Battlefield 3: Armoured Kill Review (PC)
WhatCulture rates the best Battlefield 3 DLC yet.
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rating:4.5
Battlefield 3: Armoured Kill is the third DLC for 2011's megahit shooter by DICE and EA, and swears to be the polar opposite to June's Close Quarters. Whereas CQ offered tight hallways and gun to gun combat, Armoured Kill gives BF3 owners the largest maps ever created for the series, giving us epic jet and tank battles across 64 player, 7 flag battlegrounds. While AK doesn't have any of the new weapons that CQ and Back to Karkand gave us, it does give us 4 maps, 5 vehicles and few more goodies. The first of the new maps is Bandar Desert, advertised as the biggest map in Battlefield history. The map features everything from tight building to building fights to massive open warfare. The map is absolutely massive, almost too massive. While it never gets boring, you are often killed from no where and left scratching your head as to what happened. There is a high population of vehicles, which is always good to see. The new Tank Destroyers are very unique indeed. The speed of an LAV mixed with the tank killing power of an MBT, these vehicles are very tricky to take down.
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The new ATV's, or old, depending on whether or not you played Bad Company 2, are so much fun to use. The controls are fine enough except for on the icy terrain of Alborz Mountain, but we'll get to that in a minute. The ATV's are like the new jihad jeeps, a perfect Tank Destroyer killer. The second map I played is BF3's first snow map, Alborz Mountain. Oh my god. This map rocks. The snow setting is great to see, and this map almost takes the shape of Wake Island. The capture points go right up into the snowy mountains and down into the lush, green valley. The map is based around a peninsula connected by a road bridge, although this zone of the map sees little activity. Up high, however, is most of the good stuff happens. The highest point has roads stretching right through the middle of the map, giving it a feeling of fighting uphill at all times. The only real gripe here is that your vehicle often gets stuck around rocks in the environment, meaning you need to ditch and go on foot.
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The third map I fought across was the second map in Battlefield 3 to feature night gameplay, called Death Valley. It's pretty standard BF3 fare and doesn't bring a whole lot of interesting gameplay. The night setting is still overly bright and the moon has sun flaring when you look at it. God knows why. To me it suggests that DICE just reskinned old assets rather than thinking night gameplay through. The map isn't bad but isn't all the exciting. It does have a good balance of vehicle and ground combat though, meaning players will have a blast here. The final map on the roster is my personal favourite: Armoured Shield. This map is basically Bad Company 2 meets BF3 in that it feels like a classic Bad Company 2 map, but with Battlefield 3's gameplay. This map is also the only in the pack not to feature jets, however it has heaps of helicopters and the AC-130. The map is gorgeous to look at and DICE have put new details into old assets to make the world feel more believable. Empty buildings now have new colour schemes and have boxes and furniture, giving you the impression that people do live here, and it isn't just a staged fighting ground. This issue has plagued other Battlefield maps as I often wondered into a building and could not figure out what it was meant to be. All of the Armoured Kill maps look great, actually. There is more colour here and the frame rate stayed more stable than on older maps like Caspian Border, which is an impressive technical feat. The destruction also looks great, very much like Back to Karkand. The whole set looks great, actually. The maps ooze with detail and look nice overall. There is also the new Tank Superiority mode. I don't know what to think, actually. Each match just turns into a stalemate, with evenly balanced teams fighting over one capture point. You constantly find yourself killing an opponent right as you die, meaning you make no progress. Some people swear by the mode but I really hate it.