Extra Punctuation: Battlefield 3 Is Scary
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
I totally get the point about how it doesn't really feel like you are the underdog whatsoever in Black Ops or BF3 campaign (The prison escape in BO is one exception). There are so many parts where the protagonist is completely outnumbered to give us a sense of a challenge and I'm wondering why the US Air Force doesn't just show up and bomb the ever living out of the enemy. It kind of reduces the emotional impact my character's actions have when I know that even if I fail there are like a million more soldiers who are backing me up.
Skyrim is the only triple A im interested in at the moment, and I like the fact that it never shoves anything down your throat, its nice and open
I've never really been into most of the war shooters, Modern, WWII or whatever. I think this touches on why, to some extent. That and xbox live is a nest of evil.
So many of Yahtzee's articles are like this. He starts by making interesting observations on game design and then can't be fucked finishing them; becoming either really tangental or just going somewhere completely unrelated. It's like he's got ADD or something.
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I've often played "realistic" shooters and wondered about the lives of my enemies as I killed them, I mean almost all the enemies and npcs look like they are about 30 or older in the games. So I have to wonder just how many years of life I removed in a single level, but it also strikes me as weird that almost all the npcs look about 30, I mean most solders are around 20 or so, but you never see waves and waves of really young looking men getting mowed down.
Hmmm, I like the idea of having this huge military behind you but it can seem rather one sided when you've got bomber support that probably cost more then the country your in has ever seen, I wonder how a realistic war game would go if you had to actually worry about your foreign image and how your solders were seen in the country you were in. Like in the first desert storm there was a highway full of Iraq vehicles that we just blew the fuck out of so much so that the military decided it was best if we limited media coverage of it since we managed to take out so much of the Iraq army there that it started to look rather war crimie. I think it might be interesting to see a game where you still had to eliminate your enemies but you also had to be careful about your actions and not destroy too much or make your enemy start to appear sympathetic since that would sway international opinion and influence more people to fight you.
Hmmm, I like the idea of having this huge military behind you but it can seem rather one sided when you've got bomber support that probably cost more then the country your in has ever seen, I wonder how a realistic war game would go if you had to actually worry about your foreign image and how your solders were seen in the country you were in. Like in the first desert storm there was a highway full of Iraq vehicles that we just blew the fuck out of so much so that the military decided it was best if we limited media coverage of it since we managed to take out so much of the Iraq army there that it started to look rather war crimie. I think it might be interesting to see a game where you still had to eliminate your enemies but you also had to be careful about your actions and not destroy too much or make your enemy start to appear sympathetic since that would sway international opinion and influence more people to fight you.
Wow this is crazy- I only just posted this in another thread-
It just makes it all the more crushing a disappointment to see battlefield tossing out it's wide expanses for exploration, to instead go with narrow channeled scripted corridor sections- just like COD.
What a complete and utter waste of potential.
See, from the very start I've always thought Battlefield had this enormous potential for varied singleplayer missions with all it's weapons and vehicles. Just one look at the insane variety of Battlefield's grand-daddy Codename Eagle shows what can be done. Operation Flashpoint, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and later the ARMA series are really showing how you can have a true open world warfare game with emergent gameplay- and this fits right up Battlefield's alley.
It just makes it all the more crushing a disappointment to see battlefield tossing out it's wide expanses for exploration, to instead go with narrow channeled scripted corridor sections- just like COD.
What a complete and utter waste of potential.
Yeah, I've got Isaac from the latest Humble Bundle sale, and while it's like a lot of things I've played/seen, it's also unlike anything. It's like Zelda on crack and with Mega Man as the protagonist (...a naked Mega Man). Pretty weird but I love it so far. Couldn't beat it yet though.
Realistically if they gave the developers of The Binding Isaac creative control and funding, you'd find them making the same game over and over because, in all honesty, that's what makes money these days.
I buy many games, but still there have been none that matched the queues and sell outs I had to face for MW3.
It's a shame but indie games will never garner the same brand respect and recognition.
I buy many games, but still there have been none that matched the queues and sell outs I had to face for MW3.
It's a shame but indie games will never garner the same brand respect and recognition.
The single player mode of the BF3 game simply takes the media "war" that most Americans have been experiencing for the last 10 years and churns it out into a "game". Most of what I "experienced" with the game that related to what Yahtzee said, seemed to be copy pasted from "wiki leaks".
What does it say about the industry? I am not sure it says anything meaningful, but I "do" think it says a lot about EA. Let's keep in mind BF3 is brought to us by the same distinguished company that brought us 2142. An excellent game, without a story, but one that allows the player to "generate" a story considering the situation. Arguably, 2142 is in every way, except visual fidelity, better than BF3.
Now if I were to take the M rating of BF3 at face value, and say that 18 year old's were purchasing it, they were "8" when these wars started. What I want to really hit home here, is that the middle east conflicts are becoming a "right of passage" for American youth. Another thing to consider is that America is a rather ultra violent culture within the youth set.
As far as "what it is" to be "American" or how "Americans" see things? I would simply point to Dennis Prager on the topic. Most American's couldn't tell you much of anything about America, not with any consistency. What this game does, is speak to a lower middle class/ upper poverty class perception of the middle eastern conflicts and sells it hard through the EA fist pump and dump.
The real question will be what will be the retention of DICE player base after BF3, considering the dramatic departure of what the series has done in the past.
