Modern Warfare 3 v Battlefield 3 – Games reviews

Forget Strictly v The X Factor: the real entertainment battle this winter is between two behemoths of the gaming world. Call of Duty is the giganotosaurus that sits astride the games business, making a billion a year for its publisher Activision and selling more than 20m copies a time. Battlefield is the seasoned pretender, a huge success on its native PC platform since the early noughties, but this year coming in to claim the console top spot.

Since its release at the end of October, Battlefield 3 has attracted a pretty consistent critical line: the multiplayer is awesome, but the single-player campaign is too short and too dull. In his 8/10 review of the title for Eurogamer, Dan Whitehead makes the defining point:



  1)Those who buy the game for multiplayer likely won't care that these elements aren't up to par, but what stings most is the thought of what DICE could have done to evolve and expand its multiplayer design skills if the mantra of "BEAT COD" hadn't been drummed so relentlessly into the development process. Battlefield didn't need to be more like Call of Duty to succeed, it just had to double down on what it was already good at. Hopefully that's a lesson that will be learned by the time Battlefield 4 roars into view.

 2)One thing that definitely feels genre-leading is the multiplayer. If you're confident venturing online (and to clarify, it feels much more polished and traditionally Battlefield than the recent open beta) this game is essential. We've said it before of Battlefield games, but the team at DICE know how to create compelling, perfectly paced online experiences.

3)Running at full spec, Battlefield 3 is a jaw-droppingly beautiful PC game and there's no denying that it's the new leader in terms of raw, unadulterated power. This has its drawbacks -- as stated, the graphics make spotting enemies incredibly difficult thanks to how much visual information is crammed into every environment. With the swirling dust, blinding lights and chunks of freshly-destroyed scenery filling one's immediate surroundings, actually getting a bead on something important can prove challenging.

Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3 – which is better? Oh, it's an impossible question. They're both modern day military shooters, but they work very differently, and they have different aims. Now that Battlefield 3 is working properly (almost) its vast, strategic warzones are utterly gripping and visually splendid; it is astonishing to close in on a distant firefight only to see an RPG round take out the front of an entire building. But Modern Warfare 3 offers the instant thrills and dumbass logic of the great arcade shooters. And it packs in masses of value, whatever you think of the controversial multiplayer system.

If you can, try both, or at least trust your instincts as a gamer – that's the message that comes through loud and clear from all the reviews I've seen.