As promised, the first console-based action from Battlefield 3 appeared last evening on Jimmy Fallon's late night show, teasing a scene we've watched play out a dozen or so times now on the PC version. Despite the grumblings of many long-time PC Battlefield gamers -- not to mention our own doubts -- BF3 running on PlayStation 3 looks pretty wonderful.
We'll leave it to the pixel counters at Digital Foundry to fully analyze the difference between console and PC releases of Battlefield 3 when it launches this October, but given our lack of expensive gaming rigs and our overabundance of Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s, you can guess where we'll be playing the next big Battlefield title. Head past the break to see how Fallon fared.
Looks way better than I though it would. DICE FTW! It doesnt look as good as PC but Ill take it. Not a huge fan of the red dot but hopefully they update it.
I watched that youtube video in 1080p...from what I can see it looks good, but I can only imagine that it looks even better in person. Hopefully EA would put up an official HD video on its BF3 website.
Watching it again with the link I posted above the red dot looks fine. I think it was from the laggy Kotaku vid I first watched it on. It didnt look good. Looks great now. SO PUMPED!
Yeah, I hate that sight they were using. It seems that guns equipped from earlier missions will carry over to the next mission. Thats the impression i got from that.
I loved the red dot scope that was on one of the classes in BF2. Forgot what it was though.
@LEONLEONLEON That's an EOTech optic. They're the most popular rifle mounted optic in today's military. Get used to seeing it, and the trijicon ACOG optic in video games. They're not going away anytime soon.
I'm sure I'd be satisfied with the console graphics. What is more bothersome to me is the larger player count (64 on PC versus 24 on console) and hence larger maps on the PC version. I am thinking about getting a PC for this one.
@Lampy I think 24 is better than 64. Not a whole bunch of lunatics gunning you down just right after you respawned somewhere else. And to mention it is a little more structured to have 24 or even 16.
@Lampy I don't get it. M.A.G. had 256 on a console years ago. Why has no one else gone over 32 or 24? Clearly the tech is there. I get it's different game to game, and the tech is patented. But why are consoles still stuck at 10% of what this game did 3 yeas ago?
@DenebSwift - MAG had to make some pretty dramatic graphical sacrifices to hit that number. One of the devs on BF3 literally came out and said that they could have made the game uglier, and taken away some destructibility, in exchange for more players on the consoles. I think they made the right choice.
Having said that, I upgraded my PC specifically for this game, and I am looking forward to full 64 player matches.
if im going to play ANY FPS on my PC, I look for matched with around 10 people playing. I do the same with Killzone 2 aswell. I cant bare loads of poeple in a map, It just gets overcrowded and becomes annoying, Nomatter what size the map.
It's a balancing act. The developers obviously want beautiful graphics, a consistent frame rate, full and realistic destructibility, large maps, vehicles and a high player count but to keep the overall integrity and quality consistent they had to have a reduced player count.
If you look at MAG it is absolutely ahead of its time when it comes to the amount of players on a map at any given time without any lag. They also had some unique game play experiences with the vehicles and bases. But, one of the things Zipper Interactive had to do to reach that player count was a reduced frame rate and down scaled graphics.
You have to pick and choose whats important as a developer. Obviously the team felt 24 players gave them the best result on consoles. On the PC there really aren't graphical limitations to what you can do. Console porting (from the PC especially) is probably not the easiest thing in the world.
@LEONLEONLEON I've never played a console BF: are the maps changed at all to reflect that the max player cap is 24?
In the PC version, each map has a few size variations to accommodate more or less players and the largest sizes have always been more than able to handle 64 players.
It was so unpopular and unsuccessful that it made it into the Greatest Hits collection already. If only other games were that unpopular, many companies would be so happy....
MAG was MASSIVELY popular in Europe, and did pretty well in the States as well. I really don't know where you're getting this "unpopular" idea from. The playerbase dwindled rather quickly, but it still sold well.
@LEONLEONLEON Actually, 32 players on each team is not that many when one consider the size of the maps on 64 player servers. When you have 2 battle helicopters, 1 transport helicopter, a tank, a anti-personell-tank, two jets and some smaller hardware (jeeps, boats, etc) for just one of the two teams, then 10 players is not enough.
The Battlefield franchise was designed around fairly large scale combat situations, involving a good portion of battle hardware, but also some interesting infantery play. Now, a game such as Counter-Strike or Killzone might work best with 10 players in a match, but Battlefield was just not designed around such battle scales. Even 24 players is cutting it a little close (in my opinion). But I guess they've tried to balance the level of graphics with the ammount of players on the console versions.
Now, I will agree that 64 player matches can be somewhat chaotic, especially on public servers. But this is primarily the case on close quarter maps with an infantery focus, such as Strike at Karkand. Most bigger hardware-focused maps in Battlefield 2 (the original series) actually worked very well with 64 players. If the jet pilots, and combat helicopters are going to have anything to shoot at, there has to be a fair amount of players on the map!
@DenebSwift There's not a single moment in M.A.G where you'll get 256 players on your screen. The maps and spawn points are structured in clusters. 256 players is just marketing.
It will probably look better when you play the game on your own TV. You know how internet videos sometimes don't look as awesome as they really do. Not only that, but I believe the game is still Pre-Alpha.
that looks alot better than I thought it would, I've just bought a 460gtx just for battlefield 3...probably should have just stuck with the ps3! oh well, live and learn!!
I would stick with PC. Console version is gonna be good but the PC is what this game was built around. So...I wouldn't fret about buying a new video card for this game. It will come in handy for future games anyway.
Built on the cutting-edge Frostbite 2 technology, Battlefield 3 aspires to be DICE's best shooter and biggest launch yet. Expect improved graphics, louder explosions and more smithereens. So many smithereens.
