Killzone 3 Vs Battlefield 3

Afterwards the months of aggressive marketing, week ane sales suggest that the biggest battle in video games is possibly over before it has really begun. Based on week i figures, the stark reality is that EA'southward Battleground has sold less than a quarter of the amount of units shifted by Call of Duty: Black Ops last year - meaning it would crave a monumental drop-off in sales performance for MW3 to be in whatever way comparable. The biggest video game face-off of the yr appears to accept concluded with a whimper rather than a bang.

Doubtless, EA will be taking center from the fact that it doubled its sales year-on-yr in comparison with Medal of Honor, and blitzed its previous totals from all previous Battleground releases, but it's clear that despite the trash talk and the enormous marketing budgets, information technology's going to take a catastrophic failure on Activision's office non to over again achieve sales domination with Modern Warfare 3.

Merely what of the respective merits of the games themselves? From a product development bespeak of view, how does the new DICE ballsy rate against (take a deep breath) Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer and Raven'southward collaboration?

The FPS genre is alike to a technological arms race - the best shooters push back new frontiers to serve upwards a unique gameplay feel.

At Digital Foundry we ofttimes equate the get-go person shooter genre to a technological arms race. In their own way, games like Telephone call of Duty and Battlefield, not to mention worthy contenders similar Killzone iii, Halo: Reach, Rage and Metro 2033 are responsible for some of the about impressive rendering advances nosotros've seen on console hardware. All of them push back new technological frontiers in guild to serve upwards a unique gameplay experience.

Information technology'southward safe to say that the arms race continues apace with the new Battleground and Call of Duty offerings. On the face of information technology, the DICE game innovates from a technological bending in many dissimilar means, while Modern Warfare 3 is much more of an iterative comeback on the existing tech - though information technology too serves up some overnice new surprises nosotros were not expecting.

In terms of sheer ambition, Dice's new Frostbite technology is nothing brusk of astonishing. Exercising the potential of the DirectX eleven APIs that developers fully expect to be a cadre component of the next-generation Xbox, Battlefield three produces beautifully lit environments using a tile-based deferred shading technique, allowing for hundreds of different light sources to exist in play at whatever given bespeak. Bespeak lights, lens flare, emissive particles - watching Frostbite return out Battleground 3's about intense scenes is an admittedly remarkable experience, peculiarly on PC.

The destruction model is also second to none: DICE creates environmental particular from a series of linked meshes that intermission autonomously with a remarkable level of allegiance, while terrain deformation ensures that big bangs take the advisable impact on a ground level.

Mayhap the most impressive element of the game is the support for maps large enough to back up a total of 64 players (dropping to 24 on console). DICE has implemented a new streaming system that allows for new texture and mesh data to exist streamed in on the wing, resulting in an extreme level of detail over vast expanses of space. It's virtually seamless on PC, and while LOD popping is an issue on console, the performance is much improved over the disappointing multiplayer beta DICE released just a few weeks before the game hit retail and the programmer has only enriched its reputation for ultra-high detailed texture work and superb rendering of materials.

Modern Warfare 3 may lack the sheer technical wonderment of Battlefield iii - and certainly on all of the primal points nosotros've simply highlighted, the game comes up curt in comparison - but many will fence that the overall quality of the final game more than than justifies the enormous sales it'southward going to attain. DICE has pursued the purist's approach nosotros might expect from a technology-driven developer but Infinity Ward/Raven/Sledgehammer's accept is a mixture of a deft engine upgrades and astonishingly good technical and fine art direction.

Allow'due south tackle the engine upgrades first - lighting, reflection and h2o effects have been significantly improved, there'southward a beautiful new system in place for dealing with particle rendering, and blitheness is much smoother and more than realistic, working in concert with graphic symbol models that are more detailed than they were in Modern Warfare 2.

While the flexibility of the devastation model isn't actually a patch on what meet in the Frostbite two engine, the MW3 developers can exist proud of the explosive environmental work they've done in their new game: remarkably, their single-actor campaign seems to have far more than in the manner of destructible scenery in its showpiece engine-driven cut-scenes than DICE has in theirs - a great instance of more aggressive, more exciting scripting and management.

Yet, while the perception is that Battlefield has a lot of communicable up to do to challenge the Call of Duty franchise, information technology's clear that Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer have taken some inspiration from DICE on both macro and micro levels. The "HDR" audio developed for Battlefield: Bad Company two, which dynamically mixes and adjusts audio according to context gets its own accept in MW3, making it easily the most audibly satisfying Call of Duty to date. Nosotros also encounter some small-scale, not bad ideas developed by DICE reduxed for MW3 - for instance, masking loud noises (in this case an explosion) using thunder with a cue provided by lighting is a directly homage to the fantabulous sniper focused section from the Bad Company 2 single-player entrada.

