Battlefield 3 (Campaign)

TL;DR – Battlefield 3’s campaign is honestly a bit hopeless, in the sense that I would not recommend it to anyone. It’s essentially a Call of Duty campaign, from the pacing through to the tone with a pretty big caveat. Namely that Battlefield 3 has a lower TTK (time-to-kill) which screws up the pacing in multiple sections of the game. As you’d expect the entire campaign has the usual OH MY GOD FALSE SENSE OF URGENCY AAAAAAAAAAA nonsense. This time however enemies can and will utterly shred you from full health in the event that you are in the wrong place. Even when that wrong place is somewhere the game is forcing you to go, so that it can perform a SICK destruction physics showcase. It also has all of the usual cliches like seemingly infinitely respawning enemies, Quick Time Events (QTEs) and regenerating health. Ultimately the bigger issue is that it’s such an incredibly linear experience, with game design that doesn’t really allow you to play the game in any way other than what it intends. As a consequence it’s not particularly immersive, in spite of it’s attempts to reel you in with some slick narrative and acceptable voice-acting. While the vehicle sections are above average and the last level is kind of cool, it’s generally a pretty mediocre 7th generation FPS experience. Obviously the multiplayer is much better, but that’s not what we’re reviewing this week so… here we are.

I can understand anyone who thinks it’s churlish of me to review the Battlefield 3 campaign experience solely on it’s own merits. After all, the main selling point of the game was the multiplayer mode which has been the main selling point of every Battlefield game since the series began. Indeed the series entries I played the most of while growing up are BF2 and BF2142, neither of which has a campaign mode (at least on PC). So why bother reviewing the Battlefield 3 campaign, considering the fact that it was at best an extra little bonus like the co-op missions? Well because that’s all that remains of the game for most players as of the year 2024. Sure you can technically still join a game on PC and I think Xbox 360, but the player-base is tiny at this point and if you bought it on PS3 then… that’s a shame! As a consequence, I think it’s only fair to review the campaign, which is probably the only way you’ll get to “enjoy” the game going forwards. Unfortunately for Battlefield 3, the campaign makes Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 look like a visionary single player experience, one that it’s desperately trying (and failing) to emulate. Let’s go through the checklist together, dear reader;

• Contemporary FPS game: Check
• Regenerating health: Check
• Two weapon limit: Check
• You swap between characters to see the full scale of the conflict: Check
• The game is extremely linear: Check
• The game’s engine spawns enemies in pairs to mask hardware limitations: Check
• The main bad guy is using middle eastern rebels as fodder to initiate WW3: Check
• After a certain point in the game you start shooting Russians: Check
• The campaign takes about 6 hours: Check

After playing through both campaigns, the main differences that Battlefield 3 offers are an increased emphasis on Quick Time Events, less max HP for the player and slightly better vehicle sections. Otherwise you could honestly be forgiven for thinking that this was just another Cawadoody game. To be fair, there is also some environmental destruction going on, but it’s basically a gimmick and never really helps (or hinders) you. Expect for one section where you need to run up onto an overpass while infinitely respawning enemies shoot at you and all the cover on the bridge gets ruined in like two shots. Which is hardly a point in the game’s favour, let’s be honest.

Now as the gameplay is so standard, I think it’s fair to briefly mention the narrative. The way it works is simple, you spend most of the game being interrogated and your flashbacks serve as each individual mission of the campaign. This is a bit of a hazy mechanism when it comes to the multiple other characters who you don’t know anything about, but let’s ignore that for now. Essentially you are a MUHREEN and after bumbling around the Middle East you chase the head of a terrorist group, then the even more evil guy who was using him as a puppet. To the game’s credit the final mission is actually cool (QTEs notwithstanding seriously why does this stupid game love them so much) even if a lot of questions aren’t really answered. As for the rest of the narrative, it’s nothing special but nothing terrible either – par for the course for games of this genre and generation. Most characters are cool soldiers who are stoic and do soldier things but you have a designated smart ass in your squad and an overly ambitious colonel? major? Who cares. There are also two moments in the game when a character gets sad because their friend dies, which must have been a mandatory part of getting a game published on the Xbox 360. Overall I’d give this game an OK/10 for plot, it could’ve been one of those lazy Sunday afternoon rental movies although I think it would’ve been a bit too cliche.

