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The competition between Call of Duty and Battlefield leading into this holiday was quite stiff.  Battlefield gave players a chance to test the game out early, where as Call of Duty remained closed off until public release.  I take little consideration into betas anyway.  Between the two styles of multiplayer, I find myself edging towards Battlefield.  It’s not that I have anything against Call of Duty, in fact I believe it to be the most robust multiplayer experience out there for FPS fans.  I simply don’t have time for two MP shooters.  With that, was Battlefield 3 the war simulation that EA kept raving about?

DICE (the devs behind the franchise) didn’t incorporate a proper single player campaign until the once console exclusive Bad Company sub-franchise.  Battlefield 3 is the franchise’s first “serious” campaign, meaning it wanted to bring players into war.  The marketing campaign for the game typically ended with the tagline: “Is It Real?”  If this was real, then war works in some funky ways.

Unfortunately, it felt here the franchise wanted to make the series more like Call of Duty in that it wanted to play out more like an action movie than a war film.  There were certainly some moments of intense firefighting – it just felt too far and few between.  The climax of the story was rather weak.  Looking back, DICE helped out Danger Close with the multiplayer in 2010′s Medal of Honor reboot.  I felt that Danger Close were needed here to help out DICE with the single player in Battlefield 3.  While both are quite different, I truly enjoyed the single player in Medal of Honor and do believe there were more moments of intense firefights that were severely lacking from Battlefield 3.

The true content of this game’s character though will always be in the multiplayer.  The franchise was built for online battles, and BF3 does not disappoint.  While not packed in with nearly a dozen modes like that of Call of Duty, Battlefield brings plenty to the table.  The meat and bones will always be Conquest, but Rush mode continues to grow on me.  New to console players is the ability to fly jets on certain maps.  Which leads to one of the game’s few gripes.

Controlling air vehicles will be the biggest obstacle for players, no matter if you were a Battlefield player from the past or present.  This is not necessarily a complaint, in fact, I support this notion.  One of my dislikes of Call of Duty is the fact that once a player achieves a killstreak to be able to use a chopper to literally gun down one’s spawn area, this is rare to see occur here in BF3.  Jets are fast and furious, and will take some time to get use to.  The more you fly around and figure out the best maneuvers, the faster you will be able to unlock enhancements.  Choppers, the same thing.

Battlefield 3 doesn’t disappoint when it comes to bringing in fun times online, it is one of the better titles on any platform when it comes to logging on.  Co-op is built in this time around, where it was additional DLC for Bad Company 2.  If EA and DICE support this title with new content as much as they did with Bad Company 2, then look for me to be online for some time.  The single player is more than just a training ground, but it failed to appeal to the audience it wanted to.  This is the battlefield, either love it or hate it.

B+

Battlefield 3 was not provided for review from EA Games.  I have played the game for 30+ hours, completing the story campaign and ranking up to level 13 in the multiplayer.  The game was reviewed for PlayStation 3, but is also available for Xbox 360 and PC.  500 Word Review is a segment of What’s My Thoughts where a reviewer sums up a piece of media in approximately five hundred words.

Publisher:

As with the Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batman flicks for film, Rocksteady Studios has done justice when it comes to serving us a great deal of virtual Batman.  Many were surprised just not at the success of 2008′s Batman Arkham Asylum, but that it was actually good.  In fact, it was damn good.  At its core it was just a simple beat ‘em up, but this was a Batman game we’ve waited years for.  It decided not to go Hollywood, decided to stay away from basing it off of the freshly released new trilogy of films, and go back to the basics.

Arkham City picks up after the events of Arkham Asylum.  Joker is attempting to recover from the TITAN injection, but all is not going well.  You will find yourself working with your foes for some portion of this game, as by forming a temporary alliance can help protect the greater good.  All the usual suspects are here: the aforementioned Joker, the Riddler, Bane, Hugo Strange, Penguin, Two-Face, Mad Hatter and Deadshot, just to name a few.

The smooth combat system returns in all its glory, as does the Challenge Mode that made the first game so damn enjoyable after beating the single player campaign.  Which leads me to my only gripe of the game – the main story conclusion felt a bit… I don’t want to classify it as a cop out… but it gave little to no fulfillment.  It felt too easy, too simple, too generic.  By no means does this mean you wasted your time, the story as is was thoroughly enjoyable and worth a playthrough, I simply expected more for a climax.

With that though Arkham City offers a variety of objectives beyond the story campaign.  From rescuing hostages from Riddler to saving political prisoners scattered across the map.  Once you completed the story to Arkham Asylum, the game became all too quiet.  There were still clues to find and trophies to collect, but it seemed like all enemies disappeared in thin air.  With Arkham City, the environment remains lively, with enemies to take down and worthy combos to unlock.

For those who bought a new copy of the game were given access to a playable Catwoman.  If unlocked from the get-go, the game combines together both story arcs (Batman and Catwoman) in one.  Catwoman offers some diversity to the game as her skills do differ from that of the Dark Knight.  She is playable in Challenge mode and going about racking up combos feels different and a bit challenging.

In terms of gameplay, the only issue lies in the camera control, though it acts more as a minor annoyance. More often than not the camera gives few issues, but during moments where time is of the essence or you are trying to stay alive during a close quarters brawl, the camera could be the breaking point of the mission.  Thankfully, this particular issue is not unique to Arkham City, it’s normally a gripe of any third person game.

Overall, Batman Arkham City keeps the DC hero strong when it comes to video games.  A solid campaign with love to numerous villains and a few easter eggs (here’s looking at you LOST).  It’s great to see our hero of the night being revived positively in film and games, now if only Spider-Man and Superman would re-emerge with a positive spin.

A-

Batman Arkham City was not provided for review from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.  I have played the game for 20+ hours, completing the story campaign and 60% of the overall game.  The game was reviewed for PlayStation 3, but is also available for Xbox 360 and PC.  500 Word Review is a segment of What’s My Thoughts where a reviewer sums up a piece of media in approximately five hundred words.