Geometry Wars: Galaxies

Title: Geometry Wars: Galaxies
Platform Played On: Wii
Release Date: November 20, 2007
Date Played: November - December 2007
Time Played: 3 hours
Completed (Y/N): No
Score: 4/5




Opinion:
Geometry Wars was a huge success on the Xbox 360, and it is good to see the franchise spread. The game is hurt by the Wii's lack of high resolution support; however it tries to bounce back by adding some great new features.

Geometry Wars is known for its flashy, explosive visuals, excellent music and mesmerizing gameplay. And all of these elements are present in this iteration of the game, albeit limited by the Wii's hideous SD resolution. So the moment to moment gameplay is as exciting as it was on the HD counterparts.  Galaxies does attempt to make up for the lack of visual fidelity with the addition of more modes.

Unlike Geometry Wars, in Galaxies you are presented with a campaign, a series of stages with unique goals and strategies. The game board also departs from the traditional rectangle and takes on a variety of geometric shapes and abstract figures.  The campaign although feels like it was  put in out of the necessity to justify the $40 price of the retail box does add many hours of interesting gameplay that has not been explored by the franchise before.

In addition to the campaign, you can play several multiplayer, competitive and co-op missions. Prior to Galaxies, Geometry Wars was exclusively a single player high score domination experience. But addition of multiplayer makes Geometry Wars: Galaxies a great party game.

At its core Geometry Wars: Galaxies is a good evolution of the Geometry Wars franchise. The multiplayer allows several people to play at the same time, and the ability to choose from several dozen of levels does mix things up. It is fun and entertaining, although the blurry 480p graphics do look terrible compared to the crisp PC and Xbox 360 counterparts.

Since Geometry Wars: Galaxies' release Geometry Wars 2 came out on the Xbox 360. It incorporated multiple modes and multiplayer. So unless you only have a Wii in your household, or cant live without the campaign mode I would skip Galaxies and grab Geometry Wars 2 instead. It is cheaper, and has almost everything Galaxies has to offer while retaining the excellent 1080p crispness.

Infinity Blade

Title: Infinity Blade
Platform Played On: iPad
Release Date: December 9, 2010
Date Played: January 2012
Time Played: 5 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5

Opinion:
Infinity Blade is one of the coolest things I've seen on an iPad. Published by Epic Games it is no surprise that Infinity Blade utilizes the iOS version of their world famous and in recent years developer's number one engine, the Unreal Engine.

I never had a chance to check out Infinity Blade, it seemed like a big time investment, and I just never got around to it.  Today though, recovering from 102.7 degree fever that lasted almost 3 days (and still going) I did not have strength to get up, or do much of anything other than grab my iPad and check a few things on it. Thats when I noticed the lonely icon if Infinity Blade that's been neglected for almost a year (ever since I got the iPad). What the heck I thought, and launched the game.

The minute the game started. my jaw dropped to the ground, I could not believe how great it looked. More importantly how fluid all of the animations and camera pans were. It was like playing a 360 or a PC game on an iPad.  I've seen some impressive iPad games, but Infinity Blade is simply stunning.

It is not just the visuals that make Infinity Blade so great. All of the characters speak in a fictional latin sounding language, which adds a great layer of epicness to the experience. And of course the system that made Diablo such a successful franchise, random loot.  Throughout the game you collect items to fill 5 gear slots (weapon/shield/ring/helm/armor). Each can either be purchased for in game currency (not real life money) or simply looted. They each have stats, some do nothing but add armor, others add stats, even others increase drop rate of healing items or gold. This loot system keeps the experience interesting on subsequent playthroughs, even though you go through the same areas the same areas you never know what kind of drop you are going to get from a chest or a monster.

Speaking of interesting, perhaps the most innovative and cool thing that Infinity Blade does it the way it treats death. Any time your character dies your son comes back to avenge your death, keeping your experience and items. It is nice that the developer took an extra step to make death make sense. 99% of games do not address that at all.

