Desktop Tactician: Battlefield 3

So I picked up this game Wednesday night, PC version, and have been loving it thus far. its all the little things that they got right that clinches this game as one of the best FPS games I have ever played.

I won;t do a full on review, or any of that, as there are millions of them on the 'Net already, instead Im simply going to list a few gems that really makes this game for me.

Scope Glint: I was playing the shipyard dock map, forget name, and was trying to figure out what the keys for Prone, and Toss Ammo crates was, when I hear the Whizz/Crack of a bullet flying right near my head. I back up behind cover of a shipping container, and then peek out and scan a rubble heap. At the last second, I catch a white flash, like a far away camera flash, and Boom Headshot Im down. The guy that got me had a SVD sniper rifle, and what I had seen was the sunlight off his scope. Total Saving Private Ryan moment for me there.

Sound: I'm not a big audio guy, in that i don;t have several hundred bucks in a suround sound thing going on, just my PC speakers and bassbox, but I am talking about quality. I am a huge plane nerd, and to see and hear proper Doppler effect on aircraft was really cool. For those not in the know, an aircraft coming in hot, in this case, an F-18 diving down, you could barely hear it, since it is approaching the speed of sound. As it goes by, you hear what is dubbed "the ripping' sound, as all the sound waves hit you all together, then as the aircraft climbs out, the sound goes down to a very low, dull roar, as the sound waves are far apart, as he is climbing up at speed. This is all in the game. Also, the first game I have seen that has the proper sound of an A-10. One of the few combat aircraft with Turbofan engines, it has a distinct sound, and for once, a game got it right.

Speed of Sound: As alluded above, this game even takes into account the speed of sound of a projectile travelling faster than the speed of sound. Therefore, if you see a T-90 wreck blowing up in the distance, there is slight delay in the sound reaching you. Bullets whizz by first, THEN you hear the crack of the shot. There are no ambient gunfire sounds I have heard so far.. every far-off gunshot, which is muffled to simulate distance, is someone firing a gun in the game.

Balance. It isn;t perfect, but my biggest gripe with BF2 in particular was base-bombing with planes. In BC2 it was with choppers. Vehicles now seem a bit rarer to me, they are reclassified, and are limitted to certain maps. For example, some maps will only allow Scout helicopters, or Light Vehicles, while others will have full on AFV's, attack helicopters, Ground Attack jets, and some have fighters. They seem to have made it harder to survive hits in a plane, and there are more options for shooting stuff down. An early unlock for AFVs is a one-shot AA missile, while an unlock for the Engineer has a shoulder mounted SAM.. I had a teamate use one to shoot down an AH-64. So all in all, seems steps have been taken to curb aircraft. Best option seems to fly a scout chopper behind enemy lines (Like Damarvand map) and have squad mates spawn on your chopper and para off.

I might put up more after I play some when I get home from a movie tonite, but that would cut into my BF3 time!