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So let’s kick this Godzilla Vs King Kong battle with a part of both games that possibly 30% of the gamers haven’t even touched. The campaign.
1. Campaign
Being the final arch in the Modern Warfare story (at least we hope it’s the final one) Modern Warfare 3 already had a head start of Battlefield 3. The characters are already better developed and there’s already a goal that the main game is trying to come to close. However, Call of Duty’s story telling tricks are beginning to stale. The progression through the campaign mainly focus' on the Russians continuing their attack on the US. Meaning we chop between US soldiers and the Task Force 141 with familiar faces Soap and Captain Price as they try to clear their names and bring the truth to the world about Makarovs plans.
As expected though a lot of the actual campaign is your standard point shoot, throw grenade repeat. It’s only really broken up when something explodes like when a plane rips in two pieces. The story is predictable and the whole 'having your character die whilst you play as him' technique grew old after you abused it more than enough times in MW2. Infinity Ward, come on. Try to keep things fresh at least? The missions are generally chopped up with big set pieces, like something traditionally exploding just because Soap looked at it. Or for you to be whisked away into an overhead aircraft to rain down an assortment of artillery on enemies below.
In all, the campaign is rather dull. Characters come and go and since there’s no real attachment with the characters, the fact that the levels are rather fast paced and full of explosions means that its hard to connect with the characters or even hear what they’re saying. Which makes for a great moment when one of the main characters in fact dies. A quite big character merely dies in the middle of a massive battle. No heroic death, no special, meaningful moment. He just dies and you move on. A lot like the rest of the game. Person in front of you dies and you just move on. The only real saving grace for the campaign is actually the final level. The final mission brings the whole three games to a satisfying close. It’s a sigh of relief and satisfaction after being on such a long, long hunt for Makarov since COD 4.
Now, with Battlefield 3s campaign, its...well, I can’t lie to you. Battlefield 3's campaign is very similar. When a collection of nuclear weapons go missing, one solider is called in for questioning as to find out what really happened and how to prevent New York bearing a similar fate as to Paris, the first victim to one of the missing WMDs.
From here, the narrative is set as flashback pieces during an interrogation, playing through the missions from the recent past and building up to the present but hang on. Haven’t we seen this before? Examples of EA's PS2 first person shooter Black and hell, even more recently, Call of Duty Black Ops has the same story telling narrative. Unfortunately, this sets the premise for a lot of 'inspired' moments from COD. Even to the point of playing a character who eventually is executed live on television. Haven’t seen that one before! *cough*
Part of this issue is mainly that the game is starting afresh with the story, so we are following standard soldiers rather than distinct characters. Not the four we have been following through Bad Company, so it’s hard to get attached to new characters especially since they don’t really have any attributes we can relate or empathize with. Besides the fact they can shoot guns.
Battlefields more realistic approach to war does have a more, tamer effect on the campaign. Whilst there’s plenty of gunfights and things going on, it’s still quite plainly a standard shooter. The campaign is a very good way to show off the Frostbite 2 Engine, but is still a fairly plain shooting experience when things are collapsing or exploding. The game switches between multiple characters in some areas and manages to split up some of the game play with a two levels dedicated to vehicles. One as a fighter jet, and another in a tank. Again though, the campaign like, Call of Dutys is easily forgettable with the game really just culminating to the final level. And as satisfying as both of the final levels are. They both end with dreaded quick time events. Hurgh....
In all, both games are slow on the mark. With the most memorable bits really being set piece sections, both campaigns are worth playing for the endings and the achievements. To put it one way, if Call of Dutys over the top style was a Die Hard film. Battlefield 3's seriousness and realistic sides are more you’re Saving Private Ryan.
Winner - Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 takes the win here, barely and probably only for the Juggernaut level
2. Visuals and Sound
So onto how things look and sound. This really is more of a visuals competition due to the fact both of the games sounds and audio is essentially sound clips of gun fire and the same three phrases 'Grenade!', 'Take Cover!' and 'Reloading' just repeated in multiple languages. So let’s start this time with Battlefield 3.
Battlefield 3's new Frostbite 2 engine is quite something, everyone’s seen the trailers of Caspian Boarder and even if you’re not using the game on a PC, the console versions manage just as well to create a great look. Something that the engine does without you really noticing is immersing you into this world, or war with realistic visuals. Not just on the buildings and structures. Frostbite 2 adds a new level of realism with things like light, sun glare, the environment and explosions. There’s nothing quite like it when your caught between tanks firing upon each other especially if your standing near the loser of said battle. The explosions, smoke and even initial shockwave will really jolt you and give a real genuine feel. The sun glare, dirt and water all have that great effect on screen and really manage to get you involved. Dice also have a piece on the Frostbite engine which does actually deal with sound and distance, which creates a deeper feeling in the middle of a massive battlefield and sounds fantastic with surround sound or a headset. You'll almost feel the gunfire whizzing past you.
