Monthly Archives: September 2011

Battlefield 3, Gaming

Battlefield 3 beta – my thoughts so far

I spent some time last night playing the Battlefield 3 beta.

First things first, overall I found it awesome, and I’m rather happy I have it on pre-order; I look forward to the full game.

Going prone is excellent, something I’d really missed in BF:BC2.

However, as could be expected from a beta, I did hit a few bugs:

  • Floor diving – in some points (notably around one of the outdoors objectives in Operation Metro), going prone can allow you to “dive through the floor” – I haven’t tried this alongside anyone else who can tell me if I become effectively invisible underneath the ground yet, but it’s clearly buggy
  • After unlocking the holo sight for the RPK-74M, in the next round I was spawning with the M27 IAR – a weapon which I have not yet unlocked. I wasn’t able to re-select the RPK-74M either. In the next round, I was back to my RPK-74M with the holo sight again.
  • Torches still seem to have their blinding effect outdoors in bright sunlight; I think it would make sense for their blinding effect to only work in dimmer indoor areas, and not outdoors (or to be very limited outdoors).
  • The Battlelog “social networking and stats” pages seem a little buggy in places (and require Javascript to be allowed from some random IP address to function; also they complain about Flash being blocked, despite me not actually seeing any unblockable Flash objects).
  • The stats also claim that I have 0 kills with grenades, but 5 kills… er, what?:
  • On the subject of grenades, it appears to be impossible to hold on to the grenade before throwing; the throw seems mostly immediate, unlike BF:BC2 where you could hold the button until you were ready to throw the grenade.
  • In one game, despite joining with a friend together, we were split up onto different teams; I would have expected the game’s matchmaking to have tried harder to locate a game with two slots available on the same team, rather than splitting us up. Battlefield is a game where teamwork is really needed, so playing with friends means you really want to be on the same team to work together.
  • Sometimes friendly soldiers can “push” you; in particular, if someone spawns on you in a close spot, you can be pushed along, sometimes out of the cover you were using

Overall, though, kick-arse game.

My somewhat poor stats

Non-geeky

Solving trouble codes P0480 / P0482 on Vectra Z22SE

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Quick post for the benefit of anyone Googling for advice on this topic, as most of the results I found when searching were simply lists of all the fault codes, rather than anything useful pertaining to specific advice.

My Vectra B 2.2 LS (Z22SE engine) was reporting the following fault codes:

P0480 Cooling Fan 1 Control Circuit Malfunction
P0482 Cooling Fan 3 Control Circuit Malfunction

Upon investigation, the problem turned out to be simple – a blown maxi blade fuse in the relay & fuse box in front of the battery – the one shown removed below:

Swapped out that fuse, and job done, no more warning light on the dash.

I like easy fixes :)

Gaming

Battlefield 3 open beta starts 29th September

The Battlefield 3 open beta starts this Thursday, 29th September.

You’ll be able to play the “Rush” game mode on the Operation Metro map. The beta will end on October 10.

I’ll definitely be giving it a go, as a taster before the full title is released on October 28th.

Back in August I decided to pre-order Battlefield 3 from Amazon (currently £38.91 for the Limited Edition along with “Amazon.co.uk exclusive Specact Kit pre-order bonus”), so I’m looking forward to this one :)

I think I’ll need to fit in some time for some more BF:BC2 (and BF3 beta, once it’s out) to brush up on my skills…

One notable change in Rush gameplay from BF:BC2 reported is that the M-COM station objectives cannot be damaged any more – the only way to take them out is by arming the explosives. I would imagine that M-COM stations within destructible buildings can still be taken out by taking down the building, though. I think this is a good decision to stop people trying the old trick of strapping C4 to the UAV and going suicide-bombing, which could be very irritating on certain maps.

Another interesting reported change is that the bomb timer on the M-COM station is extended if a defender starts defusing it just before it blows – the detonation is held off until it’s defused, or until the defender is killed or stops disarming.

The game is looking pretty sweet:

If you’re undecided, grab the beta and see what you think. I find the Battlefield series better fun than the Call of Duty franchise with more tactics and teamwork, rather than simple “run and gun” play.