Battlefield 3 dropped last week, promising a strong single-player campaign, an impressive new graphics engine, and up to 64-person multiplayer mayhem on huge maps. Despite a rough few days post-launch, the game delivers much of the multiplayer goodness that it promised, with a strong emphasis on team dynamics and an experience system that rewards both focusing on a particular class and learning the capabilities of all four. Before we dig into the game's extensive online goodness, however, we have to deal with its tedious, flawed, and boring single-player missions.
Battlefield 3's single-player campaign bears a strong resemblance to Lindsay Lohan's career. Not only do they both exist only by dint of technicality, they're each driven by a frantic desire to channel something they aren't—Call of Duty, in BF3's case, Marilyn Monroe in Lindsay's. The problem with BF3's single player campaign is that it jettisons almost everything that makes the multiplayer campaign great. The first mission is set on a train and serves as a perfect metaphor for the entire plot: you're on a rail, from start to finish. Attempting to explore a map or sticking your head out from cover, before being told to, can result in automatic death. Games like this typically rely on scripted scenarios, but BF3's approach is heavy-handed enough to destroy even the illusion of freedom.
This single-player screenshot neatly illustrates the game's detailed models while summarizing the entire SP experience.
If you want great single-player, go play Deus Ex: Human Revolution
If the turgid storyline wasn't enough, the game's cinematic aspirations are further undercut by its use of quick-time events, while the lack of a save game ability turns navigating said events into a tedious process of rote memorization. All of this would be easier to overlook if the SP campaign did anything to prepare you for multiplayer.