My only complaint with Infinity Blade is the fact that its a fairly short game. You can make it from start to the final boss in under 15 minutes; however it is designed in such a way that you will have to spend a few hours playing through the game over and over again to finally be powerful enough to defeat him. There are a few forks in the road, so each playthrough can be a bit unique; the monsters also gain abilities and vary a bit as you replay the game. All that being said however with the enjoyability of Infinity Blade, its repetitivness barelly stands in the way of its greatness. I defeated the final boss after 4 ancestors, and at level 15 (the final boss is level 50). And i had a blast every second of the 5 hours I played to get to that point even with its repetitivness.

Infinity Blade is definitely in the top 5 games to have for iOS. Get it, you will not regret it.

Defeat of the Final Boss (Level 15, Generation 4)

Doom 3

Title: Doom 3
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: August 3, 2004
Date Played: August - September 2004
Time Played: 12 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
News of a new Doom game reached me soon after ID's E3 2002 announcement, and naturally being a  huge fan of the series I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait for its release.

Imp in Doom 1/2 vs Doom 3

We have just recently moved into freshly built Vista Del Campo and started our second year at UCI when Doom 3 came out. Naturally I dropped everything and grabbed myself a copy.

Doom 3 is a remake of the original game. It starts with a not so special day and you (THE marine) arriving on Mars and reporting for what ought to be uneventful duty. In the first 30 minutes or so you can explore the base and interact with various set pieces. I remember being extremely impressed by seeing TVs with video broadcasts running, and interactive elements such as arcade machines and window blinds. Interactive objects unrelated to the main story were still a rarity and monitors with perfectly crisp (sometimes even interactive) video was unheard of. Doom 3 made a great impression right out of the gate.

Shortly after your arrival on Mars, all hell breaks lose and you become the lone marine who has the fate of the world in his hands. Right off the bat (even prior to the chaos) you are treated with familiar scenery, a homage to the Doom 1 and Doom 2 classics. The UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) boxes and logos, and the protagonist's iconic green armor. Since this game is a remake of the original Doom the monsters make a comeback in all of their 3D glory. Every single enemy is true to the legacy from their look to their unique attacks, in most cases the same strategies can be applied as with the decade old Doom 1 and Doom 2.  This makes Doom 3 exceptionally enjoyable for any fan of the series.

Cyber Demon in Doom 1/2 vs Doom 3

I spent months playing Doom 3, and even got my roommate (more like apartment mate, since all four of us had our own bedrooms) Jeff onto it. I would watch him play it with volume cranked up and lights off, and since I knew when the scares were going to happen, I would scream and shake him to scare the hell out of him. It was priceless. One day I was coming home from class, and noticed that he was playing it, and his window was open... lucky me :) . I snuck up and yelled as loud as I could right into the window, which was right next to him. Holy bajesus that was awesome. I scared the s#!t out of him. I love Doom 3. Personally one of the scariest moments for me was the mirror scene near the beginning of the game.  I am pretty sure that I had to turn it off for a bit after that happened.

Although this is a remake of the first game, it does also feature monsters introduced in the second game, the Revanant (skeleton dude) is one of the examples. I imagine that this decision originated from the desire for variety and depth, something that is basically required nowadays in games.

In general people have two complaints about Doom 3, one is that its a narrow corridor shooter, and another is that it relies too much on closet monsters (things jump out to scare you). And in general I am not a big fan of either of those mechanics; however, I think Doom without them is not Doom. These are the precise mechanics that the originals relied on. A sudden disappearance of a wall and lights being shut of as dozens of enemies poured towards you is what made the original games scary, and the early 90's technology is what shaped it into a corridor shooter. Those factors define Doom, and those factors is what makes Doom 3 so great. Without them, might as well call the game something else.

Overall Doom 3 is exactly what I would want a remake to be, it keeps true to the originals while at the same time pushing the envelope with its state of the art gaming engine.  The art direction is spot on, and I am glad to see all of the monsters from the originals making a comeback. Doom 3 is an excellent shooter that is a hybrid between the early 90's and modern FPS. I would definitely recommend it for anyone that likes atmospheric sci-fi horror shooters.

Revenant (left) and Demon (right) and Their Doom 1/2 Counterparts.

