If you pre-ordered the Battlefield 3 digital copy, the pre-load starts at 10 AM Eastern time. Get it started now so you don't have to worry about it over the weekend and don't have to try to get it downloaded on release like everybody else.

Four days to go folks!

Now that the beta is closed and we're done playing at fever pitch I wanted to take a few minutes to go over some of the stuff I really liked and disliked. Keep in mind this will be gameplay aspects, not bugs that need fixing. As it was a beta, and a version that was several months old it seems inappropriate to talk about stuff "I hope the fix before release."

Likes

• Weapons: By and large the weapons seem to be a little better thought out than in previous Battlefield games. Historically everybody was running around with one specific weapon per class. Variety is good, and it seems like they took some extra time to make sure each weapon had pros and cons.
• Suppressive Fire Effect: I know this is cool because it aggravates the shit out of me. Taking overhead or defilade fire makes my screen go all silly. It reduces my situational awareness and makes it extremely difficult to identify and fire on a target. Squad tactics become pretty important when a group of guys can lay down fire to help an advancing teammate, this is one of the first things I learned in basic training and one of the things the Army put a lot of time into teaching us.
• Mobile Spawnpoints: This has been missing from Battlefield games since day one. I always assumed that Bad Company 2's addition of squads and squad spawning was their answer to this, but I am thrilled to be wrong. This will make both gametypes MUCH more interesting in larger maps and REALLY help the flow of the game. No more minor skirmishes at an objective and wait 2-3 minutes for the next group of opfor to respawn and march across miles of desert to get back to your position and vice-versa.
• Weapon Addons: Jesus, they finally got it right! No more "Magnum Ammo" on a piddly little sub-machine gun! Rail-mounted weapon mods that make sense and don't skew gameplay such as taclights, bipods, flash suppressors, etc. Each weapon mod has a bonus and a drawback, which means weapon mod combinations can be better tailored to individual playstyles, rather than the cookie-cutter crap we saw in BC2.

Dislikes

• Assault/Support Classes: What did I miss? The shock troops at the front of the fight are expected to run back and revive/heal and play the support role overall while the support guys in the back are expected to run to the front and be the shock troops? It's nonsensical. Assault rifles have no advantages over traditional support weapons, they cannot sustain fire for more than a few seconds, they don't have the damage capability due to projectile size, and they're no more useful in short/medium range situations than any other weapon class in the game. The heal/ammo thing needs to be put back in order and the underslung grenade launcher needs to be a much earlier unlock. Additionally, this class could use a flash grenade, smoke grenade, or some other close-range suppression/cover device to get it out of the other classes' collective shadow.
• Support Weapons (Sorry Reersh!): Seriously, what the fuck is with DICE and their hard-on for the light machine guns? For as long as I can remember the LMGs have been way, way, way out of whack. Any weapon that can pour this kind of fire downrange needs to have greater drawbacks than they do. There are no hits to mobility, very little in the way of obvious accuracy disadvantages, and now the silly fuckers can throw down their own ammo. LMGs are typically used for suppressive and area-target fire at range in the real world. The poor guys running around with M249's and 240B's in the Army aren't bouncing around like crack-addicted Jack Russell Terriers and laying down much in the way of point-target fire. Target aquisition is a much longer process with LMGs than assault rifles in ANY firing position due to their size and weight which tends to make them less desirable than rifles in just about everything but a support role. Yes I understand this is a video game and NOT the real world, but now that the fire suppression effect is in place I think it's time somebody re-examined the role of LMGs on the virtual battlefield and put them back into a SUPPORT role.
• Remington 870/12g Slug Combination: The fact that any of the shotguns start with shot of any kind is mind-blowing. As far as I know (granted, I'm not all-knowing) slugs are pretty standard issue with any combat shotgun in existence. Okay, for balance's sake we can make slugs an unlockable weapon mod, but shouldn't we consider real-world ballistics here? I'm pretty familiar with shotguns myself, and the idea of somebody reliably landing a hit with slugs at 50+ yards is insanity. A low-velocity round as big around as my index finger is simply NOT going to be terribly accurate at range.
• Artillery: Um.... This has been a staple of the Battlefield series since day one, it seems to me with LARGER maps and LARGER teams this would be even MORE useful. Which one of these guys went to war and forgot their gun bunnies? Somebody owes the tribunal they're about to face a BIG explanation....

Overall

I'm looking forward to release. The blend of Battlefield 2 and Bad Company 2 is refreshing, despite being much heavier on the BC2 side. I can see why the guys expecting a prettier version of BF2 are pissed (DICE did say this was BF2's successor) but despite being more appropriately titled Bad Company 3, I think the game itself has something for everybody. I think this has a future both recreationally and competitively provided the community doesn't whine and cry and reduce it to bare-bones, non-unlock weapons and infantry only.

In the recent build of Battlefield 3 that we’ve been seeing lately, there have been a couple of newly implemented gameplay mechanics not included in the Beta that really stood out to us for a few reasons. The first being that they could drastically change the way some gamers play Battlefield and second, because they looked quite similar to gameplay mechanics found in the Call of Duty series.

At around the 3:30 mark in the video below, notice the player as he engages in a fire-fight with an enemy inside the tunnel infront of him. From what it looks like, it seems that whenever his enemy fires his weapon, which is noticeably unsuppressed due to the muzzle flash, his position shows up on the mini-map in the bottom left-hand corner, but is not highlighted by an orange triangle above his head. This basically confirms that enemies who fire an unsuppressed weapon will have their position revealed on your mini-map, which was not the case in the BF3 Beta.



What do you guys think? We’ll let you be the judge of this one.

Another feature in question is the ability to see the locations of your teammate’s death thanks to a skull that appears on screen and on the mini-map. You can check out a few screen shots of this in our Dissection of the Near Final Build of Battlefield 3.

It is arguable that both of these features are very similar to ones found in the Call of Duty series. Teammate’s deaths have always been visible, and enemies have always shown up on the mini-map when firing an unsuppressed weapon. However, it’s undeniable that both of these gameplay mechanics are also effective and enhance the gameplay. If this is indeed true, then why would developers not include it in their own game, regardless of whether or not it’s been done before? In an interview with complex.com, Alex Grondel comments on this very issue: “Since we’re building what we’re building and other shooters are building their stuff, you can easily see when you get the awkward crossover in some places. You have the same inspiration, but you did it in two different ways. In other cases, you have two completely friendly implementations that have no resemblance, but you will still get compared.”

Article shamelessly copied from mp1st.com