Setting up Battlefield 3 for XBOX 360

It's amazing what a month or so will do. How much an obsession can start creeping up on you. How many late nights and hours creep in. how it doesn't matter that your eyes are sore. It doesn't matter that you've now purchased cables to obsessively connect a headset, that you've scoured the internet to understand how VOIP works in BF3 for Xbox. You get on the game, and you're hooked.




right - all settled in? All ready to go? Let's get started. I want to let you know the secrets I've learned so far on getting going with BF3 on XBOX.

There are a number of things you need to acheive:

1. Get the guide
2. Connect up the headset
3. Ensure you have an Xbox Live Gold Subscription
4. Understand the controls on your xbox controller
5. Campaign for a bit, but then go multiplayer
6. understand the classes
7. understand unlocks.
8. work with a squad
9. use cover.

And finally, I want you to join me and do better tactics so we kick butt.

Get the Guide

The manual from ea, such as it is, is a bit limited. The minimum facts. There are sites that offer great info. But, I game in front of a TV, without a computer nearby, so it is that I have purchased the excellent official guide:

The Prima guide is very comprehensive. It explains the structure of the game, and the detail of how you work the game for success. That is, it talks through multiplayer co-op and campaign modes, and it talks about the amazing amount of weapons, maps and vehicles that make up the amazing BF3 world.

It turns out that knowing the maps is vital, and if you want to understand the game, understanding the classes, the 'unlocks' and tactics are all vital to achieving anything in the game. Otherwise you run around and die and nothing much changes.

The number 1 thing you get from the guide is an understanding of how the game fits together. without that, you're running blind, and you'll die too many horrible deaths. Read it!

Get a Headset

Voice is vital to a good game in my opinion. You can't adequately work with others unless you talk with them. For proof - watch this great video from tactical gamer

I have purchased a headset - the plantronics Audio 355. This is a cheap analogue headset. But there's a problem! the 3.5" jacks don't match the 2.5" jack on the xbox 360 controller. So you need to purchase a bunch of cabling to fix the problem of headset to xbox 360 controller

Purchase a Live Gold Subscription so you can talk

Unfortunatley - you have to have it. party chat is how people talk on BF3 with an XBox. So, set it up and then understand how to invite people (gamer tags) to a party.


Understand the controls on your xbox controller

Very important you know how to run. Press LEFT Stick down and you run. Run between cover and through cover. RIGHT stick down to crouch and cautiously advance. Advance cautiously into rooms, and if you think there's someone there, lob a grenade in. If you're out of grenades, then have a support class guy around to give you ammo. VERY important that you go prone with Right stick down when you're in the open or on a roof.

right button uses a knife. these go through fences , and if you can creep up on an enemy (good luck) you can stab them in the back of the neck. it's been done to me heaps of times, but I don't get close enough to someone to do it.

the little four point control on the left side of the controller is REALLY important. left click and right click are for your 'gadgets' These can be provisioned in your soldier, but can be the defib for revival, or the missile launcher/RPG for the support guy. The recon guy gets a spawn beacon.

Campaign a bit, then go multiplayer

The story is great, and the movies between missions are very immersive. It's valuable to get your basic controls going for multiplayer, and it's fun to see the story play out. The car park killed me so many times it's not funny. Enjoy.

But the real meat is multiplayer. working in a team to overcome some objective. Move multiplayer when you can.

Understand the classes

when you deploy into a multiplayer game you have a choice of what class you can be. You can be assault - shoot with a good sized magazine, and then fix people with the med kit. You can be an engineer - you use anti-tank missiles in your gadget (see above), and you can repair things. You can be a support player (my favourite). You get a light machine gun and then you throw out ammo to people. finally you can be a recon player - a sniper rifle to spot enemies of your team, and a spawn beacon to provide a spot that people can spawn to.

So which of these to use? Why?

