Having only completed a few missions on the single player I wasn't planing on reviewing Battlefield 3 so early but I felt the need to comment on the multiplayer side of things. After playing plenty of Battlefield Bad Company 2 I was all set to make Battlefield 3 my next shooter to play to death. Unfortunately, by playing Bad Company 2 so much it's actually greatly lowered my opinion of Battlefield 3's multiplayer. The thing is, Battlefield 3 has some incredibly frustrating bugs and mechanics that Bad Company 2 didn't have. 

Since deciding to write a multiplayer review I've continued to play online. Initially I was going to review Battlefield 3's multiplayer properly but the more I play it the more it's annoying me. And so this 'review' is in reality going to be a list of bugs and annoyances, starting with the least annoying items first. 

• The first annoyance was actually present in Bad Company 2 but still annoys me and takes away my valuable sleep. You cannot quit the current game between rounds. After a match is the prime time to leave as you give time for the match making system to find a replacement but you must load the new map, then leave. This causes me to forget I wanted to quit and forces me to play round after round when I should be counting sheep. Of course you can quit the game completely or turn of the console but I generally like to look at the new equipment I've unlocked and alter my classes accordingly. 
• Menus are too deep. To change your gun's attachments you have to navigate through level after level of menus. On the console it doesn't work well. The menus take for ages to navigate and some of the weirdest controls. It may work for PC but not console.
• No private servers on console. On day one PC players get this. I have no plans to open up a server and leave my PS3 on all the time but I would like to set up a server so I can practise flying and learn the maps. Rumour has it that this will be patched in at some point which is good but PC get's it day one? Thanks for forgetting us DICE.
• On a side note and not officially part of my list is the maximum number of players per server. On PC it's 32 (but can be 64) and on console it's only 24. Resistance 3 did 64 players on PS3. What gives? 
• Squads don't always keep together. When you invite a friend to your squad you generally want to play with them, not against (however, I thought having the option to evenly split up your squad would be nice so you could have half on one side, half on the other). This issue should be higher but DICE have recognised this as an issue with match making and are working on it. Thanks! 
• The input is laggy and inconsistent. If you played Killzone 3 you'll know what I mean but with Killzone it was intentional. Close quarters firefights are a mess. The controls also seem to have two areas of sensitivity. Small movements close to the centre of the analogue stick move the cross-hair slower and the further away you move the analogue stick from the centre the faster it moves. Having the ability to do smaller movements when aiming do the sights and faster movements when aiming from the hip sounds great but it's doesn't work right.
• One of the big features of the new Frostbite 2 engine is sound. Rounds skimming by your head, explosions making your round shake... are there to make you feel more in involved in the game but quite often the ambient sound cuts out. What happens is you'll be in the middle of a fierce battle with tanks in front of you, soldiers all around and jets and helicopters in skies above. That's a lot of sound. Then silence. All sound goes, except for your footsteps and when you fire your weapon. 
• In many of the maps the game play area is really small and it limits you too much. Flanking becomes hard (near impossible) and some areas of the map that seem accessible, aren't. Probably the worst example of this in the map Grand Bazaar on Rush. Attacking on this map is limited to small corridors that are easy to defend, hard to attack. Not all bad. It provides a more challenging assault and in real urban warfare you'd most likely get stuck in choke points. The issue is the alleyways only let you go half way down when the enemy can go all the way, preventing you chasing the them down or any attempts to flank them. 
• VoIP is terrible. It's impossible to understand your squad mates when they break up so much you hear only a third of what they say. I'd like to say it doesn't happen all the time but it happens ALL the time. It's rare to make it through a round without the VoIP messing up.
• And the number one most annoying part of Battlefield 3 goes too... not being able to jumping over small objects and in windows. By small objects I really mean small. Walls that aren't even as high as your knees will get you stuck and get you dead. Also, jumping through windows sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. 

So why all these issues? If you discount the issues with menus, small map areas and lighting as they are by design, then you are left with bugs. DICE openly say that PC is their lead platform (I watched this long video presentation about Frostbite 2 but cannot find the link) which in it's self shouldn't be a problem. However it appears DICE completed the PC version and rushed the console versions, probably to beat Modern Warfare 3 to the stores. This seems like the most likely reason to me, since MW3 is only around the corner. 

This post has been very negative. Battlefield 3 is a great game but the items I've outlined almost ruin it for me. So far the story mode is going well and as soon as I complete it I'll post a proper review.

The world of MotorStorm is a racing and music festival that travels the world to find the crazies places to races almost all types of race machines. For MotorStorm Apocalypse this place is an unnamed American city which is experiencing earth quakes on an apocalyptic scale. Everyone has evacuated the city. All that remains are the remains of sky scrapes, fly overs, homes and some crazy mofos who wanna race.

Festival Mode

The story is very much what you'd expect from a racing game, simple. It's split into three parts that take place simultaneously over the three day festival of MotorStorm. Rookie, Pro and Veteran. Each has it's own little plot that overlap slightly but is nothing more than distraction to make the game seem longer. The stories all follow the same structure, you become a character, you have a personal battle with something or someone, race, cut scene, race, cut scene,...,  the end. Stepping away from the individual characters you play there's the festival that's going on (on an aircraft carrier) and a war between MotorStorm, Dustlite and the Crazies. Dustlite are a private military company who are hired to look after the city. Complete non-sense when you see the city in ruins from day one. The Crazies are the people who didn't evacuate. I like to compare the Crazies to zombies, they are there just to be ran over. All three of the sides hate the other two, so when racing you're always under fire directly or indirectly. The "story" will keep your attention for only a few seconds at a time. Luckily the story is told using animated comic strips which are quite entertaining. In any case, does anyone buy a racing game for the story? It fills in the gaps between races nicely, giving your throttle finger a rest.