Doom 2

Title: Doom II
Platform Played On: PC/Xbox 360
Release Date: October 10, 1994
Date Played: 1994-1997, Summer 2010
Time Played: 200+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes (many times)
Score: 5/5





Opinion:

"Heavy Weapon Dude" New Enemy in Doom 2

I am very fond of the Doom franchise as you have probably seen by my accounts of Doom 1 (found here). In my opinion it is one of the best games of the early to late 90's. The only game that stood even close was Duke 3d, and later (in 1998) Half Life took the torch from Doom's hands and carried the FPS genre forward.
Having spent hundreds of hours playing Doom 1 to the point of knowing every single secret and map layout I was ready to play more. Doom 1 was just as incredible after 200 hours as it was when I first sat down to play it.

One day my dad told me that he got the sequel to Doom, at the time by far my most favorite game ever. Naturally ecstatic I couldn't wait to sit down behind the 486 and give this new adventure a whirl.

Doom 2 used the same engine and general design of the first game, which meant one thing, it was awesome. I remember my dad watching me play and saying, "dude double barrel shotgun!". The double barreled shotgun was a new weapon in Doom 2, and although the levels looked very similar to the first game (as far as textures) Doom 2 featured more complicated map layout, new enemy types and a singular campaign of 30ish levels (as opposed to Doom 1's multiple 10 level campaigns).  One thing that I always thought they should have brought over from Doom 1 was the loading screen in between levels. It showed your physical location on the planet, but I guess it would be harder to pull off since Doom 2 takes place on Earth, and they wouldnt be able to come up with some generic Martian bases like they did in the first game.  But that is a minor complaint, and more of a wish.  Everything else about Doom 2 was exactly what I wanted, same mechanics but new levels and monsters.

The Awesome Double Barrel Shotgun

Just like the first game, I proceeded to play Doom 2 for years, spending hundreds of hours beating the game dozens of times and learning all of its secrets just like I did in the first game. The only thing that eventually pulled me away from Doom 2 was Duke 3D.

Many years later, the game was ported to Xbox live (May 26, 2010), which I promptly purchased and played through. Doom 2 remains the same as I remember it, a great game with although by today's standards primitive mechanics, but god damn it is it still so satisfying to run around with a shotgun kicking ass and taking names.

Doom 2 just like the first game will probably look like a pixelated abomination to any modern gamer that did not experience it when it was state of the art jaw dropping technology, so there is probably not much point in checking it out. However if you do want to check it out, it has been ported to almost every platform imaginable, from graphing calculators to handheld devices to phones The Xbox Live Arcade is an excellent port, and on PC it has been recreated in some custom OpenGL engines which actually make it look more or less like a late 90's early 2000's game. 

Doomsday Engine Doom 2

Doomsday Engine Doom 2

Empire Earth

Title: Empire Earth
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: November 12, 2001
Date Played: 2002
Time Played: 30 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 3/5



Opinion:
Empire Earth came out around the time that the strategy games were making a shift from the sprite based to polygonal graphics.

At its root Empire Earth was trying to capitalize on the success of the Ages of Empires franchise by having a similar premise; however done on a more epic scale. What I mean by that is the fact that while Age of Empires allows you to transition from prehistoric tribal to medieval ages, Empire Earth expand that progression all the way to the 21st century (14 epochs in total, nearly 60,000 years of evolution). Of course this is not something we have never seen before, Civilization had a similar setup more than a decade prior to Empire Earth; however Empire Earth was the first time I have seen a real time strategy take on such a scope.

To be honest it was hard transitioning from the perfectly drawn sprite based RTS games such as Age of Empires 2, and Red Alert 2 to blocky and crudely drawn 3d models of Empire Earth. Even though technologically more advanced and offering more potential they looked vastly inferior and as a whole simply turned me off the game. Nevertheless the ability to race your opponents technologically through so many epochs made me stick with Empire Earth all the way to the end. It was an interesting mechanic that I have never experienced in a real time strategy game before. And I will admit that its hell of a lot of fun to roll tanks into a city being protected by pikemen.

