Battlefield 3 is a team game at its core, and players are rewarded for helping the team. Killing an enemy will get you plenty of points, of course, but skirmishes lost to a more skilled adversary aren't always without value. You'll likely still get points for a kill assist, or even for spotting the enemy, which puts a red marker above his head so your teammates can track him down. That helps you climb up the scoreboard even if you're not channeling John Rambo and turning entire enemy squads into hamburger.
You might think the reward system makes the game unfair and frustrating, since more skilled and experienced players have more gadgets. But believe it or not, it seems to work the other way around. You see someone with a cool add-on, or you pick up a discarded gun you've never seen before, and you think,
Man, I want that in my loadout. In my experience, the reward system only makes
Battlefield 3 more addictive.
In the end, the
Battlefield 3 beta has proven be shockingly addictive and surprisingly well balanced. It's already eaten up four hours of my life, and it threatens to consume many more. I'm not sure how long this infatuation will last or whether the full game will prove as exhilarating after a few weeks or months. Still, this is the first time I've truly had fun playing a
Battlefield game online, and that's saying a lot.
From what I can tell, this title takes the best parts of the
Battlefield series,
Counter-Strike, and
Modern Warfare, and it smushes 'em all together into one gorgeous-looking package with amazing sound effects and a neat web interface to tie it all together.
More. . .