Ultimately the strongest part of the online component is what the single player side of the game struggles to control: freedom. Thanks to an assortment of unlockable weapons that are universal to all classes you can ditch the weapon you don’t like for something at least somewhat familiar (for instance my sniper rifle is currently swapped out for a shotgun and sometimes an SMG, as I suck at sniping in this game and don’t enjoy it). You’ll quickly find the role you like the best and find yourself hoping you can keep playing that one without being forced to switch to ensure your team has a good variety, but even playing as a class you don’t particularly like is never too much of an affair. A small thing but a wonderfully welcome change that could stand to be used more often. Don’t like that new scope you just unlocked? Take it off the next time you die. Thankfully you can tweak and edit these at any time during the game, so if you decide that at one point of a map you want to use your Mortar but then find yourself spending all your time inside, you can change that for the Claymore at any given time. Things start out familiar enough if you’ve played any first person shooter in the past couple of years with customize-able load-outs, though they’re limited to different classes so you only get four different choices at any given time. No… Battlefield 3 is very much about the multiplayer, and every shortcoming the game has in its single player outing is made up for in spades online.
Lets not kid ourselves though…while Battlefield 3 made an admirable effort at a single player campaign that’s full of huge epic moments, intense firefights and a story that while not the most original thing ever is told in an interesting manner and well put together, that’s not what everybody is here for. Something big is going on, and you were a large part of it.
The story is told in a series of flashbacks with the main character you play as for the majority of the game being interrogated. However, the game does boast a full single player campaign and I would be remiss to not discuss it. There’s no doubting that, and that is without a doubt where most players will spend most if not outright all of their time. Let’s not pretend what you’re here for… Battlefield 3 is all about the multiplayer. Few games this year are going to have to live up to the golden visage emblazoned in the minds of gamers across the world…can Battlefield 3 do it? Hype is a dangerous thing, and so are expectations. Building a reputation early on in it’s development for having incredible graphics and following up on the highly successful Bad Company 2, DICE and EA certainly had a lot of expectations to live up to. Battlefield 3 is one of the most anticipated games of the year and at the same time one of the most hyped up. But let's have a look at that.Let’s not waste any time screwing around here. But even at full size, with the distinction of AA aside, the overall game quality remains severely nice but sure, we do see hard shows, lack DOF, see less textures. Now these are scaled down JPEGS meaning you loose a lot of detail. Low mode - And then blow the LOW quality settings mode, only 2xAF, no AA no SSAO and no post processing effects are left. The textures are probably a little lighter and some post processing effects are disabled now. We only have 4xAF left, and HBAO switched to SSAO. Medium mode - Below a screenshot taken in medium mode.
High mode - In this mode AA will be disabled yet the rest remains active + anisotropic filtering is set at 6X- this will massively increase performance. All that ultra testing got us wondering, how much quality do we loose ? Ultra mode - Here 4xAA - 16xAF - HBAO and all post processing effects are enabled - screenshot below.