sideline gamer: battlefield 3

PJ has been wanting me to do a series like this for a while, and I figured it was about time I get going on it.  What you may or may not know is that I spend a lot of time watching PJ play video games.  I know it seems totally lame and weird, and at first I didn't really enjoy it, but that's changed now that I'm following along with the storylines. At this point, there's not much difference between watching a video game and watching a TV show.  I'm still sitting on the couch, only now instead of yelling at the screen I can yell at PJ and have a direct impact on the outcome of the story.  Bonus: if I don't complain about watching video games, he doesn't complain about me making headbands.  Totally a win/win!  

Anyway, as you can tell by the title of this post, the first game I've decided to review (or just chat about, since I have no claim of knowing anything about video games) is Battlefield 3, for Playstation.  You may have heard of it... I honestly never had before... First impressions: the animation is crazy realistic, the sound (on surround sound) really puts you in the middle of the action, and the voice acting just sells the whole thing.  Pretty early on in the game, there are buildings literally falling down around you... yea, it’s awesome.

The story is told through a series of interrogations and flashbacks- the question and answer video portions are what drives the story forward, while keeping you on the edge of your seat in suspense.  The flashbacks do make things a bit frustrating at times, since you know that everyone around you (including the character you are playing) knows what's going on, but you don't have a clue.  Again, this just keeps you pushing ahead to see what's next.

On to gameplay, which I can really only judged by the way PJ reacts to the game.  I want to start by saying that this game is difficult, sometimes prohibitively so.  You're rushing and moving and hustling along for like 2 minutes, and then you die... Then you need to play those two minutes all over... And over... And over... Until you figure out (in some cases) the precise thing you need to do to get you into the next scene.  To make matters worse, every time you die, it's the same animation.  That drove me crazy!
Throughout the game, you play 3 different characters.  You play the soldier being questioned, you play another American soldier (who is the shooter on a plane- like Goose from TopGun), and you play a Russian who is moving parallel to your American soldier.  You also spend some time driving and shooting from a tank!  According to PJ, playing each of the ground characters felt distinct, they moved differently. Clearly the flying segment was totally unique- probably one of the most fun moments of the whole thing, I'd like to high-five whoever developed that one.

I'm not going to spoil all the fun for any gamers out there who might actually be reading my post, so I'll finish by saying that this is probably the best game I've watched- it rolls out very much like a movie!  The only downside?  Even with PJ dying every 43 seconds, it was only 5 or 6 hours of gameplay... I probably could've watched a bit longer ;-)

<3 barb

PS- What do you think about making this a series of posts?  I have at least 3 other games that PJ has played recently, is currently playing, or will play soon... so it's doable if you think it will be fun!

(all images from gamestop.com)