What does it say about the industry? I am not sure it says anything meaningful, but I "do" think it says a lot about EA. Let's keep in mind BF3 is brought to us by the same distinguished company that brought us 2142. An excellent game, without a story, but one that allows the player to "generate" a story considering the situation. Arguably, 2142 is in every way, except visual fidelity, better than BF3.
Now if I were to take the M rating of BF3 at face value, and say that 18 year old's were purchasing it, they were "8" when these wars started. What I want to really hit home here, is that the middle east conflicts are becoming a "right of passage" for American youth. Another thing to consider is that America is a rather ultra violent culture within the youth set.
As far as "what it is" to be "American" or how "Americans" see things? I would simply point to Dennis Prager on the topic. Most American's couldn't tell you much of anything about America, not with any consistency. What this game does, is speak to a lower middle class/ upper poverty class perception of the middle eastern conflicts and sells it hard through the EA fist pump and dump.
The real question will be what will be the retention of DICE player base after BF3, considering the dramatic departure of what the series has done in the past.
I absolutely despise modern military shooters, and patriotism. Bertrand Russell said: "Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
I wonder how he feels about MW2/3's enemies, which was the equally strong and technologically powerful Russian Army
This reminds me of how freaked out I was by the laughing and joking in Modern Warfare's AC130 level. I think back then they might have been trying to make a point with it, but that point got lost when MW2 came out.
Patriotism, though, is not to be confused with nationalism or fascism. Being a patriot means you're proud of your nationality and you want what's best for your country. It has very little to do with war (and nothing to do with hating other nations, by the way).
Patriotism, though, is not to be confused with nationalism or fascism. Being a patriot means you're proud of your nationality and you want what's best for your country. It has very little to do with war (and nothing to do with hating other nations, by the way).
BF3 spoiler below.
But maybe I'm just totally not seeing the same things as Yahtzee. For example Yahtzee said in his BF3 sketch "Battlefield 3 was built on the Frostbite 2 engine. I know this for a fact because it can't go 5 minutes without banging on about it."
Now we must have different games because to me it only shows a Frostbite 2 logo at the very start of the game and once in the credits(dur)... Apart from that no mention of it what-so-ever. If you play the MP it never even shows you a Frostbite 2 logo at all. So yeah, to me it seems like we have different versions of the game.
Or like one of us didn't really pay much attention to the game.
OK I thought the Russians weren't the bad guys in BF3... I thought they were the good guys too.
At the end of the game one of the main Russian protagonists becomes the main focus of the game. The hero that sacrifices his life to actually save America (Time Square) / the world from another US/Russian war. In fact that's the end-game movie where he presumably commits suicide.
It's the Russians in BF3 that let the Americans know that this Solomon dude has the nukes and is about to blow up Time Square. It's a Russian squad that tries to get these nukes back. (Level in the pool house)
It's actually one of the points which I gave as a benefit to the BF3 single player. Finally the Russians in a game aren't the bad guys.
In fact the two main bad guys are: that Solomon character and the American Feds who fail to believe that the nukes are out there and do nothing to try and stop the imminent catastrophe.
At the end of the game one of the main Russian protagonists becomes the main focus of the game. The hero that sacrifices his life to actually save America (Time Square) / the world from another US/Russian war. In fact that's the end-game movie where he presumably commits suicide.
It's the Russians in BF3 that let the Americans know that this Solomon dude has the nukes and is about to blow up Time Square. It's a Russian squad that tries to get these nukes back. (Level in the pool house)
It's actually one of the points which I gave as a benefit to the BF3 single player. Finally the Russians in a game aren't the bad guys.
In fact the two main bad guys are: that Solomon character and the American Feds who fail to believe that the nukes are out there and do nothing to try and stop the imminent catastrophe.
Now we must have different games because to me it only shows a Frostbite 2 logo at the very start of the game and once in the credits(dur)... Apart from that no mention of it what-so-ever. If you play the MP it never even shows you a Frostbite 2 logo at all. So yeah, to me it seems like we have different versions of the game.
Or like one of us didn't really pay much attention to the game.
Not to shunt the discussion into politics, but I think this dichotomy is also represented in the current evolution of American patriotism: We at once celebrate the overwhelming power of our military and the ability it gives us to dictate to other nations, and at the same time perceive ourselves as the misunderstood underdogs, struggling to guide a world that just doesn't see how right we are.
It's some bizarre mental contortion when you really think about it, and I can certainly see why many of those outside (and within) this nation don't understand it.
It's some bizarre mental contortion when you really think about it, and I can certainly see why many of those outside (and within) this nation don't understand it.
Spot on Yathzee, spot on. I'm not going to totally discount modern shooters based on the American military might because there are people who genuinely enjoy gunning down waves of ill equipped foreigners, but this form of gameplay holds no appeal for me because it does not give me any grand sense of challenge--there are only arbitrary, circumstantial challenges. I think Half-Life is a good a example: a nerdy physics researches is forced to defend mankind against hordes of aliens with nothing but a crow bar in his hand.
Similarly, in strategy games, I'd rather be the doomed defenders of a fortress against an unending sea of infantry and siege weapons. Sure, sometimes it's fun to just be a part of the horde, but that experience feeling is just as fleeting as its origin.
Similarly, in strategy games, I'd rather be the doomed defenders of a fortress against an unending sea of infantry and siege weapons. Sure, sometimes it's fun to just be a part of the horde, but that experience feeling is just as fleeting as its origin.