Aside from polygonal graphics and impressive 14 epoch inclusion Empire Earth was just run of the mill RTS. Everything you know about Age of Empires held true here. Build a base, build an army, and kill the other guy before he kills you.  Overall the campaign is completely forgettable and doesnt come even close to the campaigns of games such as Red Alert 2 with its full motion video cinematics and Star Craft's novel worthy epic story.

I would say Empire Earth is passable. With great looking Age of Empires 2 there is no reasons to venture into Empire Earth's territory. Yes the ability to prograess all the way to tanks and rockets is appealing; however, the inferior blocky graphics, basically meaningless campaign and lack of genre innovation does not make it worth it.

Title: Doodle God
Platform Played On: iPhone
Release Date: June 11, 2010
Date Played: January 2012
Time Played: 1 hour
Completed (Y/N):  No
Score: 3/5

Opinion:
It is hard to call Doodle God a game, but if I had to assign it a category then I would put it in the "marvelously presented matching game" pile.

The game starts with a beautiful and fully narrated (by a voice worthy to be God's voice) doodled mini movie. It goes something like this.

God created 4 elements, Fire, Water, Air and Earth. He used Earth to make mountains and plains, he used Water to add lakes and rivers. He used Air to make.. well... air. Everything else that was created came from these four elements.

Then you are given the reins to discover all 248 elements by mixing these 4 elements. For example you can grab Water, and combine it with Fire to produce Vodka (a.k.a firewater). You can take Earth and Seeds to produce a tree, then you can use the Tree and combine it with Fire to produce Coal and Ash.  All of a sudden you have dozens of components that can be mixed and matched to form new discoveries.

It is basically a very well done guessing game. The more and more components you have the harder it is to go through all of the combinations, so it does make you use your noodle a bit; however you could potentially discover all 248 elements by just randomly guessing.

Personally I am impressed by the presentation. The fully voiced intro with so much dialogue was pleasantly surprising. The art is spot on and looks great on a retina iPhone 4 screen. The music is well done and fits the game perfectly.

Beyond the intro movie there is basically no story substance to it. There is that setup and then its basically... here are the elements... GO.

Overall this is a cool game to have on your phone to go to once in a while. Its structure allows for taking months between play sessions and still know whats going on. It is a cool game to show off to friends, since there is the whole factor of.. oh man what if you combine X and Y?  Basically this is a cool little app (currently 99cents). It is fun to mix different things to see what you get, and Doodle God allows you to do that on your phone and not blow up your house with a chemical lab.

Title: Jetpack Joyride
Platform Played On: iPhone
Release Date: September 1, 2011
Date Played: January 2012
Time Played: 2+ hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 5/5

Opinion:
Jetpack Joyride is a Canabalt clone. However, unlike most other clones it actually constitutes a great package with achievements, unlocks and upgrades, as well as a leveling and power up system.

For those unaware of the genre creating Canabalt, it is a simple one button game in which your character is constantly running to the right, and pressing the one button makes him jump. There are various obstacles that will kill your character, but all of them can be jumped over if triggered at the right time.  The overall objective is to make it as far as you can, which is represented by a meter at the top of the screen.

In a nutshell this is what this game is; however Jetpack Joyride stands out from its peers because of its polish and depth. Most games of this kind feature simple running or gliding animation and a scrolling screen with repeating backgrounds. Jetpack Joyride however features great looking hand drawn art with constantly changing backgrounds, which when coupled with random level generation makes each run feel very unique. On top of that there is a deep and fun achievement / leveling up system, where by accomplishing certain tasks you get rewarded with badges.

Jetpack Joyride is the next level of Canabalt clone; infact it may coin a new term with games of this kind being called Jetpack Joyride clones. Its powerup and upgrade systems dramatically increase its replayability, and add an element of luck to what previously was mostly a twitch skill genre. This luck inturn creates that gambling "oh just one more time" feeling because of the randomness of powerups and level layouts.

