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Posted by Kotaku Jul 23 2011 19:00 GMT
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#ruhroh Enthusiasts of military-style first-person shooters are not well known for their progressive thoughts on the matter of gender. The organizers of a large LAN party in Texas, scheduled to celebrate the launch of Battlefield 3, have decided the best way to deal with any slurs hurled at female gamers is to simply forbid them from attending. More »

Posted by Joystiq Jul 23 2011 18:30 GMT
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Battlefield 3's lock-and-key social gaming network, Battlelog, is scheduled to launch its beta in September, its full system in October, and is currently in an extremely selective alpha testing stage. But that doesn't mean non-alpha players can't see what it looks like, right now. The Robin Hood of Battlelog sent us some behind-the-scenes screens of the alpha social and profile system, all of which you can check out below. For more in-game alpha leakage, the BF3blog has you covered. In leakage. Gross.

Posted by IGN Jul 21 2011 19:10 GMT
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The question on everyone's mind since the first footage of Battlefield 3 released in February is, "where's the console version?" DICE's follow-up to last year's Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and 2005's Battlefield 2 has looked great on PC even in its early, pre-alpha state, but we've never seen it running on console up close until now. At this year's EA Summer Showcase, I got my hands on a pre-alpha build of the PlayStation 3 version of Battlefield 3's multiplayer...

Posted by PlayStation Blog Jul 21 2011 16:34 GMT
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War has changed. And fortunately, it’s changed for the better. Not long ago, Jeff and I went hands-on with an early, pre-alpha PS3 build of Battlefield 3’s multiplayer mode. Building on the positive buzz behind the smash hit Battlefield Bad Company 2, developer DICE is crafting a muscular follow-up that leverages new animation and rendering tech, revamped online features, and a rough-and-tumble feel to create a new breed of military shooter.

During the multiplayer battle, Jeff and I found ourselves on opposing sides (my side won, naturally). Following our all-too-brief hands-on session, Jeff and I compared notes on the finer points of Battlefield 3’s multiplayer mode.

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Sid Shuman: With Call of Duty’s twitchier play style becoming the industry norm for many multiplayer military shooters, I was most curious to see how Battlefield 3′s multiplayer would stake out its own territory. I was pleased to find a highly accessible game that remains faithful to Battlefield’s realistic roots while evolving the look, feel, and tactics. This is a shooter that has learned several important lessons from Call of Duty — primarily in the realm of accessibility — but stands firmly on its own boot-clad feet.

Jeff Rubenstein: I know you’re more of a fan of team-based multiplayer modes, so you must’ve enjoyed the Rush mode we sampled. A Battlefield staple, teams are divided into offense and defense, with the attackers attempting to take objectives (or blow them up, as it were), pushing the defenders back. I enjoy these matches because it’s not about who gets the most kills, it’s about who achieves the most objectives. The selfish generally lose.

Naturally, we were on opposite teams.

Sid: Indeed. The multiplayer map we played on, Operation Metro, was focused on straightforward infantry play and made an ideal testbed for Rush’s symmetrical combat. Diving into the first match, I was immediately drawn to Battlefield 3’s map design. On the Operation Metro map, rolling hills gave way to clumps of thick vegetation interspersed with armored barricades and rock formations, giving a more organic, liberating feel to movement and fighting. This isn’t a shooter where you’ll sprint down the same dusty hallways and snipe out of the same dusty windows again and again ad nauseum. Battlefield 3’s porous but open map design forces you to constantly scan your surroundings for stealthy approaches. Combined with a devastatingly realistic damage model and a short-but-nerve-wracking respawn timer, I found myself playing far more carefully than I’m accustomed to in multiplayer shooters — I’d pop off a few shots, scramble for safety, lay low, then work to flank any nearby opponents. The experience was more harrowing than some survival-horror games I’ve played, and forced me to lay down suppressive fire and breathlessly belly-crawl to avoid being gunned down. And it worked, for more than 10 straight kills, until somebody tapped me with a high-powered sniper rifle and the lights went out for good.

