Battlefield 3 Premium and Close Quarters Impressions

After a little break from shooters, the past few weeks I've got back into the armed combat groove with both Modern Warfare 3 and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. I enjoyed the single player experience of the former and tolerated parts of the single player of the latter. Multiplayer in MW3 is a known quantity - tight controls, great gameplay, spoiled because it's largely played by 13 year old psychopaths. I really, really wanted to like GRFS and while the few games of multiplayer that I played with friends were solid, the matches I played with randoms made me want to throw my controller out the window. After one particularly frustrating game where my team lost by something like 10,000 points (or so it felt like), I decided to jump back into Battlefield 3 and immediately fell back in love. Since I had a hefty Microsoft Points card for Father's Day I decided to pony up for Battlefield 3 Premium.

For those who don't know, Battlefield 3 Premium is EA's version of Activision's Call of Duty Elite service. For 50 bucks you get access to all 5 of Battlefield 3's pending expansion packs (2 of which are already out - Back to Karkand and Close Quarters). The remaining 3 expansions are coming out September, December and March of next year. You also get access to the expansions 2 weeks early. There are some other minor perks like exclusive decals, a custom knife (for a gun fight?!) but none of them are particularly impressive.

Close Quarters is the newest expansion pack and features 4 new maps, 2 new game modes and 10 new weapons. The new maps are all smaller, mostly indoor levels, with no vehicles and focus on...erm...close quarters combat. The four new maps are; 

Donya Fortress - a 3 level Middle-Eastern castle/fort 

Operation 925 - a multi-level office building with an underground parking lot, lobby, cafeteria and lots office space 

Scrapmetal - a labyrinth multi-storey abandoned factory with a variety of walkways and open and enclosed spaces 

Ziba Tower - a hotel in Tehran 

Each of the levels is beautifully rendered with a fair amount of destructible cover. Of the new levels, Scrapmetal is definitely my favourite as each of the three capture points have a variety of ways to approach them and you can use a great deal of strategy for both attack and defense. 

The two new game modes are Conquest-Domination and Gun Master. Conquest-Domination is a version of the regular Conquest mode but modified to suit the small, infantry-focused maps. Now it only takes 10-20 seconds to capture a point and you can only spawn at a random point or on your squad - you can no longer spawn on a capture point and there's no home base for your team. 

Gun Master is a neat mode where there are no classes (no Engineer, no Recon etc) and everyone starts with the same handgun (the MP-443). Once you get two kills with the MP-433 it's automatically upgraded to a 3-burst handgun (the Barretta 93R). Two kills with the Barretta and you unlock a Magnum. This keeps going every two kills until you start unlocking submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns and so on. Though you're put onto one of two teams, the winner of the mode is the first person to cycle through all 17 weapons (the last is a knife). 

Because the maps feature no vehicles and are infantry-focused, the Close Quarters matches play very different to regular Battlefield. It's very much like the COD/MW run-and-gun style gameplay, except you're not playing with/against 13 year old sniper-rifle savants and you still have defined player roles (Medics and Support are key in these maps). The maps are also designed really well and while you can run around like a headless chicken trying to kill everything in sight, you'll be a lot more successful if you work with your squad to try and defend capture points. The Scrapmetal map is the perfect example of this with each of the capture points having multiple avenues for attack on a variety of elevations. 

Gun Master can be fun if you're able to make it past the first few rounds and unlock the submachine guns. If you find yourself in a funk and stuck with the first three weapons (the handguns) it can be very frustrating as everyone else is running around with superior hardware. 

I really enjoyed the Close Quarters expansion pack but I can see how it may not be everyone's cup of tea. The frantic nature of Conquest-Domination isn't going to replace regular Conquest for me but I do find it a very fun palate-cleanser and good to have in the map rotation. If you like COD/MW but prefer Battlefield 3 then I think it'll be a nice diversion. If you really hate the COD/MW-style gameplay then I'd steer clear of this one. 

That decision also factors into whether or not you should pony up the $50 (FIFTY DOLLARS!?!) for Battlefield 3 Premium. Each of the expansions sells for $15 but most people will have already purchased the excellent Back to Karkand expansion pack so if you're planning to buy the rest of the expansions going with Premium saves you $10. However, if you're not interested in Close Quarters then you're better off buying each of the three remaining expansions individually and saving $5. 