Overall Jetpack Joyride is an amazing value on the iOS devices (currently free). I can see myself loosing hours to it trying to beat my friend's scores on the leaderboards. By the way... what a great addition... without leaderboards Jetpack Joyride would be a fun game to play for couple of minutes here and there, but the leaderboards add a whole another layer; where you simply have to beat your friend's score. There is no reason not to get Jetpack Joyride, it is a great game.

Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis

Title: Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis
Platform Played On: Sega Genesis
Release Date: 1995
Date Played: 1996 - 1998
Time Played: 300+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5





Opinion:
Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis was one of the most unique games of its time, it defined the RTS (real time strategy) genre, and inspired clones for years to come.

I first came across Dune 2 at the age of 11 while visiting a so called arcade, which really was nothing more than a dude with a bunch of consoles in a movie theater lobby charging 25 cents per 5 minutes of play. The dude himself would sit down and play Dune 2 to pass time when there were no customers. That is where my friend Alexei Gavrish whom I met in school (we were part of the same "A" class and would hang out almost every day) got introduced to Dune 2 for the first time. Video games was a passion both of us shared (well.. and blowing stuff up).

My first impression of Dune 2 was not a great one. All i saw was weird shapes, and compared to Doom 2 and Duke 3d's amazing graphics seemed nothing more than some sort of weird shape puzzle game. One day Alexei acquired a copy of Dune 2 of his own, and sat me down to show me, why Dune 2 was so great.

The Weird Squares That I Thought Were a Puzzle Like Tetris

My first question was something along the lines of "what the hell am I looking at?", random colored squares, some sort of shapes, and weird spinning circles. What came out of his mouth absolutely blew my mind. He said, "no, no you dont get it... look... these are buildings... you are looking at them from the sky! Like a map!"... my mind was blown. All of a sudden it made perfect sense, I could clearly see that what I thought to be square puzzle pieces are actually buildings. It never crossed my mind to think of it as looking from the sky at buildings, this whole time I was looking at it as a flat sideways plane, kind of like in Tetris. As mentioned earlier this was the pioneer, a founding father of RTS, and so I have never see anything like it before.

Alexei proceeded to explain to me how each building served a unique purpose, how you need to collect spice to sell it for money, and use money to build factories to produce an army, factories need electricity, so you have to build power stations. I was absolutely shocked with how much depth there was in this what I thought to be dumb looking puzzle game running on 7.67MHz processor and 64K RAM console. All of a sudden once I realized they were bird's eye view buildings the graphics became awesome. I was hooked immediately.

The 3 Houses of Dune
I liked Atreides and Harkonned over Ordos

Soon after this revelation me and Alexei headed to the "Chinese Hotel", a building on the edge of the city which smelled like the air was made of cigarettes and Chinese spices. You needed to be 16 or older to enter, so usually we would sneak in. Inside the Chinese residents would sell all sorts of goods right out of their doorways, from consoles and games to clothes, gadgets and food. It was there that I would buy all of my Genesis games for $5-$15 a piece. It was also there that I acquired my personal copy of Dune 2, and from then on Dune 2 was my video game of choice to kill a few hours.

Over the course of the next 3 years or so, I spent hundreds of hours with Dune 2, beating each of the 3 campaigns dozens of times, devising new strategies and becoming as close to an expert as I could ever get. It was in my opinion the best game ever released on the Genesis, and at the time possibly the best game in the world. At least my personal best. The amount of depth, strategy and replay value was astounding. Each house had its own story line, and special units. Each mission could be played hundreds of different ways. The ability to build and expand your base in whatever way you saw fit was something I have never seen in video games before, and gave an immense sense of freedom. It was an amazing experience.

Dune 2: The Battle for Arrakis was remade in 1998 as Dune 2000, the story is a bit different but the basic gameplay remains the same albeit with much, much better graphics. Although personally I love the old Genesis graphics.

Today Dune II is a great memory, but in no way holds up to some of the modern real time strategy games such as StartCraft 2, Red Alert 2, Homeworld, Company of Heroes, and World in Conflict to name a few; however Dune 2 still remains in the top 5 best RTS games of all time on most "best of" lists. It must be acknowledged that without Dune 2 the real time strategy games would take a completely different path, and perhaps would be completely different today. It is one of the dominant exhibits in the video game history, I still fire it up in an emulator once every couple years to remind myself of the great times I had with it. It is too bad that Westwood, the innovative developer behind Dune 2 had its doors closed in 2003 after being acquired by EA in 1998.

