>>1
I'm surprised no on has mentioned
BATTLEFIELD 3 yet. Looks like the game will live up to the hype, it's the true return of the Battlefield franchise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UwOrl036_A&feature=feedlik
Extremely immersive graphics and animations, they've got the atmosphere for the game perfect. Its engine, Frostbite 2, is paradigm shifting in that it is the first major game engine to stop using traditional 3D graphics APIs, and is making the transition to compute APIs. Strictly DirectCompute 11 on PC, custom Cell SPE based rendering on PS3, and supports only DX9 legacy for the XBox 360. Also, this is the first game I've seen with fucking awesome volumetric fog/smoke with diffuse inter-reflection, it looks almost real, especially when you have a light source inside of the fog/smoke.
- 64-player multiplayer on PC and 36km^2 conquest maps, bigger than BF2's 16km^2 maps.
- Project Reality-style suppressive fire which blurs the screen of your opponent and stops them from regenerating health, so now you can really pin down other people.
- Project Reality-quality vehicle interiors, with working HUDs and cockpit interiors for choppers, jet fighters, and other vehicles.
- Improved flight system, with more intuitive cameras and controls, but more challenging and difficult to master flight mechanics. Works with most common flight sticks and has full camera control with flight stick hats, awesome for dog fighting.
- QTE based CQC/melee and equippable knife. You can block and counter your enemies knife attacks and even put them into head locks or perform throws.
- Single player campaign is also playable as a 4-player online co-operative campaign.
- Auto, burst, and single fire mode select on appropriate weapons.
- BF2142 style class system (Medic, Support, Engineer, Recon).
- Prone on PC and console, tilt on PC only.
- Respawn only on squad leaders, where squad leaders are the ones who create the squad.
- Mobile user-controlled/driven artillery and SAM vehicles for anti-armor and anti-air.
- None of the BC2 gimmicky/over-powered stuff like tracer darts or carl gustav.
- Faction specific weapons and vehicles.
- In game support for creating and managing "platoons" aka clans.
- Ability to hold breath while in sniper scope to increase accuracy, with more swaying/less accuracy after you let go over breath key or you run out of breath.
- Can opt-out of being revived if you die, so that a stupid medic can't revive you in the middle of a fire fight.
- Mount weapons on any surface and workable bipods on LMG/HMGs that you can flip down.
- Gun modifications like working flashlights, night vision scopes, acogs, etc.
- Flare guns and tracer rounds for night game play.
- Dog tag customization, and steal people's custom dog tags with CQC/knife kills.
- Fully destructible environment, shoot out walls to crush enemies, shoot or break lights in doors or at night to darken environment, topple sky scrapers with heavy ordinance.
Seriously, DICE is pulling out all of the fucking stops on this game. The only things that would make it better is a return of some naval warfare aside from static aircraft carriers and small gun boats, as well as spec-ops stuff like zip-lines and grappling hooks.
I'm sure BF3 will be the choice tactical/strategical FPS game for the next few years.