Battlefield 3: Close Quarters Personal Opinion & Review

First of all, yay! First proper post!

Second of all, I play games quite a lot, so I might as well talk about this, of all things.

Okay, so I play a lot of Battlefield 3, been a fan of the series for a while, so when EA announced they were introducing to Premium stuff*, I jumped right on it, so i got the new-fangled 'Close Quarters' downloadable content about two weeks before the rest of the Xbox 360 community (I'm mainly on that platform, I'm partial to PC gaming, and PS3 never appeals to me, doesn't seem like there is any games on it that interest me that aren't on the Xbox.) So in this post, I'm gonna talk about the stuff the DLC has, and my thoughts on this up-close and personal spin on Battlefield's normally distant combat style.

And I'll start off by talking about the maps in the newest add on, they certainly look impressive, with the 4 new fully-destructive playgrounds getting tore down in every carnage filled game.

(Clockwise) Donya Fortress, Op. 925, Ziba Tower & Scrapmetal

The Mosque-style Donya Fortress having air traffic flying around in the skybox, and plenty of tight areas and chokepoints for ambushes and C4-laden traps ripping apart the walls and wooden furniture in the series' trademark destructive style.

Operation 925 also has similar destructive capabilities; the offices on the ground floor of the map getting ripped to shreds in the opening minutes of the game to allow team members and foes alike to find a new, and often surprising firing point.

Ziba Tower shapes up to be the smallest map in Battlefield 3, taking place in a swanky hotel in Iran, where shotguns and SMG's rule the day, and snipers can take refuge in the bar at the maps not-all-high summit. Also, achivement hunters can pick up an easy 20G for jumping (or falling, depending how much attention you're paying to your actions) off the side of the map to your death in the Iranian streets far below.

Finally, Scrapmetal pits you against the opposing team in two abandoned warehouses, connected by catwalks hanging precariously above a train track. Snipers and riflemen alike can rejoice in the high-hanging rooftops of the warehouses, and machine gunners and shotgunners can get down and dirty in the multiple-layered, tightly spaced corridors and catwalks throughout the map.

There's new weapons, and assignments to unlock them, too! DICE catering to all player's tastes once again by giving out two weapons to each kit, as well and a new SMG and shotgun: the infamous Franchi SPAS-12.

The full weapons list is:

Assault kit: AUG and SCAR-L

Engineer kit: ACW-R and MTAR-21

Support kit: L86A2 and LSAT

Recon kit: M417 and JNG-90

All kits: SPAS-12 and M5K

Each soldier must, however, prove their worth to unlock the weapons, by completing assignments, as in the previous downloadable content adventure Back To Karkand.

Finally, there is the addition of three new game modes, Conquest Domination, a fun and fast paced spin on the usual Team Deathmatch/Territories crossover where flags capture roughly 3 times faster than usual, Team Deathmatch Close Quarters, which is identical to the vanilla game's TDM but with smaller teams to suit the closer-range firefights, and finally, Gun Master, where you are given a weapon, you must get two kills with said weapon, and get given another weapon. Sound familiar?**

This is a new spin from the usual objective-based gamemodes, but becomes insanely hard once you get to the last two stages, where it switches to a one kill-before-advancing ordeal with a time-delayed grenade launcher, and the grand finale with having to get a kill with a knife.

So, a verdict, then. Personally, I think this is a fine addition to the game, with the close range engagements being a good change of pace from the wide open spaces of maps like Operation Firestorm and Kharg Island, and each map looking finely crafted by the multiplayer masters at DICE, each fine-tuned and ripe for destruction. There is some irritation, however, in that tactics normally associated with Battlefield can be eliminated, with all-out spraying and praying becoming the order of the day at some point. 

Overall, a good and solid addition to the game's mutliplayer carnage, 8.5 out of 10!

Would I recommend this DLC? Hell, yes! Appealing, visually and during gameplay, this close-range encounter shouldn't have distance kept from it!

The CQ DLC releases on Xbox Live this Tuesday, if you pick it up, I'll see you online! ;)

Much love, 

                Jason :)

*Making a post 'bout wether the Premium is worth it at some point in the next week, I hope...

**To those who only played CoD: Black Ops, this ISN'T a knock off of their 'Gun Game', as no doubt most of thier fanboys will say. It is a copy of a game mode from Counter-Strike, also called 'Gun Game'. So there.