I don’t think I can say enough about how the Frostbite engine is the greatest thing since skinny jeans can I?  Well if you don’t know, I’m a big fan of what DICE has been able to do with Frostbite 2 and more importantly how Battlefield 3 has been able to push it to even greater heights.  I was invited out to Seattle for an invite only trip to get some exclusive hand’s on action of Battlefield 3.  Let me just cut to the chase and say it did not disappoint.  It was all kinds of awesome.

The hand’s on started with a quick co-op mission on the PlayStation 3.  Yes it’s well documented how much I hate the PS3 controller but this was Battlefield 3 so it didn’t matter.  I wanted to get my hands on this game badly and it didn’t matter even if we were using a Wiimote.  I was going to let nothing stop me.  The co-op mission started in an alley and we had to escort some humvees to the end of it.  I know there are some fans out there who were upset at the lack of split screen for co-op but I have to admit I didn’t miss it one bit.

If you have a partner who truly wants to play the game right, the co-op experience will be pretty damn good.  I was paired up with a good friend of mine Lono from Sarcastic Gamer and we totally kicked ass on our way to the end.  There was some aiming issues that I noticed and a few awkward moments of framerate drops.  The game even froze on me.  It wasn’t a perfect showing on the PS3.  I’m not sure if that will translate to the Xbox 360 version but I’m hoping it won’t.  Hell it better not!

The real magic of Battlefield 3 came when we paired up 16 vs 16 on PC.  As soon as EA booted up the PC’s running the game my mouth literally hit the floor with how good this game not only looked but how awesome it played.  Oh how I wish I had a PC that could run BF3 like this!  The framerate was excellent, it looked beautiful and it just pwned!  NVIDIA should definitely be proud of what it gives to PC gamers.  Check out DICE’s Patrick Liu talking to NVIDIA about using DirectX 11.

We were going head to head on an objective-based map with two points to secure.  It had a pretty slick underground subway path that ended up being a pain in the ass to take from the other team.  I hated all the spawn camping that eventually came about but I don’t think any game can fix that.  Besides, we were all there just having fun so there was no competitive edge in play.  We communicated in the game for fun and killed each other for even more fun.  I was seriously impressed with how smooth the gameplay was and how precise everything was visually.  I even wore a pair of Gunnar glasses to see if it would make me better.  They didn’t but there was definitely an improvement in my sight believe it or not.

One of the things I have to point out is that the sound was magical.  The weapons in the game actually sounded like weapons.  It’s hard to explain but they had a realness to them that was just different from what you typically hear in a game.  The bullets from a machine gun and the kick back from an RPG  just sounded special.

I was disappionted though that I didn’t get a chance to do was blow shit up.  With Frostbite 2 being used, I wanted to check out some destructive environments but I didn’t get a chance to do any destroying.  Make no mistake though that when this game releases on October 25th, I’ll be causing as much destruction as I’m allowed.

I wanted to say thanks to EA, Seeson Mahathavorn and Matthew Pruitt (Community Managers for EA).  You guys rock for sponsoring my trip to PAX Prime, giving me some exclusive hand’s on with Battlefield 3 and just basically making the event full of awesome sauce.  I even got a cool set of dogtags with my name on them.  And I must send my compliments to the chef who provided some delicious food for me to consume before I played the game.  Raspberry whip cream dish dessert thing ftw.

I also want to send a swagalistic thanks the Gunnar for the groovy glasses … the Razer team for a butt kicking mouse (the Imperator) … ASTRO Gaming for the bag and providing super audio headsets … and last but not least my buddies with the Off Duty Gamers for that fancy little bracelet I think it was.  Yes, the swag was much appreciated.

Modern Warfare 3 say hello to das Battlefield 3 boot.  I don’t think any FPS will match this game in gameplay.  It was that damn good.