The needs of the mission, and where you are with unlocks. If there is a big tank knocking off all your team, then choose engineer and blow it up. If there are enemies coming out of the wood work and surprising everyone, go do a recon. if we're in the right space, but getting mown down, jump in as support and help mow them back. Finally if it's all about pushing through, then go assault and get out there and kill em all.

Unlocks

The secondary part of this is that you need to see where you are with unlock on each class. As you amass points in a particular class you progress towards unlocking the next gadget or weapon, or capability. These are all things that make your soldier more deadly. It's funny - they put you out there with a gun and your head to start with. You then grow up into having all the equipment a modern soldier has and discover you're more effective! surprise surprise. So - go for the unlocks - they help!

The unlock hierarchy is documented all over the place, and its far too complex. the guide says it all.

Work with a squad
when you jump in to a game you are put into a squad. this is a bunch of other players on your side. there are usually 4 or 5 squads. as a squad you move through the game taking on different roles to help each other. and heres where voice comes in. invite your squad to an xbox live party. (see above). put a voice message over as well to say your serious and you want to get tactical.

then work with them. discuss and plan your assault recon support and engineer actions. stick with your squad and cover for them. suppress the enemy with fire. heal each other and ammo up. you'll do way better


Use cover

finally, the open ground is a killing field. run off it and get away. run through underbrush. anything that makes you less visible.

thats about it. join me if you liked this. gamer tag: ideapod , and tell me you read my blog entry so i know how you found me.

all the best and good war fighting

First Games on the XBox

It turned up on the kitchen table for my birthday. still in the plastic bag from EB Games and with a ribbon on it. Lisa is resisting, and shook her head, not understanding why I would want this toy! Fair enough. She likes a smaller form factor (WordsWithFriends).

thursday night - birthday night - and the kids are to bed, the sandwiches made, the dinner done and dishes away. the night is clear for a go at my new games.

the microsoft XBox bundle from EB Games came with the kinect and 2 games: Kinect Adventures & kinect Carnvial. EB Games bundle augmented with Battlefield 3 and Forza. Nice! A good collection of things to tempt me, and wile away the hours.

Setup 

Firstly the set up from the box was reasonably easy. It took an hour or so all up. the link up to the XBox 360 's' console was straight forward except the controllers. The documentation talks about a connect button, and I found that hard to find. I kept hitting the on/off button, and it didn't link up the wireless controllers. eventually there was an unmarked square button that looked like it was next to a covered over port for one of the old PS memory cards. I thought it must be an eject button for what compartment. I pushed it anyway, and the doco's rotating lights happened. Very strange. It's like they feel the audience is so familiar with xbox now they don't need to label or indicate what the buttons are. Maybe it was the low light. (maybe i'm a 43 year old fuddy duddy...)

So, controllers connected, machine on. I try to sign up with a live id i have to xbox live, and i get the strangest message: this live id is already associated with a different gamer tag. What the hell is a gamer tag? and How do I find out who has my live id? Memory resurfaces.... slowly... of a time 5 years ago when the department at work was give an Xbox 360 as a reward and I had it home for 2 nights to play with (lara croft and.... ? lara croft?....) it all comes back. I must have set up my 'gamer tag' then. so, away we go and I 'recover' my gamer tag profile to this xbox 360. I immediately think about restoring a heap of corrupted init files (or plists) and screwing the xbox. but - it all seems to go ok.

I then sat through all the demo videos telling me how to use the machine. the Kinect something, and the Xbox main menu (something else). I end up feeling I saw a lot, but didn't see anything I wanted. How do you get a game disc into the machine? there's no eject button? Ah - there's something on a menu that opens it. Good o - and in goes the battlefield cd. it closes and the game starts. strange though - how do I quit the game? pause it? the xbox menu allows you but it's a bit obscure - you need to go back to the main menu and that ends your gaming session. strange usability to quit a game. How do I reopen the CD ? the menu option is now saying 'play the game'. strange usability. It turns out there is a little touch sensitive spot above the CD door that allows eject. right....