As for the other aspects of the game that support the not-great combat, you’ve got an acceptable OST that is totally forgettable outside of the two times when they drop the Battlefield theme. These moments were cool, I guess, but if you didn’t care much about the series (understandable considering the last big release was BF2142 which was PC exclusive) then this probably didn’t do anything for you. The graphics and visual style are… fine but nothing really special and there isn’t a huge amount of environmental. You’ve got desert, forest, a nice villa and brown-and-bloom urban warfare. I can confirm that I didn’t encounter any bugs, which is good and everything generally ran fine on my humble Xbone although Battlefield 3 does seem to have some weird issues with frame-drops during areas with abrupt changes in lighting. Otherwise everything is just OK.

But my main issue with the campaign really is the gameplay, outside of the generally enjoyable tank mission and OK/10 jet mission it’s not great. A lot of set pieces involving enemies spawning in waves while you’re stuck in a position, or getting told to flank the enemy while your squad frantically try and order a pizza or something. The shooting feels OK, although the flinching from damage makes most weapons kind of a hassle to aim considering just how freakishly accurate the enemies are. There’s a stealth section of sorts, where you only have a knife and it kind of sucks. Fortunately it doesn’t last very long at all so swings and roundabouts. There are a lot of different weapons you can use, but it doesn’t matter much and you never run out of ammo so that’s either good or bad depending on your perspective. Occasionally you need to use a special weapon against vehicles, but don’t worry because you always magically regain more shots in the event that you manage to miss. Really though the combat is OK it’s just not great. Your squad will occasionally just start shooting a wall in front of them instead of the enemy, although they do actually deal damage unlike myriad other lousy FPS games so they can clear things up. As for the enemy, they love to either zerg rush your position or camp like boy scouts. Either way they’re kind of annoying, as they are extremely accurate and keep respawning in hard to predict ways. Was that the last enemy, or is another one about to materialise with little warning? Is there still one camping somewhere, and if so will they nearly insta-kill me as soon as I see them? These are the questions you will ask yourself at least once every level. Speaking of insta-kills, not only are there multiple QTEs in Battlefield 3 that you must pass successfully first time, but also some sections where not being in exactly the right place will instantly kill you. As will RPG enemies shooting vehicles that are near you, which would be fine if they didn’t just get spawned out of nowhere on multiple levels. Generally this is a game that wants you to go fast, but punishes you for doing so. Except on a couple of occasions, where if you don’t go fast enough you fail and have to go to the last check point. It’s just an inconsistent game.

So are there any parts of the Battlefield 3 campaign I actually quite liked? Well aside from that tank section (or section-and-a-half I suppose), I did find the two Spetnaz missions kind of fun although the bit where you need to chase that guy was annoying. I’m trying not to spoil anything, but if you play the game you’ll know which part I’m referring to. As mentioned the story is fine, probably not as good as the one in Cawadoody:MW2 but not terrible or overly tedious thanks to some decent voice acting. I suppose I should mention that the CHEEVOS for the game are actually implemented pretty well and offer an incentive to replay the campaign levels while the multiplayer ones aren’t totally rubbish. Finally I thought the first and last missions were a nice way of tying up the narrative, while the rest of the game had a decent pace and got stronger in the latter half. With all that being said, trying to copy Cawadoody is a mugs game and as a consequence the campaign just feels a bit… hopeless. The AI acts weird, the highly linear levels feel like an artificial constraint, there’s minimal gameplay variation between most parts of the campaign and generally it’s all just a bit lackluster. Not terrible but not good, is how I’d sum up the Battlefield 3 single player experience.

Therefore the most important question remains, would I recommend the Battlefield 3 campaign? No. I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone and would just skip it unless you have a decent amount of nostalgia for the game. It has a few areas where it’s successfully above the average and a couple where it’s honestly slightly below average. The game is basically the same as this review, a meandering mess that doesn’t really go anywhere or answer any pertinent questions you might have. It’s just some filler, that distracted you from better things.