Battlefield 3 hands-on: Yes, the Beta was terrible but not the final product.

Yes, that Battlefield 3 Beta was bad. For some, very bad. I know a lot of you were skeptical about the finished product because of that terrible (but still pretty) beta that had a load of issues. DICE and EA really messed up when they forgot to slap some really obvious disclaimers on the beta telling people that this was A BETA AND NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF FINAL PRODUCT.

A lot of people on the internet got pissed at how this BETA was terrible and thought it was a demo. So here am I to give an informed view on the game and so this is what this quick and short blog post is all about. I got the PS3 version on launch and played a few hours of BF3 multiplayer and some singleplayer.

These are my observations:

-Install doesn’t take very long. Its like 7-10 minutes on my 5200 rpm HDD. Nothing like the longass MGS4 install but at least that had DAT MUSTACHE.

-They fixed the Squad system. Yes, you can now manage squads efficiently. You can invite people to your squad, join squads, form squads, see other squads on a list, and select to join other squads.

-Battlelog is COMPLETELY OPTIONAL for the consoles. It’s a supplement to BF3 multiplayer experience. It’s a multiplatform online stat tracking social network site that you can connect to with your EA/Origin account.

-DAT GRAPHICS ENGINE.

-The PS3 version has a server browser BUT YOU CANNOT MAKE YOUR OWN ROOMS OR PRIVATE GAMES.

-Kit/Loadout menu works really well, once you get used to it. This is one feature that was kind of weird for me after playing dozens of hours of Bad Company 2. You can really get in-depth customization while in the game, which is rather important for these FPS multiplayer games.

-You can switch your VOIP voice chat between Squad and team. It defaults to squad chat but you can toggle it when you hit the start button.

-Default faction specific weaponry is still kind of confusing. If you’re on the Russian side (or any OpFor faction), you start with the iconic AK-74; while on the US side, you start off with the M16 variant which I forgot. You unlock sights and other add-on as you use these weapons.

It’ll be a while until you unlock some since you switch sides every game which switches your starting weapons between the US and OpFor. They don’t spell it out for you and it is irritating not being able to use that sight or foregrip you just unlocked because its on another gun that you won’t be ableto use until the next game.

-Servers are holding up. I didn’t experience lag save for a couple of times. Servers were full a few hours after launch midnight but I had almost no problem in finding a game.

So this’ll be my go-to multiplayer shooter for a while. At least until Starhawk hits.