


The strings that keep all these scripted events running smoothly are visible the entire time, so nothing ever feels natural or organic. Don't try to find a bad guy until you're handed a weapon and told exactly where to fire it. You can't pop your head up out of cover until the game says you should, or it's instant death.

Even playing the game on the Normal difficulty setting I died way too often, usually due to breaking the expected order of the scripted events. The choices you can make boil down to in what order should you kill the guys in front of you. This is a deadly serious look at war-if war is a roller coaster that gave you no control over anything. Serious men say serious things in serious voices during the cutscenes, and there is none of the goofy humor and personality from the Bad Company 2 campaign. The missions are linear, and the action is often broken up with lame quick-time events in order to show you something cinematic. Hit the space bar to kill that dudeĭICE seemed to forget everything that made the Battlefield games successful as it crafted the single-player campaign. It may be pretty to look at, but it's an utterly hollow experience. The single-player campaign in a Battlefield title would ideally focus on what the game does differently from its main competitor, but DICE seemed content to simply steal everything it could from the Call of Duty series, placing it all in an engine that will take advantage of every bit of power your PC can throw at it. The multiplayer in Battlefield places an emphasis on teamwork, communication, and vehicles, and this combination has appealed to those who don't care for the alpha-male play of Call of Duty. The Battlefield series isn't just another war game franchise that's trying to compete with the first-person shooter Call of Duty it's a series that offers an experience that's utterly distinct from Activision's testosterone-drenched celebration of war.
