Especially the jets. And everything else, too.

 

[The Urban Moose]

I was never very good at tank warfare in battlefield... but still, what a cool trailer!

 

[The Random One]

It still looks like Battlefield: Call of Duty, but now I'm starting to grow fond of it.

So THAT'S where the dinosaur was.

 

[Waif]

This looks pretty cool ^~^!

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

The tank also had some sort of god mode enabled there was no sign of any damage, and there's no way it shrugged off those 20+ hits when normally they took about 5 in SP in bc2.

Well, a lot of those hits were nearby, not direct. Moreover, the outlines of the tanks is very similar to the profile of the BMP-3 infantry carrier, which is only armed with a 100mm main gun, as opposed to the 125mm carried by the Russian T-90 MBT which would be a better opponent for an M-1A2 Abrams. In addition, the Abrams tank has reactive armor plating which can defeat most rounds before being able to take a direct hit, and those 100mm guns are damned near useless against the composite armor on an Abrams. Plus, given the sleek profile of the Abrams and the decidedly horizontal trajectory of the rounds means that a lot of them will glance off the top of the hull or turret without getting a detonation to penetrate.

Also, I just caked this awesome trailer with several tons of pure nerd. Well, I stand by it.

 

[CD-R]

Damn you and your misleading tag line John. I thought they were going to be including some crazy dinosaur fighting mode with Battlefield 3. You know as way to compete with Call of Duty's zombies thing. Just kidding but yeah that does look pretty cool. Also was that an A 10 that flew over the base? It would be really cool if you could fly those in Multiplayer.

 

[JohnDoey]

Looks good... but lets see some console version of this first. Bad company was a snoozefest online with only 12v12 on such big maps and almost all the gameplay has been on highest grade PC stuff.

If they want to come even close to CoD they'll need to show just as strong on consoles as they will for the PC.

On consoles it's apparently still 12v12 but with smaller versions of the same maps on the pc which are 32v32.

 

[KiraTaureLor]

It Looks very pretty, might be prettier than the new COD.

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

I came a little . Holy fucking shit, the audio was amazing. I feel bad for people choosing that other war game over this masterpiece.

 

[Cpt. Red]

The tank also had some sort of god mode enabled there was no sign of any damage, and there's no way it shrugged off those 20+ hits when normally they took about 5 in SP in bc2.

I'm pretty sue that god mode was on as it was a live demo...

 

[Adam Galli]

I actually thought about joining the army to be a tank gunner lol. Real M1A2 Abrams tank could destroy those tanks from about 3km away(see battle of medina ridge, 1991) with out the enemy even seeing them, but its more fun for us they have you get close

 

[Raikov]

Looks good... but lets see some console version of this first. Bad company was a snoozefest online with only 12v12 on such big maps and almost all the gameplay has been on highest grade PC stuff.

If they want to come even close to CoD they'll need to show just as strong on consoles as they will for the PC.

On consoles it's apparently still 12v12 but with smaller versions of the same maps on the pc which are 32v32.

Problem is the limited hardware of consoles. Especially the lack of RAM. The PS3 only have 256 megs of it.

If you remember the original Red Faction, I bet you also remembered the amounts of RAM you needed to get a decent terrain destruction effect going.

If you wanna whine about Dice not programming good enough for consoles, just get Sony and Microsoft to release decent hardware.

 

[JohnDoey]

Looks good... but lets see some console version of this first. Bad company was a snoozefest online with only 12v12 on such big maps and almost all the gameplay has been on highest grade PC stuff.

If they want to come even close to CoD they'll need to show just as strong on consoles as they will for the PC.

On consoles it's apparently still 12v12 but with smaller versions of the same maps on the pc which are 32v32.

Problem is the limited hardware of consoles. Especially the lack of RAM. The PS3 only have 256 megs of it.

If you remember the original Red Faction, I bet you also remembered the amounts of RAM you needed to get a decent terrain destruction effect going.

If you wanna whine about Dice not programming good enough for consoles, just get Sony and Microsoft to release decent hardware.

Thats not whining it's a statement, I couldn't care less about battlefield 3 or what Dice does.