Battlefield 3: EA have outdone themselves

October 29, 2011 in All posts, review

Apologies for the long post.

There’s something wrong with me.

On one hand, all I want is an easy life: I try & do well, keep everyone happy, and have a laugh at the same time. I like to think I succeed, too – especially in terms of having a laugh.

However, on the other hand, I seem to introduce factors into my life that grate directly against my desire for simplicity. Case in point? Electronic Arts PC games.

I KEEP on letting them in. And when they get in, they then run around like coked-up Grainger Games employees – causing havoc, insulting my family and generally being complete pricks.

The reason I consistently open the door is because I apparently suffer from a sort of…rose-tinted view of the past, where EA released games like Populous, Desert Strike (well, the first two at least), and the original Wing Commander series. The problems started – for me, at least – with the Battlefield series.

The BF series of first-person shooters are, in my view, pretty good in terms of team-play, chaos and general hilarity. Right from the first instalment (BF 1942), it essentially got better and better in terms of gameplay & slick graphics. However.

And it’s a big ‘HOWEVER’.

The technical execution of the BF series is mired in complaints, particularly in terms of connectivity issues, menu UI and general bugs/hacks – all of which fall squarely into the QA (Quality Assurance) category. I personally have been quite lucky in the past: my purchases have had a few quirks and bugs, but nothing major to render the game unplayable. My esteemed friend, colleague and ever-sure Medic Novamethod has, on the other hand, had pretty much every technical issue under the sun. And now, it seems, it’s my turn with the latest version – Battlefield 3.

So, enough of my tiring diatribe. Here’s what’s happened:

1. I wanted to preorder BF3. So I went onto EA’s site, logged in, and was instantly told I had to download ‘Origin’. This, presumably, is the next reincarnation of EA’s short-lived download manager from a few years ago – and a direct competitor to Valve’s Steam platform. Fine. I’d rather not have yet another bit of software to install, but I go ahead and get Origin in place, preorder the game, and wait for the launch date.
   
   
   
2. On the day, I get downloading the game files and install it. We’re nearly there! I can almost taste the cordite.
3. After an apparently hassle-free installation, I double click the BF3 icon on the desktop. It loads Origin, and then loads my browser…eh? I’m taken to a kind of launch screen for BF3. So after being made to install Origin as a content delivery platform, I’m now forced to launch my games through my browser. Right.
4. I click the button to launch Single Player (I’m clearly a loner). I’m then told I must install a browser plugin
   
   
   
5. With no other option, I install the plugin. Finally! Maybe I can play the damn game?
6. I’m loading! Even with an Intel quadcore CPU, 4gb RAM + Radeon 5970…just loading the EA intro takes near to a minute.
7. We’re treated to the trademark EA / DICE bookend animation. As usual, it’s not skippable. It’s not ever skippable, even after seeing it for the first time (when it’s quite interesting), it’s never skippable. The EA brand is drilled into you regardless of whether you want to see it or not.
8. I’m now at the main menu (this has taken nearly 5 minutes). I start customising my controls – at least this bit seems relatively painless, but we’re still treated to some slightly shit UI niggles whereby:
• You can’t scroll up & down the controls list using the mousewheel. There’re a lot of controls, so this just seems sensible?
• When you select a control to edit and bind a new key to it, it doesn’t ‘remember’ where you were in the list: it moves your view to having the newly-bound key at the bottom. This is so minor, but so stupid.
9. I finally start loading the game for my first play. Away we go, annnnd…I’m  plunged into the action, shooting terrorists on a train – and it’s awesome. Bullets fly, graphics are slick, train chairs explode in chunks of fabric and dust. Here’s a door with a SHOTGUN wedged in it: the game prompts me to pick it up. So I press my newly-bound ‘interact’ key…and nothing. Not a sausage. Certainly not a shotgun. It won’t pick it up. I fumble around for 3 full minutes pressing various keys until finally, somehow, I apparently pick it up. Then, at the next stage, I’m told to ‘jump out’ the window. Pressing my jump button just boings me around. Apparently i need to press the mythical ‘interact’ key again. So another 30 seconds of finding whichever button did it for the shotgun. Then I’m told to jump using [SPACE] from carriage to carriage. But my jump key isn’t [SPACE]. It’s RMB (don’t laugh; that’s been my config since Quake). I die, falling from a moving train carriage.
10. So far, so shit. Similar things to the above occur on the next level where I’m meant to pick up a missile launcher…using some key that doesn’t actually exist. The ONLY way I manage to pick it up? By being shot by a sniper whilst STANDING OVER the missile launched, and then the game reloading me – magically carrying the new weapon.
11. I know – sod Single Player: I’m in this for the online bloodshed! YEAH. I go back to the browser, and click the ‘multiplayer’ button. Using the server browser, I find a server. It’s password protected, though…the server browser doesn’t have a ‘password protected’ filter option. I find one WITHOUT a password – here we go!
12. …aaand no. ‘This server’s about to change map’. Ok. I choose another one. Aaaand…no. There was an error. Ok, so I try the first one again ‘cos surely that map must’ve changed? Nope. I try ANOTHER server…and I’m in! Yes!
13. I play for 3 minutes, and then I’m thrown out – another server error.

EA, this is an epically shit user experience. At every turn the user is confronted with stupid choices, being forcibly being made to do things that aren’t natural or intuitive, and then when they finally get into the game, they’re either punished for customising the controls – or plain chucked out of online play.

Quality Assurance dept? Final signoff? What in the hell happened here? MASSIVELY disappointing – although, perhaps, not entirely unexpected. What a great brand association.

In the past, I’ve been focusing on user experiences just on the web and associated channels (like logistics, email comms and offline campaigns). Clearly there’s a dire need for them in the gaming world, because this is utterly awful.