Battlefield 3

[Stark]

The mortar stays spotted for soem considerable time after it's fired, even if it's abandoned. That doesn't make it any less amazingly lame, especially with the stupid illegal map areas.

[CaptHawkeye]

The mortar has pitiful range so it's basically worthless. I was hoping it was a sort of callback to the days of Mobile Guns in BF1942 but then they should have brought in a spotting system or something.

[Stark]

You can target spotted shit, can't you?

[CaptHawkeye]

Yeah but I was thinking more to a location based spot rather than the 3D spotting. Since the 3D spots show up on your map means that the mortar can drop rounds right on top of your head.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The mortar is fantastic. Giving a team effective mortar support (especially on Rush) is almost as enjoyable as the tears that using it generates.

It's excellent against useless sniper assholes, who invariably sit on a rock somewhere and never move. Anyone who moves and attacks aggressively can't really be hit by the mortar, so if enemy teams were smart all the mortar would do is flush people out of cover (which is helpful enough by itself). Teams usually aren't, though, so it just racks up kills instead. The first segment to Metro Rush in particular is a killing ground. Alternating to smoke rounds is great for providing concealment to make that final push onto the M-COMs, too.

[Jordie]

I take out moving people, and tanks on Seine Crossing, all the time. I just lead them or target the spot that I think they're running to. It's even more fun to drop smoke grenades ontop of places I know snipers are going to be camping at.

[Stark]

Yah it's the business for killing vehicles while being totally immune, especially if there's a designator up.

Good thing DICE wanted to increase the pace of the game. I liked rush in BC2, but it's dogshit now with all the horrible ways was can be locked down by off map snipers, mortars, chopper wankers, ect. Other modes where movement is more fluid don't suffer so much.

[Artemas]

so, they updated the server browser with a bunch of new filter options, including a set of regions to search by

one of the regions?

antarctica

also, how do you switch to smoke on the mortar? its not unlockable is it?

[Stark]

The AU copies defaulted to 'europe'. Reading IPs or regional settings is too hard!

[Artemas]

christ, i cant wait for the time when servers leave out conquest damavand.

its hilarious when i grenade a humvee and set it on fire, and then like 5 minutes later it explodes and i get like 4 teamkills.

the g3 is pretty boss, its just too bad that they stripped out the interclass weapons that werent pistols or shotguns

yay flexible classes!

[Stark]

I was really surprised theG3 and EMR were class-locked.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

also, how do you switch to smoke on the mortar? its not unlockable is it?

Toggle fire mode. Though there's no visual indicator of having done so, which is stupid.

[Artemas]

laaaaaame

i thought it was maybe because i was on a hardcore server, which are sort of necessary for leveling guns now

yeah, i was pretty sure that the coop weapons werent going to be locked

[Stark]

Just in time to get ruined by MW3, the server browser is so broken its reporting good latency to every server in the world, so everyone has massive lag. Watching an entire team get cut down because their guns don't work = lol. Rubber banding 200m because the server finally related you hit a rock = lol. 450-0 conquest stompfests against enemies that literally cannot kill you = lol.

[Sea Skimmer]

so, they updated the server browser with a bunch of new filter options, including a set of regions to search by

one of the regions?

antarctica

also, how do you switch to smoke on the mortar? its not unlockable is it?

Antarctica does have regular internet service, and some of those bases have hundreds of people so its not as crazy as you might think.

My first impressions of the game are rushed lame game play and maps which are a step backwards most of the time. Glad I didn't buy it, I'll wait for some patches at the minimal.

[Pu-239]

How well would BF3 run on a Core 2 Duo w/ a modern mid-range graphics card? I Currently have a 2.1GHz C2D (easily overclockable to 2.9, but haven't done that since I replaced my motherboard) w/ a rather aging 7600GT and 6 gigs of RAM. Could I get by with just dropping in a modern mid-range graphics card in, and maybe overclocking to ~3GHz, or do I need to upgrade the CPU to a Core 2 Quad or throw the mobo+CPU+RAM out too and upgrade to an i5 to get at least 30FPS @ 1680x1050-1920x1200? I'm not really familiar w/ what counts for best bang for the buck w/ the current generation of graphics cards either.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I'm running on a C2D 2.4 GHz with a 9800GT, and it runs okay, albeit not exactly with the settings cranked up. If you don't mind lower settings, you should be fine as long as you upgrade that graphics card.

[Steel]

This article gives a rundown on the performance you can expect from all the cards out there: link

From there it says that the game is basically totally limited by the gpu and actually the CPU is never going to make any difference to fps.

[CaptHawkeye]

Despite how much of a step back Battlefield 3 is to BC2, I still haven't met a single person, regular or casual Battlefield fan that doesn't think BF3 is a better game than MW3.

The core concept of the game is just that solid I guess.

[Ryan Thunder]

Despite how much of a step back Battlefield 3 is to BC2, I still haven't met a single person, regular or casual Battlefield fan that doesn't think BF3 is a better game than MW3.

The core concept of the game is just that solid I guess.

Well, Modern Warfare is a shooter where you stab people. Battlefield 3 is a shooter where you shoot people. Seems pretty obvious to me which one knows what they're doing even if we exclude everything else.

[weemadando]

Oh man. That campaign continues to be total ragelulz.

AI Bud: "You need to knife that guy."
Me: *Creeps up behind guy*
Game:*I know that I told you to knife that guy, but you're getting closer than would be possible to start the QTE. Sooooo.... Just die.
Me: *Falls down dead for NO FUCKING REASON*


Also, these are the most aimbot-ish AI I've encountered since the days of Ghost Recon 1. At least it's marginally less lethal so you don't die instantly when they all start snap headshotting you.

[Stark]

The amazing skating is great. Sometimes you'll be 10m ah from someone and shooting, and your gun will stop. Maybe you'll glance at your ammo count, maybe you'll go prone - but then your enemy will teleport next to you and you'll be dead.

[Edward Yee]

Despite how much of a step back Battlefield 3 is to BC2, I still haven't met a single person, regular or casual Battlefield fan that doesn't think BF3 is a better game than MW3.

The core concept of the game is just that solid I guess.

The MW3 campaign had interesting parallels to the BF3 campaign, but otherwise I'm back onboard with Battlefield 3 (once I find the time to game at all).

[hongi]

Does anyone know what the ending means?
Spoiler

My personal interpretation is that Blackburn failed to stop the nuke in NY, and since he and the agents are dead, everyone still blames Dima for the nuclear attacks. The knock on the door would be the French or whoever coming to get him.

[defanatic]

I got six knife kills over the course of four minutes last night. That was pretty fun, but the team opposing mine was quite awful.

It does feel quite rushed, although I like some of the things they've added. Hence, B+. Good effort, needs work. *waits for patch*

Also, I can't join a co-op game with one of my friends. He doesn't get invites or the game start button. Everything appears to work from my end.