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Jeff: You know, due to my squad’s inability to dislodge you defenders from your perch in a gazebo, we weren’t able to push you back, and hence we weren’t able to see the full range of the map, which includes an underground subway depot. Interestingly, the Operation Metro map is based on an actual Parisian park – DICE’s Owen Johnson told me that some French fellas that tried out the demo earlier said it was quite accurate, although the actual Metro station is a bit more, shall we say, worn-in in real life.

Sid: You know, they say the Swedes are a very meticulous people. Beyond the map’s sprawling size and alleged geographic accuracy, I was also struck by the new ways you can interact with the environment. Battlefield 3 has an immersive physicality I don’t often see in shooters — it intermittently reminded me of Mirror’s Edge, incidentally also developed by DICE. I liked how, when I mantled over a low barricade, my character scissor-kicked his legs over the obstruction rather than weightlessly hop over it as in many other shooters. It feels jarring and rough-and-tumble, but convincing in a way that connected me with the environment. As an example, I frequently found myself sprinting away from danger and then diving to avoid incoming fire, making my character slide heavily through the grass in a way that made me wince. In fact, I did quite a bit of the latter due to some sharpshooters on your team. Hey, you were playing as a sniper, weren’t you?

Jeff: Ugh, that was *not* on purpose. In my rush to jump into the game as quickly as possible, I started hammering on the X button, and I was dropped into the match in the Recon class, which you might know as a “sniper.” I figured I might not last too long (I didn’t!), so I decided to explore the ways the Recon class has evolved since BF:BC2. In a notable change, every character class can now dip into a full prone stance. To help balance a sniper’s new, lower profile, DICE is adding a bit of weapon glint to help betray a sniper’s position when he zeros in on a target for too long. I picked a safe-looking spot, laid down, and drew a bead on an enemy. What I noticed immediately wasn’t that I missed – I expected that. It was the incredible crack of the rifle’s discharge. The report sounded LOUD and DANGEROUS. In fact, throughout the rest of the session, I noticed that the guns sounded more fearsome and deadly than the arms I’ve used in other games recently. If nothing else, Battlefield 3 brings definite improvements to its treatment of audio. Which class were you using?

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Sid: I mostly stuck with the Assault class, a versatile, combat-ready role that shares abilities of a field medic, including a portable defibrillator that resurrects fallen allies and medkits that you can use to heal wounded teammates. I also tinkered with the Support class that boasts a bodacious light machinegun and a pocketfull of ammo. Interestingly, the Support class can deploy a portable bipod on any solid surface (a barricade or the ground) in order to boost range and accuracy, effectively creating a high-powered turret at will.

On that note, I was impressed to see that, unlike most shooters, Battlefield 3 emphasizes laying down suppressive fire — a key tactic in controlling and winning a real-life firefight. You’ll actually gain XP when you pin enemies behind cover. Better yet, you’ll also blur the vision of any enemies you suppress, putting them at a disadvantage. This is a perfect match for the Support class, with its high-capacity ammo clips.

Jeff: I do like the idea of folding in the typical medic class with the Assault troops – both those types are usually at the front line anyways. I typically lean on the Engineer class, as I enjoy both the destruction and repairing of tanks. Johnson noted that “Engineer has changed the least.” I’m fine with that. Did you happen to land a melee kill? They’ve added an interesting collection aspect via customizable dog tags, allowing you to form a collection of your most intimate finishers. I’m sure we’ll hear and see more of that feature down the line.

***

Well, that’s all the commentary we could squeeze out of a 10-minute multiplayer match, but the taste was enough to have us salivating for a larger bite of Battlefield 3. You can be sure we’ll keep you updated here on the PlayStation Blog as we get further samplings between now and the game’s October 25th release date. Don’t forget, Battlefield 1943 is included on the Blu-ray disc as a free bonus, only for PS3.


Posted by Joystiq Jul 21 2011 14:01 GMT
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That tantalizing 12 minutes of campaign footage from Battlefield 3 sure was exciting, but we've sorta been waiting for a good look at multiplayer gameplay since the moment Battlefield 3 was announced. Today, finally, EA has done just that.


