Battlefield 3 Beta

As much as I'd like to be happy... I just can't be. I played in the piss poor Alpha for Battlefield. It was awful. It nearly made me not pre-order the game. It nearly made me rethink even playing BF3. I have been a long time BF player, since 1942 and it's awkward expansions, and this thing almost pushed me out the door. I decided to put that behind me and give this another shot. Surely it would be better this time around.

WRONG!

Somehow this game manages to be shittier in beta than it was in alpha. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT POSSIBLE? There are awkward rubberbanding issues, especially with dead bodies. I have also noticed an unhealthy amount of lag, on a server that I am supposedly pinging sub 30 to. If I was still running a dual core and a 2 generation old video card I could almost understand this. However, I'm not. I have a mid-range quad core and fairly capable video card.

Though I doubt it is performance that is giving me the issue, the game also looks fairly unspectacular. I appreciate the smoke and the nuances of bullet casings and reflective scopes, but the motion blur and weird CoD-esque slide over everything is really annoying. I have a hard time dealing with change, especially when that change is being done to a game that was so close to getting it right. BF2 was brilliant, BC2 was a vehicle-lite version, but was still pretty good. This, this can't be the next amazing thing that EA is giving us in this franchise. IT JUST CAN'T BE!

Just give it time, Dave. There will be jets! That's what they say... okay, no one says that to me, but that is what they would say if there was a they to say it. And I would say to them: I DON'T FUCKING CARE! Jets and tanks are a lot of fun, the vehicles are great. Destruction and playing the game as a first PERSON shooter are more enjoyable to me. Maybe that is why I enjoyed BC2 so much. Environment and more focus on the PERSON aspect.

I still expect the game will be fun, but it seems pretty frustrating. Seeing them take steps backward at this point in development is really kind of scary. I'm not sure what sort of shitshow to expect at release. =X