Extra Punctuation: Battlefield 3 Is Scary

[Eveonline100]

I wonder how he feels about MW2/3's enemies, which was the equally strong and technologically powerful Russian Army

in mw2 yeah kinda to a degree but in mw3 it pretty much full russian getting owned by the US miltray more to the point i stil wouldn't mind these if they brothered to fleshed out the villians and most importently give resaon for the conflict besides russian/arabs suck US is god. Or to put it another way explain to me the entire motvations for Bf3 villian and war for that matter.

 

[Xman490]

I like how you quickly mini-review some games (like Space Marine a few weeks ago) in these EPs.

"Sightseeing tour", huh? That's what you called Portal 2, and it makes sense when you think about it. As Portal 2 goes on, more and more in-game scenes happen (such as two spliced chambers being smashed together), and the mere spectacle adds nothing to the gameplay by instead focusing on presentation. The masses (myself included) tend to love these displays, but as another of my favored reviewers (acornfilms on Youtube) has said, "[The core would be] PLAY over disPLAY".

 

[IndianaJonny]

Putting together modern shooters is one thing, but releasing them just before Armistice Day/Remembrance Day is in really bad taste.

 

[The Cheshire]

I absolutely agree eith you on this issue, actually it's been a recurrent conversation with a friend of mine. These games that surround around the basic concept of "killing brown people" also sicken me with all it's militaristic erections, the display of heavy machinery with pride is almost like a reaction to a pathological small penis complex.

I really don't like military shooters, those levels that revolve around air bombing (like in CoD4) are particularly bothersome when it comes to masturbating your cock with power fantasy.

I say, add some more civilians in the game, just make the bombing a little more realistic, maybe players will not react the same. Or maybe they'll think it's more fun, "look at those towelheads exploding, looool, let me kiss my american flag".

 

[Baradiel]

Bidning of Isaac is freaking amazing! It cost me £3-ish and Ive had dozens of hours of enjoyment in it. Competed with housemates and friends to see who could kill Mom first.

Also, theres a subtle Christianity vibe (read: bleeding obvious from items and enemies) which I quite like. It's not a positive look at it, but even someone who is Christian would find interest in all the different references.

 

[The Random One]

Hell yeah, Binding of Isaac is awesome. And Technology isn't even the most overpowered powerup. Wait until you get Brimstone. It turned the final boss into a quick time event.

Don't quit reviewing big AAA games, Yahtzee. Someone needs to tell them they're wrong.

 

[Alandoril]

I too find it hard to sympathise with people who have all the might of the modern western military behind them going up against (usually invading) those with tech that was outdated even at the end of the cold war or even less resources than that.

The governments of the western world do not wage wars any more. A war is a conflict you could actually lose.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You know, give me a chance to take this back after the year's Christmas release schedule has dried up, but sometimes I seriously consider putting my money where my mouth is, retiring from reviewing triple-A big-commerce games altogether and concentrating entirely on indie releases, because that seems to be the only avenue where anything interesting happens

Would that we had a system that allowed people to follow their dreams instead of being sucked into following the unobtainable one built from the backs of dirty underdog foreigners.

Keep dreaming high Yahtzee.

 

[Gatx]

"I'd prefer a game to just set up its physics and let awesome set pieces occur naturally," Battlefield 3 has that. It's in the multiplayer. The part of the game that people actually bought the game for, instead of the tacked on, ridiculously short single-player campaign.

 

[BrotherRool]

i feel there's space for sightseeing tours and the other type of more open natural game. Space for Skyrim and Arkhum Asylum [yes this is a jibe at your saying City could have been more linear and focussed whilst saying this this week]

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Yahtzee, bait fanboys occasionally by reviewing some indie game, for instance, I'd like to see you review a couple indies you actually liked tomorrow just to piss off the MW3 crowd. You could have done the same thing with BF3 since I already knew how you were going to review it since the single player sucked balls.

 

[Baradiel]

"Sightseeing tour", huh? That's what you called Portal 2, and it makes sense when you think about it. As Portal 2 goes on, more and more in-game scenes happen (such as two spliced chambers being smashed together), and the mere spectacle adds nothing to the gameplay by instead focusing on presentation. The masses (myself included) tend to love these displays, but as another of my favored reviewers (acornfilms on Youtube) has said, "[The core would be] PLAY over disPLAY".

I loved that bit too, and if I remember correctly (probably not. Haven't played Portal 2 in months :/) that bit is when

Spoiler

Wheatly has taken control and doesn't know what he's doing.

That would have been designed to show how little control he has.

Also, weren't there also differences in the puzzles? Literally cannot remember.

 

[Nenad]

"But imagine what the developers of The Binding Of Isaac might come up with if someone took a risk and gave them creative control, funding and a team to make something on a cutting edge level. You probably wouldn't even get through the opening scroll without throwing up."

