Battlefield 3 - BON VOYAGE MOTHER FUCKER

Considering how it's often touted as the realist's choice, it's funny how Battlefield 3's elective spawn system allows TheSandyRavage to get the kind of shotgun feed greed all but impossible in the arcadey Call of Duty series.

Battlefield 3 - SLUG

TheSandyRavage putting close-quarters work in on PC Battlefield 3. 

Are you alone?

First level footage of Battlefield 3's single player campaign, on Xbox 360 with the 1.5GB HD textures pack installed. For comparison's sake, here's the same gameplay without the install. As much as I like the synthetic digital camera fizz, DICE's most impressive work is always with their soundscapes. Buried underneath all this peerless demolition Foley is a machine-man throb that sounds like Brad Fiedel's T-1000 theme played in reverse. Hopefully, the rest of the campaign is a little more ambitious than bleeding edge corridor shooting.

E3 Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 latest shill imagines a running tank battle between state-of-the-art American tanks and Soviet surplus boilers apparently piloted by the Iranian army on the outskirts of Tehran. Thanks to DICE's Frostbite 2.0 engine, this is the best looking nightmare simulator yet seen in video games, easily outstripping recent Modern Warfare 3 footage for sheer mind-numbing detailing. How much of this bleeding-edge tech reel will actually be possible on home console, or average joe PC remains to be seen, although it's heartening to see a renewed focus on the campaign element. Recent Battlefield installment haven't exactly enjoyed the most robust single-player modes. Battlefield 3 looks to be offering the kind of experience that last year's Medal of Honor promised, but woefully failed to deliver - reportage flavoured bulletins from the World War III front line, told with the visual vocabulary of YouTube atrocity leaks, and Sky News hysteria journalism.

DICE Soldier Installment

With Modern Warfare 3 allegedly farmed out to a variety of upstart and old-hand studios to meet a November ship date, perhaps those looking for more cohesive feet-on-street thrills would be better directed to Battlefield 3? This tease zips on reportage soldiers and Terminator percussion, all the better to help you get your machine think on! Mind you, it's not like EA haven't been working DICE like slaves, with the studio juggling last year's Battlefield: Bad Company 2, as well as Medal of Honor's package highlight multiplayer mode, all while struggling to follow up a PC gaming masterpiece flexible enough for multi-platform. Mensch work!