Lavan

Max Payne 3 (360)

My apologies for the lack of updates - both work and personal life have been a bit crazy over the past month so I haven't had as much time to write as I'd like.

Fortunately, I have had enough time to sneak in some gaming and most recently I played through Max Payne 3. I really enjoyed the first two Max Payne games (particularly the second one) but this game represents a departure for the series as it was produced by Rockstar Games whereas the previous titles were made by Finnish developer Remedy.

I am a massive whore for anything by Rockstar makes - not because of the wanton sex and violence, not even because of the solid narratives found in their games, but because of the sense of place their games create. San Andreas, Liberty City, Vice City, New Austin and even Bully's Carcer City all felt like real, living-breathing places to me and I loved that about those games. However, almost all of Rockstar`s games are open world titles so I was intrigued to see how Max Payne, a completely linear experience, would fare. 

In short; despite it's linearity, it does an incredible job of making you feel immersed. 

Max Payne 3's story takes you on a back and forth (in location and time) between Brazil, Panama and New York/New Jersey and the level of detail and subsequent sense of immersion is incredible. Graphically, the game is stunning - not just with regards to textures, resolution and frame-rate, but also the incredible attention to detail in the environments. The locations in Brazil are the real highlite and range from run-down favellas, glitzy neon night clubs, city squares, swamps, abandoned hotels, and even office buildings. I wrote in my impressions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution that it was the first game that ever made me stop and appreciate art-direction in a game. Count Max Payne 3 as the second game to do so. 

The narrative tone is very similar to that of Tony Scott's 2004 film, Man on Fire and the cinematic presentation borrows heavily from the Tony Scott and Michael Mann playbook with a gritty, realistic look, jump-cuts, rapid editing and multi-frame shots. The titular character is a stranger in a strange land and along with the unfamiliar (at least to those not living in Brazil) surroundings this sense of unfamiliarity is also conveyed by the excellent choice not to translate the Portuguese dialogue. Max doesn't speak Portuguese and in the narrative often doesn't know what is going on and the player shares his sense of frustration and uncertainty as characters yell at you in their native dialect. 

There is one particularly tense scene where you are held at gunpoint by a member of a Brazilian gang who is clearly losing his shit and screaming commands/questions at you in Portuguese and at some point Max read my mind and in exasperation shouts back; "I don't fucking understand what you're saying!"

Story-wise, Max Payne loses the comic-book, occult-heavy, style of the first two games for a tale more grounded in 'reality'. Max is now working as a private security guard for an ultra-wealthy Brazilian family. He takes the job seeing it as easy gig and a way indulge his heavy alcohol and prescription medication addictions in sunny South America. Unfortunately, things quickly go to hell and story weaves a dark, gritty, intricate tale involving police and government corruption, revenge and lots of gun violence. I really enjoyed the narrative in Max Payne 3 and I found it fairly well written. Max's signature voice-overs are ever present but far less hammy than the first 2 games.

I also really enjoyed the characters in this game, particularly Max's friend Raul Passos and the enigmatic police investigator Da Silva. Both are well rounded and very well written. Max Payne himself is probably the most congruent main character I've ever seen in a recent Rockstar game. He's not like Niko Bellic who's painted as a man trying to escape his violent past....who then proceeds to run over pedestrians. John Marston is probably my favourite Rockstar character but even he loses character consistency when he starts shooting up innocent villagers in the Mexico section of Red Dead Redemption. 

Max Payne, however, is a broken, drug addicted, alcoholic piece of shit and acts accordingly. This is a character who's hired as a private security guard and don't just drink on the job - he gets absolutely tanked. He pops pain killers like they're going out of style. And he hates everyone - most of all himself. He still has a vague sense of what's generally right or wrong but overall he's not a very nice man. And as such, you're not so surprised when he starts shooting people in the head - he's the kind of asshole who would. 

I left any discussion of the gameplay for last because it's not exactly rocket science; Max Payne 3 is a solid 3rd person shooter with bullet-time mechanics. It's easily the best gunplay in a Rockstar game to date and there are some phenomenal set piece moments. It would be tough for me to say that the gunplay was absolutely engaging for the 8-10 hours it took me to finish the game because I was utterly engrossed by the atmosphere and narrative.

If you haven't guessed by now, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and if you're a fan of Rockstar's previous games I think you will too.

Lavan