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