Dune 2 and Westwood will forever live in my heart as some of the best time I spent playing video games during my childhood.

Dune 2: Battle For Arrakis
(Sega Genesis 1995)
320x480 Native Resolution

Dune 2000 (1998 remake)
(PC 640x480 Native Resolution)
Click To Zoom

Trade Nations

Title: Trade Nations
Platform Played On:  iPhone/iPad
Release Date: April 20, 2011
Date Played: May-June 2011
Time Played: 100+ hours (persistent gameplay)
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 3/5

Opinion:
Trade Nations is another one of what seems to be hundreds of Farm Ville clones.

It is a persistent (play in the cloud) without any real goals other than expansion of your "nation" game. However, this is probably one of the better games of its kind.  The art direction is well executed and the actual things you do are fairly interesting.

Trade Nations has a Sim City feel to it. You need to provide housing for your little dudes, who in turn can be assigned to various jobs around the "nation".  As they work they earn money, which in turn can be used to upgrade and expand your kingdom to bring in more money to expand etc... basically its a never ending and increasingly hard expansion cycle, which gets mundane fairly quickly (just like Farm Ville).

The one mechanic that makes Trade Nations stand apart from dozens of games of its type is the auction house. The developers took advantage of the fact that the game is played entirely online by adding an auction house where you can buy and sell in-game resources (such as lumber and stone) for gold.  Whats interesting is the fact that the prices are driven by supply and demand (averaged among all Trade Nations players).  In essence it is a market driven by the real Trade Nations economy.  This makes the game that much more interesting, because you cant predict what the prices will be like form day to day, nor can you really game the system.

At the end of the day though Trade Nations is just another Farm Ville clone with (in my opinion) better aesthetics and more interesting gameplay. It utilizes some innovative mechanics such as the auction house, and it allows you to play on the go from any iOS device (assuming you have internet).  However when it comes down to it, after a few weeks of play you find yourself on a grind without any real goal, just like in all the other games of this kind.  After a while progress takes forever, and if you dont want to wait, you have to spend real life $$ on the in-game currency.

Bottom line is that Trade Nations is a cool distraction for a few weeks, but you will probably find yourself bored after a while. If you are a fan of persistent games similar to Farm Ville I would encourage you to check out Trade Nations, its free after all.

Battlefield 3

Title: Battlefield 3
Platform Played On:  PC/Xbox 360
Release Date:  October 25, 2011
Date Played:  November 2011+
Time Played:  100+ hours
Completed (Y/N):  Yes
Score:  5/5




Opinion:
This is going to be a two part opinion due to the fact that Battlefield 3 single player and multiplayer might as well be two separate games.

Single Player:

Jets Are Amazing In Both Single and Multiplayer Modes

Battlefield 3 in attempt to take on the juggernaut Call of Duty franchise, whose mantra of providing a solid single player campaign bundled with visceral multiplayer brought it to the top of all games.

I played through the Battlefield 3 campaign on the Xbox 360. Not going to lie, I did it mostly for the achievement points as Ive already put in over 25 hours into the multiplayer on the PC and could have easily played the campaign there as well.

First things first... what a piece of $#it graphics on the Xbox 360, wow. Granted there is the option of installing an HD texture pack which makes them look better, even still the difference between PC and 360 is astounding.  Who's idea was it to have such low resolution textures by default anyways? Battlefield 3's single player does nothing that Modern Warfare 1, 2 and 3 doesnt do (graphically), and they look great without any texture packs. Whats the deal EA? Check out the following screenshots, I kid you not, thats how the WHOLE game is, these are not just selective parts. Its like this from guns to character models to textures on everything from small objects to large ground textures. (Click on the images to zoom).