Battlefield 3

The battlefields main screen appears, with text mimicking an old CRT screen - you know, low res graphics and, bursty, poppy sound like it's interrupted transmissions. Great effect - on a big 97 inch panel screen. On my oldish, smallish CRT screen, it' just looks small, and it's a bit hiccupy.

in general - the fonts are too small, and almost impossible to read. Generally this is disappointing throughout the game. for each crucial section something pops up and I can't read the damn thing!

It's hard to find the controls and there are so many different configurations. There's no user manual, so you have to just keep going back and forth to the the options section to find the controls, but they have some strange relationship to different modes of the game I don't understand. What's a soldier stick? No explanation - just assumption you know.

There's a them here, and I think it's to support the post purchase 'game guide' stuff, or just general forum behaviour. You need to be engaged away from the xbox and buy more stuff just to understand how to use it. weird.

Battleifeld is impressive. I'm getting the hang of it. push the left stick down to run. push the right stick down to crouch. press and hold it down to crawl (important so the sniper doesn't take you out). the graphics, the game it's all good. I don't get it at all yet, but I"m getting there. more later.

Kinect Adventures

Kinect Adventures is simple, but the setup of a kinect in a confined space is not. it needs the calibration card, and I can't get far enough away from the screen. You really do need a 6 feet away of playspace.

given the setup problems, the kinect rally ball game is frustrating - it doesn't quite find me properly, and I can't seem to keep up and get my limbs in the right spots. I manage to get 95 and a silver medal. Happy with that. But other things beckon.

Forza

Playing a car game with your hands in the air? too much, but now possible. and I went ok. The controller based game looks better. I couldn't get the kinect control on the walk through the car gallery. it kept spinning uncontrollably around the car, and wouldn't stop to let me get in.

once in there, the engine of a ferarri through the mountains is wonderful. The controls responsive, visuals great and it's a nice car game. might also borrow F1 2011 just to check....

Xbox360 vs PS3

Dateline 1983
The smell of warm plastic, and high current power supply fills the air. Beige permeates the room as the TV with a rotary channel changer is turned to channel 0. After much fiddling, the pride of my life is connected. Will it work? What will I be able to do with this magic thing? And what games can I program for it?

With a push of a button the Dick Smith VZ200 - a Z80 based machine like the Sinclair ZX80 fires into life. It's not the ZX80, but something close. To cut a long story short, I can remember the pixelated space ship firing at incoming aliens like it was yesterday. Seminal.

So, fast forward a few years and I'm playing games on PC's. Doom was a revolution. First person shooters became the must play items, and were wild! Fast forward some more and I purchase a playstation. (pre PSOne). That console served me well for many years but has now started gathering dust.

it's been a gap - 7-10 years while our kids have come along, but I need a bit of highly graphical, adrenaline filled game play. What console to purchase?

My sentiment goes to the PS3. It's the grand child of my playstation, so I want to buy it. But I also want to learn about that newest of motion devices on the scene following Wii, and PS Move - the Kinect!

The Kinect is revolutionary and takes out the controller. But what really grabs me is that there is now an SDK following an open source hacking community using the Kinect. It's a robot maker's dream, and for me, a data visualisation maker's dream. I want to experiment with it for work. So, I'm in a pickle - Go with Xbox (and betray the past) or go with what's attracting me back there even if it's not in keeping..?

further, I have 3 kids - 2,5, and 7. What will work for them? they've played a kinect at the State library here in Victoria, and just loved it. The PS platform doesn't quite seem to have as many kiddy titles as, say, the Wii. But then the Xbox is only marginally better? should it be a Wii?

I have ended up doing a spreadsheet of a PS3 and Xbox with their motion controllers and a selection of games I want. I want 2 players, and networking. PS3 comes in at $AUD800 or so, and the XBox $AUD600 or so.

That stacks it. The PS3 is done. Bye bye superior graphics, blu ray, and hello slightly less impressive graphics (but still way better than all my previous experiences), and an amazing Kinect.

What's your take? which did you pick and why?