So I’ve had a pretty good run through the Battlefield 3 beta on the Xbox 360. And I gave the PC version a little play as well, just to do a bit of a comparison. If you haven’t had a chance to catch the BF3 beta, you might be lucky enough to grab a day’s worth of play before the beta ends (can’t confirm the beta end date for Xbox 360 but I think it might be either the 10th which is today or the 11th of October).

As a keen Battlefield fan (especially of the multiplayer modes), I found the BF3 beta on the Xbox 360 to be great fun – even though it was (initially) hampered with various bugs and graphical issues. As the beta progressed, EA and DICE managed to work through many of the recurring bugs.

The infamous “black screen” that many gamers experienced after joining a match (where your monitor/TV screen is completely black but you can hear actual game sound as if you were in a game) was still there a few days ago. I am unsure if DICE has fixed this issue. But many of the other bugs such as falling through the world (a very annoying bug at that) as well as “floating” ammo and weapons and “sticky” grenades (where grenades would stick to trees and leaves outside instead of being deployed towards the intended target) seems to have been resolved.

The only other important bug worth mentioning that actually affected parties and squads happened during matchmaking. When I tried to join with an Xbox Live party as a squad, we had problems joining  the same game and when we did, we were always split up and ended up in different squads or on opposing teams. There seems to be a balancing system in place when joining games online that balances the team numbers when you join as a squad so as to avoid one team having too many players. This is a good feature when you’re joining games in progress. But it seemed to happen even when joining games that had yet to start. I hope they refine this in the release because joining games as a squad is pretty important, especially if you want to play with friends or clan mates.

Bugs aside, the game doesn’t look half bad on the 360 but really pales in comparison to that of the PC version. There was only one game mode playable for the Xbox 360 beta which was Rush (the other being Conquest in Battlefield BC2) and only one map. That said, the Operation Metro map, which is set both inside a Paris train station and outside of it (when you first join the game), is a great map because it gives you an opportunity to experience playing in both an enclosed area and a wide-open outside battlefield. Unfortunately, there are no vehicles available in the Operation Metro map. The metro map allows for some furious and intense fire-fights against the opposing team and also allows for you to try different strategies and classes. Changing classes in Battlefield has always been something that I’ve enjoyed doing (although this time around, I just couldn’t get enough of the newly revamped Assault class) because it allows for you to completely alter your gameplay and your usefulness to your team and squad.

The classes in the beta haven’t changed much from the previous game other than the Assault Class which is now a combination of both the previous Medic class and Assault classes. There is also a Support class as well as an Engineer and Recon class, which all seem to function the same as they did in the previous Battlefield game.

I really enjoyed playing the new Assault class because I feel that there is so much you can do with this class dependent on how you wish to play. It’s also great for those gamers who may not be as skilled or perhaps as confident with the straight-out shooting classes in Battlefield. Since I seem to be one of those gamers that doesn’t play consistently (sometimes I have great K/D matches and other times I just don’t), the Assault class can more than make up for that by adding the functionality of the medic kit to aid you in gaining points on the leaderboard. While I prefer to play with a balance of shooting and medic support for my team, there are matches where I seem to be needed more as a medic than just another soldier and I adjust accordingly. This is the beauty of the Assault class and the great thing about Battlefield in general. Something you may wish to consider when you’re thinking of purchasing a shooter this Xmas!

Gameplay is much improved – some of the animations have changed such as when you jump over obstacles (many of you would have noticed how the animation now looks very similar to that of the jumping animation in Mirror’s Edge). Running and movement within the game in general seemed to be a hell of a lot more fluid than the previous game.

The PC version doesn’t seem to suffer from any of the graphical bugs that the console version did. I didn’t come across any issues while playing the beta on my PC and the gameplay was exceptionally smooth. Not only was it smooth running but it looked ridiculously good – and I can’t stress this enough! Again, I was only able to get into the Operation Metro map on the PC, but wow, did it look fantastic! If you were able to catch any of the gameplay trailers that came out of E3 this year, you’ll understand what I mean by good!

So after spending many hours playing the beta, I’m convinced that the release game will be worth hundreds of hours of fun – much like the previous game except perhaps even more-so. Bugs aside, the multiplayer gameplay is seriously good, especially when you get a squad of friends together and work as a team against the opposition. This is a major selling point for me at least, because online multiplayer games on XBL are a lot more fun when you have buddies to play with.

Battlefield 3 releases on October 27th in New Zealand.