Pretty amazing huh?  Now with that out of the way I will say that the textures is the worst part of Battlefield 3's Campaign. Everything else is very well executed.  The story is fairly cool with main protagonist being interrogated by the CIA and most of the action taking place in flashbacks.  There are some interesting twists, and cool settings. I actually would like to make a special comment at how good the level layout is, each level feels unique and interesting, and some missions are freaking amazing.  The mission when you are an F18 pilot dog fighting the Iranians is the best air combat level I have ever played in a video game. It looks and feels absolutely incredible.

The same could be said about the Thunder Run (tank) mission, unlike most other games where you feel as vulnerable in a tank as you do on foot, in Battlefield 3 driving an Abram's tank makes you feel invincible.  I was having a blast feeling like I was in a real tank thanks to all of the very well done radio chatter, variety of viewing modes and the ability to speed through the desert as part of an unstoppable tank division.

DICE (developer) did a great job putting together an assortment of levels that feel very different from each other, one moment you are on foot in a city, another moment you are in a tank, then in a jet, then in a villa on a tropical beach, then desert, then you are a sniper with thermal scope, then you are blasting through a door in downtown New York, and the list goes on.  Not only does this make the pacing excellent, it also makes the game consistently interesting.

In Game Screenshot

The campaign does a great job making you feel as a soldier.  This feeling is largely absent from other military shooters, which tend to make you feel like a bad ass Rambo rather than a normal soldier. But in Battlefield 3, you feel like a normal soldier, an essential part of a greater machine; however it still manages to make you feel bad ass with the way everything handles. You do really feel like you have the latest and greatest military technology at your fingertips.  Its just a ton of fun!


Multiplayer:
All of my multiplayer experience is on the PC, so everything I am going to say is in regards to that version only.

Each year video games become more and more sophisticated both mechanically and graphically. We are currently at the point that one can easily argue that video games are a form of art, in that case Battlefield 3's multiplayer is a masterpiece.

Battlefield 3 looks and sounds absolutely amazing.  DICE did an excellent job making the guns (and equipment/vehicles in general) sound as you would expect the real counterparts to sound. From the iconic sound of the A-10 and Su-39 to the sounds of bullets whizzing by your head Battlefield 3 is one of the best sounding games I have ever played.

Diverse maps with epic looking backdrops look fantastic. They make you truly feel like you are in the middle of a massive battle. And in general, the graphics are spot on in every regard. I can not get enough of the detail on every single aspect of the game.

As far as the actual multiplayer is concerned, it is the best Battlefield yet (maybe even the best competitive FPS to date). The mechanics have been re-balanced and streamlined. No longer do you run around helplessly as a medic, those functions have been integrated into the powerful assault class.  And in general every single class is balanced in such a way that it feels powerful.  I have spent 95% of my time playing as an engineer. I love the RPG, and the ability to place AT mines; however lately I have been playing as the Assault class since I have unlocked everything that the engineer class has locked.

Speaking of unlocks, Battlefield 3 features a ranking system similar to the Call of Duty series. For every little thing you do you get experience, with experience you rank up, and with ranks (and certain tasks) you unlock new weapons, attachments, modifications and camouflage. The whole system is balanced in such a way that it is constantly rewarding you with something, after every match, even if it was the worst match ever you will see some ribbons (awards) or new unlocks.  This is a good thing since its not too long in between new toys so you do not get too attached to the "one" and dont bother trying new combinations.

Basically what I am saying is that Battlefield 3 has solid multiplayer.


Conclusion:
Battlefield 3 is a great package. It features a good and diverse single player campaign, and the best competitive FPS multiplayer I have ever played. I have spent dozens of hours in multiplayer alone, and will continue to do so. I am just as excited to play it as I was the day I played my first match.  Battlefield 3 took all of the FPS dials and moved them up a notch. It has the best visuals (PC) I have ever seen in a multiplayer FPS, the largest maps, the best sounds and the best gameplay.  There is nothing like jumping into a 64 player match with jets dog fighting above you, helicopters doing strafing runs and tanks rolling by as you aim your RPG at the window with the sniper in it, consequently taking out half of the building along with the enemy.

Battlefield 3's chaos is insane, its amazing, its fun... This game is a must play! It is soooo good!