The only real problem that comes to light with Battlefields visuals is that the destructible environments (something games like Bad Company 1 and 2 were famous for having) has been notably tweaked. Granted, you can still blow holes in buildings but you can’t level them or create your own routes through areas, because of this, vehicles are also a little limited with what they can do. No more clearing through houses in a tank. Boo! The first piece of downloadable content ‘Back to Karkand’ has however addressed this and buildings can be almost totally stripped. They won’t collapse completely, but again with those beautiful visuals and feel, it really is something to be running from a building as segments of the balconies above come tumbling down onto the ground. Or if you’re unlucky. Onto you.
So what’s with Call of Duty then? Infinity Ward knew they were onto a winner when they created Call of Duty 4 and created the new engine but surely they want to change it up a little, or at least make it better? Unfortunately, IW believe the old saying 'don’t fix what aint broke' leading in us, the consumers, being sold yet another game which funnily enough looks like the last 5 Call of Duties. We can give them their dues, the game still looks alright but in all fairness they aren’t trying to really push their own engine anymore. Is Infinity Ward getting lazy? There are plenty of things IW could do to improve the visuals. Having something that’s destructible beyond glass and boxes would be nice…
Winner – Battlefield 3 by a mile. A totally gorgeous looking mile.
3. Multiplayer
So here is where Call of Duty not only draws in its crowds, but is also starting to become the start of its downfall. Sure, COD 4 turned not only the franchise but the First Person Shooting genre on its head. However, 5 games down the line, and innovation seems to have been a little worn out this time round. With maps that are small and feel like square grids with a random assortment of buildings slapped in them. Change the setting a few times and hey presto there’s your first 8 maps to play with. Whilst all the great staples are there, weapon attachments and the ever growing list of challenges. The drive to get them has become a lot easier, so running around with that golden weapon skin just doesn’t seem respectable anymore. The monotonous grinding feeling is worsened when you’re greeted with a majority of players more than happy to camp throughout an entire match and the ever unpopular quick scoping has made an unwelcome return despite Treyarch managing to eliminate this issue in Black Ops.
Not to say Battlefield doesn’t have its community nuances though. With the inclusion of vehicles comes the frustration of when you grab a vehicle a little faster than someone else and then they feel the need to destroy your vehicle. An even worsening feeling is someone beats YOU instead, only to end up driving it off a cliff or flying it into a mountain face before they even got out of the base camp. With inexperience in vehicle controls comes fails of epic proportions. Or trolling. However BF3 manages to cater for a lot of people. Most COD fans dislike Battlefield for its long drawn out matches however the newly refined Team Deathmatch mode not only brings back some of that fast paced feel, but brings new kinds of play to the table with all the kinds of weapons you have access too. Attachments have a much larger affect on weapons calling you to try them all out to find that perfect match for you and your play style.
Both games have plenty of weapons and a plethora of upgrades to come to them. Whilst they have distinct styles in game play styles Battlefields team playing squad and load out elements and the ability to control vehicles against COD's all out do as you wish complete with the trademark killstreaks and perks. Multiplayer is a tough one to gauge.
For being direct competition with Call of Duty, Battlefield and the guys at Dice and EA have really shot themselves in the foot with including the need for an Online Pass. Yes, it’s all the trend these days, but if Battlefield plans on mopping up the players who defect from COD, it definitely needed to have the ability for ANYONE to play online. I mean hell; it doesn’t even have a 2 day trial. What the hell are you thinking EA? Even with this in mind. We must come to a decision.
Winner – Here is the tough one due to the fact this is what everyone will have an opinion on. However the winner here isn’t the one that draws in the most players, it’s the one that’s actively made a difference over the years development wise, the one game that’s refused to change its multiplayer staple to be more like the other like the majority of recent shooters have. The one game that over four years has always continued to progress forward rather than remain the same. Which is why the winner here, is Battlefield 3
4. Co-op
Call of Duty has two co-op modes. First is IW's original answer to Treyarchs Zombies, called Spec Ops. These collections of missions are playable in both solo and 2 player both online and off and will pit you in situations from both the campaign and original missions. Using team work and skill you can shoot your way through to earn 3 star awards on each mission, on the ever soul destroying Veteran mode.
On top of this mode, COD comes with a Survival mode. This wave based mode sees you and one other friend put against enemies varying from soldiers and dogs to juggernauts and scout helicopters. Using money earned from kills, you can buy new weapons, attachments, explosives and even killstreaks to use to fight the ever hardening waves. Each map has its own set of special enemies that vary from enemies packed with C4 vests, to squads with poisonous gas grenades and riot shields. The further you get through the waves, the more enemies and heavier the firepower will become. But how long can you last?
Whilst Spec Ops is very similar to MW2's missions its Survival that really ‘does it’ for me. What makes it better is that it comes with a separate XP system which will unlock more weapons and perks to be used in the survival mode. This is personally what I thought was needed in the Zombies mode to make it a worth while to spend all that time endlessly shooting the undead. However the rest of the world seemed more than happy to mindlessly continue doing it. Even now.