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Posted by Kotaku Jul 21 2011 13:30 GMT
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#watchthis We had a chance to check out the Playstation 3 version of Battlefield 3 earlier this week. We also spent more time playing through the game's Operation Metro mulitplayer map. Here's a quick run through of a single, segmented-map in the game's multiplayer. More »


Posted by Joystiq Jul 21 2011 14:01 GMT
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That tantalizing 12 minutes of campaign footage from Battlefield 3 sure was exciting, but we've sorta been waiting for multiplayer gameplay since the moment Battlefield 3 was announced. Today, finally, EA has done just that.


Posted by Kotaku Jul 21 2011 13:00 GMT
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#battlefield3 The last time I saw Kevin O'Leary he had a beard. A tier-one beard. These day's he's wrangling press for Battlefield 3. Right now he's walking me behind a curtain on the second floor of a New York City ballroom to a Playstation 3 set-up on a back room television. More »


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Posted by GameTrailers Jul 21 2011 13:00 GMT
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New multiplayer features revealed for Battlefield 3!

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Posted by GameTrailers Jul 21 2011 13:00 GMT
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Gameplay from the underground spaces of the metro highlights this trailer!

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jul 21 2011 11:00 GMT
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Those keen-eyed newshawks at VG247 have spotted seven minutes of Battlefield 3 footage posted on YouTube, via BF3Blog. It’s a leak, and EA will surely stamp on it faster than an elephant doing a do-si-do, so look below as fast as your fingers can carry you.

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Posted by Kotaku Jul 20 2011 23:06 GMT
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#battlefield3 Upcoming multiplayer shooter Battlefield 3 is currently in closed beta, with participants forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement promising not to leak any footage. Like that was ever going to hold. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jul 19 2011 22:00 GMT
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#battlefield3 For the past few weeks I have found myself returning to my favourite multiplayer game of last year, Battlefield: Bad Company 2. It's a punchy rascal of a game, but it also hints at plenty of things that could be better in the future, and reminds us of lots of things that have been better in the past. Things that might be better in Battlefield 3. Or 4. Anyway, what follows is a consideration of what Battlefield games have done right and wrong, and what Battlefield 3 needs to think about. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jul 18 2011 23:30 GMT
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#battlefield If more story is what you crave from DICE's big first-person shooter due in the fall, you'll have to crack a book. Battlefield 3 is coming to paper and e-books, courtesy of writer Andy McNab, who's penning the first-person shooter inspired novel. More »

Posted by Giant Bomb Jul 18 2011 17:15 GMT
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Right now, ModernWarfare3.com is a dead URL. Going there just gets you a fat "403 Forbidden" error. Perhaps that has a little something to do with the fact that, up until recently, the site was redirecting to the official website for EA's rival military shooter, Battlefield 3.

The ModernWarfare3.com site, as it appeared prior to the Battlefield 3 redirecting chicanery.

Oh, snap.

As it turns out, ModernWarfare3.com was registered all the way back in 2009, back when Activision's third entry in Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare franchise was still little more than a glint in some game designer's eye. The mysterious person who registered it (who is as yet unnamed) evidently is no fan of the series. At one point, the site was set up as a parody of the official Modern Warfare 3 site, using the exact same trade dress elements and assets as Activision's official product website, albeit with decidedly nastier language used to describe the game. These include such ridiculously infantile product descriptions as:

"Modern Warfare is crap. On November 8, 2011, the most over-hyped first-person action series of all-time returns with the copy and paste sequel to the lackluster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Check out the E3 2011 gameplay demo featuring the Black Tuesday level for a look at the epic fail of the campaign. Pre-Order Call of Duty MW3 Today for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC to secure exclusive bonuses only available online for Modern Warfare 3 fanboys who don’t know that Battlefield 3 is the better game"

Right.

Activision's lawyers have reportedly been haranguing the owner of the site since its existence came to light, to the point where last week, the owner just up and set the domain to redirect straight to Battlefield 3's official site. It was a much stronger statement that made the social media rounds last week in great quantity.

