Battlefield 3 takes on Call of Duty at its own game of cinematic singleplayer thrills and frantic, communal multiplayer, one half proves more successful than the other.

It’s two games, really, in the way that all blockbuster video games released today seemingly must be. The first is the solitary, cinematic military experience, crafted with both eyes firmly on the cultural behemoth that is Activision’s Call of Duty series, strapping you into combat boots and shoving you off down an interactive rollercoaster filled with dramatic set-pieces through the pock-marked streets of Iraq.

You play as a named marine, reliving his battle memories across various theatres of war via interactive flashbacks, as told to his superiors who bang the table while assuring your character that yes, they can handle the truth (a narrative structure lifted wholesale from last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops).

It has a clear script with a beginning, middle and end, but only the most basic choices can be made in moving through each. Do you shoot this terrorist or that terrorist first? Once they’re both down, there are no options left open to you save to follow the corridor to wherever the next set piece is triggered. This is the Battlefield 3 movie game, the experience that prizes spectacle and a prescribed story over player choice.

The second is the communal, multiplayer experience that takes its cues from playground games of cops and robbers and the series’ own celebrated history as it straps you into combat boots and shoves you onto the streets of Paris or the green hills of the Caspian Border.

You play as a nameless marine, free to create your own battle memories in various theatres of war. Each battle has an objective – kill the other team, destroy their M-COM stations – but no clear script and endless choices to be made as you try to find your way. Do you shoot this terrorist or that terrorist first? Do you crawl along the ground, prone as you work your way towards the rival team’s base? Or take the long route by swimming out to sea and heading back in a wide arc? Or do you save your boots altogether and clamber into a tank or a jeep or a helicopter or even a jet fighter plane, ejecting at 500 feet to parachute down onto the objective? This is the Battlefield 3 game, the experience that prizes spectacle and player choice over a prescribed story.

In contrast to most other contemporary blockbusters, the two disparate parts of the experience are split onto their own game discs, heightening the sense that they are entirely separate entities. Indeed, they may share a general control scheme, but if you want to switch from the single player to the multiplayer campaign, then you are going to have to switch discs, as if you were inserting an entirely new game into the machine.

The issue is that the two halves are not equal in terms of quality. Opt to install the 1.5 GB’s worth of HD data and each looks as good as the other (around the same visual fidelity as the PC version on its lower graphical settings) and both games certainly look the part. But this is where the similarities end. The single player game feels as if it has been specifically crafted to ‘beat’ another franchise. And, while it enjoys a number of memorable set-pieces and some incredible sound design, in tracing over the template laid down by Infinity Ward’s series, it inherits all of the weaknesses as well as strengths of that game.

The incessant quicktime events (which have you tapping a button on cue to, for example, stab a rat) feel out-dated, while the lack of player agency grates. Climb into the cockpit of a jet fighter and, rather than being able to fly the plane, you simply get to aim the gun on an on-rails experience. Wind the difficulty up to ‘hard’ mode, which turns off the aim assist and increases the accuracy of the enemies and the charade falls apart as you see just how thin, scripted and inflexible this war story really is.

By contrast, the multiplayer game is best in class. As with previous titles in the series, the emphasis is on teamplay and the series’ differentiator –vehicles- which are wholly absent from the Call of Duty series. The use of planes and tanks (which can be piloted by any player) has the effect of expanding the geography of the maps, many of which are huge, allowing up to 24 players to do battle. While the use of heavy armour brings fearful chaos into play, foot soldiers have landmines, C4 and surface-to-air missiles to even the odds, and at every point developer DICE’s skill in balancing the taut cat’s cradle of tactical options. While the use of heavy armour brings fearful chaos into play, foot soldiers have landmines, C4 and surface-to-air missiles to even the odds, and at every point developer DICE’s skill in balancing the taut cat’s cradle of tactical options is self-evident.

Structures in the maps can be destroyed, changing the environment to create new cover points and danger zones giving each battle a dynamic, live feel that’s wholly exciting. There’s a choice of four classes to play as (assault, recon, engineer and support), each one bringing their own strengths to the team and encouraging thoughtful, complementary selection. You earn points not only for kills but also assists, a currency which unlocks new weapons, attachments, gadgets and specialisations that increase your power in the game world on a per class basis.

There have been some teething issues in the few days since launch, with overcrowded servers combining with a broken matchmaking that has forced the developer to include a message advising that players attempt to connect to games manually. But as these issues diminish, so the strengths of the online multiplayer amplify, and the fact that Battlefield 3 boasts one of the most frantic, strategic, diverse and flexible playpens for generating communal memories becomes clear.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/video-game-reviews/8864144/Battlefield-3-review.html