Battlefield 3: End Game

We're slowly reaching the end of Battlefield 3's life. The fourth part looms more and more clearly on the horizon, and the publishing cycle of the "Three" ends with the addition of The Decisive Start . Despite the highs and lows of DLC additions, it must be admitted that DICE finishes as befits a real man. The decisive clash is, next to Overtime , the most interesting extension to the base, in many places referring to the Panzer Forces , but correcting the most persistent shortcomings of the tank expansion.

The Decisive Match is, in a sense, the perfect complement to Overtime . The penultimate expansion threw us mainly into urban areas, full of narrow passages, streets and barricades, which rewarded infantry activities. Meanwhile, the latest DLC focuses on the countryside and the surrounding area - four maps offer natural, extra-urban areas full of forests, hills, with complexes of buildings located here and there, connected by a network of mostly barely paved roads. Naturally, associations with the Caspian Border and locations from the armored forces come to mind. Just like them, the new maps primarily support mechanized operations - infantry in the open area is vulnerable to fire from snipers, tanks, armored vehicles, fighters and helicopters.

The new expansion clearly puts the emphasis on vehicles , which does not mean that the Gray Walker has nothing to do here. In fact, the role of engineers and laser targeting increases proportionally to the amount of scrap metal rolling across the map. In addition, each area is full of natural covers - ravines, valleys, rocks - allowing you to sneak behind your opponent's back and prepare ambushes for inattentive drivers. In the Conquest and Assault modes, the balance was laid out really well, thanks to the premiere cars.

Before the premiere, the most attention was devoted to motorcycles and it is no wonder. Two-wheelers allow you to quickly travel between distant points on the map , much faster than, for example, armored personnel carriers. In Conquest, this means the ability to take over key positions earlier, and in the Assault, unexpected flanking of the enemy base. There is no question of walking for several hundred meters when the last combat vehicle escaped from under our nose. On the other hand, the bike is clearly visible - a "cavalryman" rushing at breaking his neck must take into account the fact that he will attract the attention of half of the enemy team. The vehicle is a grateful target, especially for Javelin engineers, and its tremendous speed and maneuverability do little to help a self-steering rocket. There are also many daredevils on the servers who want to get a medal that falls for an opponent's run-over - it works so badly that I died only once under the wheels of the motorcycle, and such hussars are easily removed from the saddle. Don't get confused by video compilations of spectacular two-track kills - for each success there are several, if not a dozen, grotesque mishaps.

Another anti-aircraft defense vehicles are a slightly less successful novelty. The improved Vodnik and HMMWV vehicles have an impressive firepower - in the first mode, they fire targeted surface-to-air missiles, in the second mode, unguided missiles become the terror of tanks and transporters. Thanks to their high speed, the trucks can change position in no time and maneuver between key fronts. In this case, frequent and effective dodges are practically necessary here - these vehicles turn out to be very vulnerable to fire, even from low-caliber weapons, fragments of fragmentation grenades, and the targeted vehicle counts its life in seconds. In addition, the range of the anti-aircraft missiles leaves a lot to be desired, which a good pilot can use poorly, and the Vodnik / HMMWV itself has no defense against targeted missiles. This does not change the fact that at the wheel of the Vodnik AA I had a few spectacular knocks of helicopters, and the pilots try to eliminate new vehicles in the first place. Is it because they are a grateful target or because they are afraid of their firepower, it's hard to say.

The creators developed the concept of a gunboat from the Panzer Forces in an interesting way . Again in Conquest, one point is associated with access to air support. This time, however, it was implemented in a more thoughtful way - instead of a flying fortress, we get a mobile means of transport, from which we will not only drop the infantry, but also roll out a support vehicle , clumsily falling on large parachutes to the center of the map. It works really well - one side gains the option of getting to the center of fights faster, but at the cost of defenselessness during landing. Sometimes the hunting of jumpers resembles scenes from the fights for Arnhem in 1944, with a properly prepared welcoming committee at the estimated landing site. The most important thing is that the situation with the Panzer Forces is not repeated, where the gunboat only frustrated the god of spirit of the innocent infantrymen who were unable to bite off the flying colubrine battery.

As you can see, all of the mechanized additions in Decisive Combat support an aggressive and dynamic playstyle . They fit perfectly with this in Capture the Flag, a mode that requires more than anything else than a manic fantasy or dukenukem "eggs of steel". What seems less complicated on paper than planting two bombs in the Assault actually requires a lot of courage and close cooperation between the team members. Leaving the center of the enemy base alive and carrying the captured banner on your own back is quite a feat. With two balanced teams, a half-hour match can close with a real football result - e.g. 1-0. This does not mean that nothing is happening at ZF - quite the contrary. Often the most emotional moments came from stalemates when both teams were in possession of the opponent's flag, which meant that neither could score a scoring touchdown. A series of ramp fights began and the juggling of forces in such a way as to recapture one's own trophy without losing the enemy's totem.