Evidently, it was the last straw for Activision, as Fusible is reporting that the publisher has officially filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum. This effectively means that Activision is angling to get the rights to the name back for itself based on, well, fairly obvious reasons.

EA has been rather exhaustive with its registration of Battlefield-related domains, but Activision has run into this problem multiple times in the past. The company apparently still does not own ModernWarfare.com, nor does it own the rights to ModernWarfare4.com, which currently directs to a site in which the owners threaten to torture a clown if their demands of "dedicated servers for Modern Warfare 2" are not met. So that's a thing.

I guess it pays to be proactive, doesn't it?


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jul 18 2011 16:31 GMT
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Forget about the blah blah Modern Warfare 3 site battle yawnwhocaresfest. There’s some important news (via CVG) that’s come out of the Battlefield 3 camp: a novelisation by none other than Andy McNab. OH YES. Read on for RPS’s world exclusive and completely false excerpt!

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Posted by IGN Jul 18 2011 11:29 GMT
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EA's hotly-anticipated Battlefield 3 may not come to Steam when it's released later in the year, US retail giant GameStop has suggested...

Posted by IGN Jul 18 2011 05:05 GMT
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A Battlefield 3 paperback and eBook has been spotted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and is due to be released alongside the much-anticipated shooter towards the end of the year...

Posted by Joystiq Jul 17 2011 21:15 GMT
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Listings for a book (potentially) based on Battlefield 3 have started cropping up at various literary outlets around the web, in both paperback and eBook flavors. Amazon lists the book as a 400-page "Mass Market Paperback" by Andy McNab, an author and war-vet who, according to Gamersbook, has been advising BF3 developer DICE on their motion-capture techniques. Barnes & Nobel also has a listing for Battlefield 3, this time in as a Nook eBook, with both McNab and BF3 Executive Producer Patrick Bach cited as authors.

We can also assume that these listing aren't for a strategy guide, as the "Mass Market Paperback" classification is reserved for novels and the like, whereas strategy guides are classified as "Paperbacks." The tremendously tantalizing tome is available for pre-order at both outlets, with Amazon listing the release date as October 25 and B&N reporting a November release window. We've reached out to the book's registered publisher, Grand Central Publishing, for more information.

Posted by Joystiq Jul 15 2011 18:15 GMT
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The German-language Battlefield 3 blog accidentally published some screens from the game's not-yet-revealed "Battlelog" system, a web (and in-game?) stat-driven social layer that borrows its naming convention from the Autolog, first featured in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The available screens show off a voice- and text-based chat interface, player progression stats, and a Battle Feed that unapologetically recalls a Facebook wall.

For PC players, it looks like you'll be able to join multiplayer games and resume your campaign directly from the website. If the Battlelog reveal is anything like the actual game's reveal, we'll be seeing a bunch of PC footage before EA finally shows off the console implementation.

[Thanks, Justin]


Posted by Kotaku Jul 14 2011 19:40 GMT
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#battlefield3 Battlefield 3 players will their own social network and stat-tracking site—just like Activision's Call of Duty: Elite—when the DICE developed shooter hits later this year. First shots of the "Battlelog" interface have sneaked out, offering us our first glimpse at how we'll connect with other Battlefield fans. More »

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jul 14 2011 14:04 GMT
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For the past few weeks I have found myself returning to my favourite multiplayer game of last year, Battlefield: Bad Company 2. It’s a punchy rascal of a game, but it also hints at plenty of things that could be better in the future, and reminds us of lots of things that have been better in the past. Things that might be better in Battlefield 3. Or 4. Anyway, what follows is a consideration of what Battlefield games have done right and wrong, and what Battlefield 3 needs to think about.(more…)


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jul 11 2011 08:38 GMT
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Over the weekend, or at least I noticed it over the weekend, EA stuck up “A list of digital retailers who will be selling Battlefield 3″ onto Battlefield.com. I had a good look at it at, but it’s curiously now been taken down. It included the likes of Gamersgate, Impulse, Direct2Drive, and EA’s own (sort of) brand new download service, Origin. Nearly 100 different digital distributors were listed in total, but conspicuous by its absence, it seems there are currently no plans for Battlefield 3 to be made available on Steam.