Battlefields co-op again takes a more serious approach. This two player only collection of missions pit you and a buddy against a set of scenarios within the games Campaign, these levels however aren’t just ripped right out of the Single Player, instead these co-op missions work within the SP story. Some of the missions will have each player doing different things like one player flying a helicopter whilst the other shoots from the gunners’ seat. Or have you both performing stealth kills across Parisian streets with snipers to save hostages. Whilst there are only 6 missions so far, we can always hope for a few more in the form of DLC.
Reason to grab a friend and play these missions are playing through to earn points. As you reach certain point milestones you'll unlock yourself new weapons for the multiplayer, otherwise unavailable. There’s always the achievements to keep you going at it too, but until some more missions are introduced or some more new ways of co-op are introduced (perhaps Dice will bring Onslaught back for a third time) Call of Duty will have to take the win on this one. Purely for having a hell of a lot more content to do with a friend.
Winner - There’s tons that can be done with DLC here, and in fairness with DICE, there’s all the chance that we will get it. But until then, Call of Duty wins the co-op battle.
5. Achievements
Now achievements is a tough one. As both titles are fairly generic in delegating their points. Obviously each title has 1000 gamer score, but they are tied to similar things. Both have standard campaign achievements. Sticking with tradition as usual, COD fills up almost its entire achievement list with finishing the campaign on Veteran. Probably one of the easiest veteran playthroughs yet. The majority of gamerscore is attainable in one solid playthrough, with Intel and level specific achievements taking up more of the time. As per usual. No online multiplayer achievements bar the special ops and survival modes which will give you a bit of a pain.
As goes with Battlefield 3, the majority of achievements sit with finishing the game on its hardest setting and doing level specifics. There are a lot more achievements for finishing the co-op side of things and there’s even a few for the proper multiplayer. Nothing crazy like Halo's usual multiplayer achievements, but sensible attainable ones. Reach the highest level; earn all of the medals once etc. The latest downloadable content for BF3 does contain achievements and they are a variation on quite difficult and rather easy which will keep players coming to the new content.
Winner - This time Battlefield 3 gets it. Whilst not being a crazy list of fun or difficult achievements, BF3's are much more varied and get you into playing all of what the game has to offer.
6. Extras
Onto extras and this time Call of Duty really has outdone itself. Elite is an online service that tracks literally everything you do whilst playing online. Not only a stat tracking service, the program also allows you to create clans and participate in tournaments and clan matches around the world. Taking part in these clan or group events can help you and your group members earn tons more XP and even those codes that are like crack to Super Hans the 'Double XP' codes. Elite is accessible both through a dashboard application and on the internet meaning keeping an eye on your progress has never been so easy. Or more interesting to look at, however, there’s just one small blip.
Remember when Kotick was adamant on being able to 'monetize' the CoD franchise? Well, you’re looking at it. For the yearly fee of £40. Yeah, forty quid. You can have access to all of this. The free membership includes access to statistics and the even better thing? The full paid subscription will allow access to a lot more as well as all of the proposed downloadable content for free before those who aren’t on the Elite service. It’s just a shame that the service barely worked on launch due to ‘unexpected interest’ Yeah, nice going Infinity Ward, that beta did a load of good huh?
So onto Battlefield 3, Battlefields answer to Elite is Battlelog. Combining the weapon stats and character awards tracking seen in previous titles like Bad Company 2 with EA's ever breaking Autolog features. Whilst in a lot of cases, Autolog has been a great idea of getting players to compete against each other in a friendlier way but still competitive. Battlelog doesn’t break and disconnect you from everything like it does in games like NFS The Run. But Battlelog only really manages to give you a worth while experience if you’re sat at your PC the whole time.
Something I enjoyed about Bad Company 2 was that I could jump into my stats page and see the stats for my weapons. How many kills I had, accuracy etc. How far away I was from an upgrade or a new service medal for each weapon. Sadly, on BF3 this information isn’t at hand as easily as it previously was. It’s in fact not even on the disc. Instead, I need to log online onto a pc and check those stats via the battlelog website. What. The. Hell. To those who can’t really be arsed with sitting on a website all the time to just check stats when I need them Battlelog is only really useful on the main menu, telling me who of my friends has leveled up, and even then I have to sift through all their weapon unlocks first. One step forward. Two steps back EA. Cmon.
Winner - As painful as it is to say. This time, it really does show that getting something for free isn’t always a great idea. Here Elite wins, even if it is the price of another triple A title. Or two really good normal games.
So, with all that, let’s take a look at where we’re at:
Story - COD
Sound/Visuals - BF3
Multiplayer - BF3
Co-op - COD
Achievements - BF3
Extras - COD
2012 feels like it can be the year to tilt Call of Duties position on the first person shooter throne. The crown is slipping, but is Battlefield 3 enough to turn the tides? This bout between the two, like most wars, has ended with no real winner. Both games boast some impressive stats over one another, but can Battlefield bring down the behemoth that is COD? Will it be the beginning of a steady trend of new shooters that will distract players from the all familiar? Or will COD maintain its supremacy? So, the traditional, safe similarity of Call Of Duty? Or do you dare brave something new and different? For each and every one of us, this battle between the FPS icons comes down to one thing. You.
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