I would like to see this so MUCH.

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.

Also this, interesting idea mate.

 

[ElPatron]

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.

Modern Warfare 2 averted this trope by having the US Navy bombing the crap out of the Gulag where TF141 operators were "operating".

But they wouldn't bomb a oil rig because of a dozen of hostages. Eh.

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."

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.

Or you didn't pay attention to that ZP episode. Each time a wall is taken down, a building collapses, etc it's the developers hinting at how powerful the engine is.

MP is full of "Look at Frostbite 2!!!" moments because honestly it is what you are looking at.

 

[Sean951]

You mean people actually expect the single player in a shooting game to have a decent story or to try and justify war? I don't know about anyone else, but the reason I like the Battlefield series (1942 and BF2) is the large, open maps and the ability to use the vehicles. Get tired of killing each other? Have a jeep race, or try and to stupid aerial maneuvers in the planes.

 

[CD-R]

Wow this is crazy- I only just posted this in another thread-

That said, people theorising that expanded content = less interesting story is also true. But this is not the fault of the genre, or even the mechanics of the game. It is purely a conceptual mistake, with dev teams thinking that maximum freedom with a large range of toys is enough work done, without giving us meaningful things to do with them.

A perfect example from another Genre is Battlefield 3- it's got jets, and choppers and tanks and jeeps, but how many singleplayer missions took place entirely within any of those vehicles? Battlefield has all the tools and kit at it's disposal to create the most varied, wide reaching kind of singleplayer gameplay this side of ARMA II- and they utterly blew it because their creative team are, like many creative teams, just programmers at heart. This is why Crysis games always look so good but utterly waste the potential of any plot they have, as do most other games that shoot for cutting edge graphics above all else.

Oh and by the way:

Cues, and a restriction of choice, often lead to the player's greatest enjoyment of a videogame

I find the complete opposite is true. Walking into a courtyard in Call of Duty and seeing a skyscraper fall over or whatever doesn't interest me at all, because I know it's scripted, and will happen that way every single time. Sometimes the game even forces your view towards it. Getting lost in the wilderness in GTA and finally stumbling across a road, and seeing a dirt bike pull up at some lights only to have a 4WD brake too late and shunt the rider right off his bike? Unscripted? Completely random?

Now that's enjoyment

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.

The weird thing is that pretty much how Battlefield Bad Company 1's single player campaign played. It took place on big open maps and had multiple ways to approach an objective. You know like how Battlefield is supposed to be played. Battlefield is not a linear corridor shooter like Call of Duty or Halo. It's single player campaign should reflect that. I don't why they decided to go that direction, maybe the people who designed Bad Company 1's single player were laid off in one of those EA lay off sprees. If that's the case bring them back. Also put in the dinosaur survival mode that Battlefield 3 was rumored to have.

 

[mfeff]

I absolutely despise modern military shooters, and patriotism. Bertrand Russell said: "Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."

While I personally like Russell's and Whiteheads work on the Principia, I am also reminded that the declaration of independence of the US was fashioned on the rhythmical styling of Locke's treatise concerning natural rights. The exception being the Thomas Jefferson change of of "right of property" to "pursue happiness". If again, to pull from experience, most of those that I have known that have served in the modern armed forces were asked, "why did you sign up"? The answers having some degree of range trend to "good deal", "shoot guns", with maybe 10% or less referencing some vague concept of patriotism. Strikes me as a "pursuit of happiness" as any... perhaps misguided values... but who is to say?

That being said, what Bertrand said seems true to a degree, especially in the context in which it was written, however, holds little water for reasons today. Like anything Patriotism is more of an excuse after the fact as justification, rather than the causal reason to engage in conflicts.

To reel this back into topic, BF3 SP demonstrates a nuclear detonation in Paris, now, that done, the trope, meme, or what have you, of "reason" is immediately justified by the "see, that is what happens when one does not act". It is a very "minority report" construct of modern civilization, even if 20/20 hindsight, has not happened yet. The idea that it "could" happen is all the justification in the world to coerce poorly educated landless peasants into whatever action is the most profitable and to that end, possible.

To address Bertrand again, is to ask the question, what is "not a trivial reason" to be killed or kill? In the context of the post modern existential nightmare of pseudo narcissistic nihilism, life is pointless and with respect to life, death is also pointless. So... why not?

Why not kill people and die for resources? Isn't that the LCD of all conflict? What could be more American than to get someone else to do it for one self?

 

[Wolfram23]

Speaking as someone who was locked in a cupboard for my entire childhood before my parents grudgingly allowed me to go to a very private school - The Binding of Isaac is not funny.

 

[oldtaku]

Hint for the Binding of Isaac players: use a gamepad (and get joy2key if you have one that doesn't natively support key mapping).

Dual analogs are much better for Robotron play even when they're digitally mapped.