(more…)


Posted by Kotaku Jul 11 2011 06:30 GMT
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#rumor Over the weekend, hardware specifications for one of the PC's most anticipated games of 2011 appeared on GameStop's website. They've since been removed, but the internet never forgets. More »

Posted by IGN Jul 09 2011 01:04 GMT
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Sure, we're getting a new Battlefield this year, and it looks phenomenal. DICE is making a concerted effort to take on Modern Warfare 3 while trying to retain its identity to longtime fans with the massive, well, battlefields that they've come to expect. But we're not content to look forward to thi...

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jul 08 2011 10:20 GMT
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The latest DICE blog on Battlefield 3 reveals a few bits and pieces about the game, specifically explaining about the new classes. Medic is gone, as they explain: “all the abilities such as medkits and defibrillators typically found on the Medic class are now incorporated into Assault. It makes sense that the class on the frontline will be able to revive fallen team mates, right?” The class that returns is LMG-toting Support, and that also adds another feature to the game: suppressing fire. “When you lay down fire in close vicinity to an enemy, the incoming barrage will show up as a graphical blur effect on his screen to stress him and let him know it’s not safe to pop out from behind cover. Just as importantly, this mechanic also affects his character’s in-game firing accuracy, making him less of a threat by using real world tactics.” You even get XP for this action. I wonder if that will feel “real” enough to work. I hope so, because it could really make suppressive fire a key tool. I’ll be interested to see it in action.


Posted by Joystiq Jul 07 2011 03:00 GMT
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Don't expect any authoring tools for Battlefield 3 when it launches on October 25. During an interview, EA senior VP Patrick Soderlund explains that it's due to the complexity of the Frostbite engine.

"Well, as of now, we're not going to make any modding tools, no. If you look at the Frostbite Engine and how complex it is, it's going to be very difficult to mod the game," he said. "Because of the nature of the setup of levels, the destruction and all those things, it's quite tricky. So we think it's going to be too big of a challenge for people to make a mod." Sounds like a dare to us!

Of course, that's not to say DICE won't release mod tools down the line -- just that, as of launch, it looks like you'll have to simply settle for the game you bought.

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jul 06 2011 07:55 GMT
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German computer-games investigators Gamestar got a chance to talk to EA’s Patrick Söderlund, and you can see that interview embedded below. It covers a number of issues, but most tellingly reveals that DICE have no current plans to produce modding tools for the game. Söderlund claims that that modding would be “very difficult” due to the complexity of the levels and features like destruction.

Ah, yes. The modding community: famously confounded by complexity and difficulty, only able to get their heads around the simplest of game technologies… But seriously, not producing modding tools is surely going to be a commercial decision, and I almost wish that were the reason given.(more…)


Posted by Joystiq Jul 05 2011 03:45 GMT
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EA's posted an interview with Battlefield 3 Lead Multiplayer Designer Lars Gustavsson on the official game blog, and the key with multiplayer in the new game, he says, is that Dice wants you to have it your way. "The mindset at Dice during the development of Battlefield 2 was pretty much: 'Play the game our way, or play something else.'" he says frankly. "Now, we have made a conscious effort to reverse that mentality."

That means more modes in general, including the return of Team Deathmatch, an Infantry-only mode, and the Conquest and Rush modes that were so popular in the last iteration. Gustavsson also says that the game will incorporate "Battlelog," a social hub that's presumably similar to EA's very popular "Autolog" from the Need for Speed series.

Sounds good to us. We'll take our Deathmatch with no tomato, please.

Posted by IGN Jul 04 2011 15:55 GMT
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Over the past decade or so, the second-hand games market has been slowly transforming the video games industry. What begun as a niche dominated by specialist stores like the UK's CEX is now a standard retail practice not just in game stores like GameStop and on eBay, but in supermarkets and high-st...