The overall impression you get from playing both single-histrion campaigns back to back is that the advantages DICE has in terms of its technology take not been transformed into gameplay that makes the nigh of them - fifty-fifty the showpiece destruction engineering seems to be limited and toned downward compared to what it is capable of in multiplayer fashion. On the flipside, the Modern Warfare three achievement is remarkable: the campaign is fast and indeed furious, beautifully paced and teeming with interesting scenarios and variety. What is may lack in technical advancement is more than fabricated up for by the action and the gameplay.

The Modernistic Warfare 3 evolution teams have besides managed to retain the series' trademark 60FPS gameplay: while it is somewhat short of the sustained, zero compromise frame-rate promised by Infinity Ward "Creative Strategist" Rob Bowling in his tweets over the summertime, the game is conspicuously far more responsive and arcade-like than its DICE equivalent.

Equally the next-gen draws closer, Dice and EA are well-positioned to fully capitalise on the immense potential of its beautiful new Frostbite 2 technology

From a single-player perspective at least, the difference betwixt Battleground three and the new Modern Warfare is remarkable - while the comparison of new tech vs. an established, reinvigorated engine is intriguing, information technology'due south the surrounding elements that really make the Activision game what it is: splendid production values, a story that makes sense, a non-cease breakneck step, tons of variety, some great ideas (zero G gunplay in a plane plummeting to the ground - yes!) and a sense of polish that is definitely missing from Dice's game.

The accomplishment is all the more remarkable bearing in mind the respective positions of the BF3 and MW3 developers as they started work on their corresponding projects - DICE has been making these games consistently for many years at present but Battlefield 3 is rife with problems, offering up sub-par unmarried-histrion and co-op modes, while Activision'due south disparate development teams - cobbled together in the wake of Infinity Ward'southward implosion - has managed to hand in an ultra-slick, assured game that truly delivers on all levels.

It may well be that the production of the Frostbite ii engine - carried out to a certain extent in tandem with Battlefield 3 - may accept caused issues as the studio finds its anxiety with its fresh new tech. Nonetheless, going frontward, the advantage Dice and EA take is that the second game using the engine volition almost certainly be a meaning improvement over its first. There'south as well an undeniable sense that DICE is time to come-proofing itself against the transitional menstruum we accept coming up in the next couple of years.

We tin can become a taste of the challenges that face Activision going frontwards by checking out the PC version of Modern Warfare three. Suffice to say it's a world apart from the experience offered upwardly by Battlefield iii: shorn of its frame-rate advantage on PC, the game just doesn't compare from a visual perspective: textures are of a remarkably lower resolution, furnishings piece of work is far more basic and console-like, and the lighting model lacks much of the fidelity found in DICE'south game. It's a game of extremes - the scenes that look spectacular on panel await fifty-fifty more remarkable on PC, while the plainer, more basic elements simply don't stand to scrutiny when scaled up to 1080p or higher resolutions. The unavoidable decision is that MW3's console focus is so tight that freed from the sub-HD console confines (both 360 and PS3 run at 1024x600 native res), the assets simply don't really work very well.

What nosotros're seeing here with these ii games is a clear divergence in priorities: Dice has scaled down its PC tech to work on current generation consoles, while Modern Warfare scales up for PC, with only very limited success. Bearing in mind that the vast majority of its sales will be on console, it'due south doubtful that Activision will be as well upset well-nigh the shortcomings of the PC game, merely it's difficult not to believe that Battlefield will be offering a far more robust challenge to the current market leader when adjacent-gen consoles announced in 2013. Frostbite 2 is just incredible today: by the time new hardware is bachelor, it's going to exist fifty-fifty meliorate.

In the here and now, Activision can congratulate themselves on the creation of the quintessential console shooter - a superb value package that delivers in all three of its major modes: campaign, co-op and multiplayer. For its part, Battleground iii isn't the aforementioned consummate all-rounder, but it'southward still i hell of a good online shooter, and different plenty from Call of Duty to enjoy astounding success in its own right - and going forward, as the adjacent-gen draws closer, DICE and EA are well-positioned to fully capitalise on the immense potential of that beautiful Frostbite 2 technology...

Source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-focus-mw3-vs-bf3