OK, Battlefield 3 (PS3) is a great game - I've only spent an hour or two on campaign mode and a few goes on multi-player, so far extremely happy with game and the Frostbite 2 engine - this looks amazing and plays a treat...
But EA WTF is this obsession with ramming your other services down my neck, in such a blatant capitalist exploit the consumer manner? Here's the thing:
- As expected, you can't play online until you enter the 'online pass' code included in the box. This lowers your resell value, as second users have to buy an online pass from the PSN Store for a few quid. Actually I understand and support this, as the gaming industry makes zero out of second hand title whilst expected to maintain servers etc. however:
- The online pass is in the PSN Store for £7.99, that's pretty damn high. The box proudly displays "WINNER OF BEST ONLINE MULTIPLAYER", yet the paragraph explaining the need for the online pass is in letters just 1mm high -talk about small print! Sony's PSN Pass idea sounds pretty good to me now, a nice clear recognisable branded logo making it clear to preowned purchasers what they are and are not getting. Rental companies need to be on the ball to inform their customers about this stuff, I bet they are not there yet.
- I ordered the 'Physical Warfare Pack' which was the same price from Gamestation as the standard, giveing a few unlocks. The code for this needs to be entered in the PS3 Account Management, despite the online pass code being unlockable in the game. So I had to quit out, do the thing and reload. It's not clear if I have the items as the multiplayer screens still confuse me - if they confuse me, they'll confuse a lot of people - I've played games before you know.
- The Battlelog needs you to register on the Origin wesite. I did this for the beta, but nothing carried over. This is quite a nice feature, but why are these privacy settings open by default - people can find me by email, facebook etc. cmon guys this is 2011, lock down and give options to open, everyone knows that. It's another username and password to remember.
- In the box there is another leaflet "YOU'RE READY TO UNLOCK THE M1911 PISTOL FOR MULTIPLAYER!". I am? For this I had to reuse the Origin login on the EA Gunclub website (good job I wrote the password down) and here I'm presented with a site similar to Origin, but different and a bit crap. Why am I here? None of my friends are. This is weird, why not do all this on Origin? Again, I don't know if I've succeeded in unlocking this gun either.
- Ah, Origin. EA want to make money by doing their own version of Steam, denying Steam there titles and luring others over to the dark side (I believe Saints Row 3 PC is coming to Origin). I don't run games on my PC, but now having used the Origin site to get my Battlelog running, it's asking to install a Battlefield Browser plugin - which is now showing in my PC System Tray. What?
- and again! It wants to install Origin full client, I've gone for it to remove the annoying icon - now that's in the system tray too? Can I have my PC back now please?
Well I think this is ridiculous, I want to play the game I bought, not spend more time entering codes and installing sw I don't want. Mildly pissed off now.