When it comes to the racing MotorStorm deliveries. The broken city setting provides a fantastic variety of tracks (and routes within each track) to make each race different. On top of that the city is moving. The quakes are happening all the time, causing buildings to topple, roads to collapse and be forced upwards and pretty much everything else explodes. All these events happen in a scripted way but I've noticed not always at the same point. Some events will just be visual but others will change the track by blocking off routes or revealing new ones in the debris. There's also a war raging around you. Helicopters and harriers over head, and soldiers and tanks on the ground. They all shot at you with machine guns and RPGs, another source of explosions. Early on in the game these shots won't do anything but as you get further in they can cause you to explode if you've maxed out your boost. Helicopters regularly crash on the track, like the scenery, causing routes to be blocked and revealed. Putting all these events together makes MotorStorm looks spectacular. 

While dealing with the ever changing environments you also have to contend with 15 other races through out the story mode. Pretty much every race has a mix of vehicle types, ranging from motorbikes to super cars and quad bikes to big rigs. 

MotorStorm's races can be greatly satisfying or ridiculously infuriating. Unlike most racing games, contact is not only allowed but makes up 90% of the strategy for each race. The other 10% being split between "shall I go left, right or straight on?" and timing your boosts. The frustration in MotorStorm comes from the other racers. If you think you can stick to a racing line, you are wrong. The other racers will have something to say about that and will act. So, always be prepared to take an alternate route. Take this as an example: imagine you're in first place, you're driving your pick up truck superbly, then a motorbike on full boost smashes straight into the back of you, goes under your truck, you to lose all control and you crash. It happens all to often. The AI seems to have no sense or desire to win.  It's like they are programed to crash into you and take away your glory. Which to be honest is how it should be in MotorStorm, they've done it right, but when it happens it doesn't half piss you off.

The racing in the story mode aren't all that hard really. Gaining the position to progress is easily done on the first or second attempt. A few more attempts may be required to get first on every race or to pick up all the MotorStorm playing cards. Apart from the straight out racing, there is the elimination mode. It's simple, whoever is in last place is eliminated every 15 seconds until there's one man standing. 

Beyond The Story and Multi-player

The story mode isn't too long but is plenty long enough. After completing the story there is surprisingly a lot more to do. For every race you won in the story you unlock hardcore mode, involving harder competitors and target time. Also, there's time trials for each track. Weekly challenges and downloadable events make up the rest. Weekly challenges provides 3 new time limited challenges per week and downloadable events (there's 7 in total and 4 are free to download from the PS Store) which have several races each. Most of the offline game modes let you earn coins to level up which I'm assuming unlocks items for customising your vehicles.  Unfortunately, at this moment in time it seems there's no one playing online. That's a shame because it doesn't allow me to review this aspect of the game and I remember the original MotorStorm's online multi-player being quite fun. 

Overall MotorStorm is a great racing game. I wouldn't have paid full price for it but it's an absolute bargin second hand. 

First up on the Sunday was House of Pain. Most people instantly think of Jump Around when they hear that name, I am no exception. Their set was quality, better than I expected really. It was well performed hip hop that you can't help but nod along too. 

Parkway Drive were next and I'm not a fan of their's but I did sick around for them. Even though I'm not a fan I can honestly say that their set was solid. Any fan would have been very pleased. 

To celebrate the life of Paul Gray there was a two minute silence for him at 2pm, dubed 2 at 2 for #2. As I tweeted after, The "2 minutes silence for Paul Grey was just that. Never heard a festival so quiet". There was the occasion shout from some drunken arse hole but there's always going to be people like that unfortunately. 

Straight after the 2 minutes silence was In Flames. I do like some In Flames but I can't remember a thing about their set. In their defence I have terrible memory. 

Mastodon I do remember. I remember laying on the ground in the sun listening to the most well performed set of the weekend. Not one note out. Laying down really made me appreciate the quality of Mastodon more as I didn't have any distractions. It's highly likely I missed out on some mesmerising visuals as they had last year when I saw them at Rock City but the focus on the sound was worth it. 

For the next band, Airbourne, I'm going to performance on what I saw this Sunday when they supported at Iron Maiden at Birmingham's NIA. Airbourne are some crazy Aussie rockers who clearly grow up listening to nothing but AC/DC, Iron Maiden and the like. It's so apparently in their style of music. They do a solid set with some good tunes but nothing that original. Sonisphere was the second time I had seen them and before that it was at Download 2010. Both times the lead singer has climbed the stage. At Download the sound was cut from his guitar to try to get him to come down (it was raining). However, this did not happen at Sonisphere. He was free to climb to the top of the Saturn stage where he proceeded to rock out on his guitar. A pretty impressive feat. Going back to the set... they do perform well and play likeable music but lack that little something that would make me enjoy them more. 

The next three group of artists were what I had really been waiting for. First of the three was Limp Bizkit. I've seen them three times before and still looked forward to them as much as the other times. They are another one of the bands I got into at school when I was finding my love for metal. Their set was a little different to the usual. Usually a band know what they are going to play and in which order. This time Fred Durst told the audience they were winging it and taking requests. It seemed this was true until he gave a choice of Nookie or Douche Bag. The crowd were clearly loudest for Nookie but they went on to play Douche Bag. Fair enough wanting to play some of the new tracks but ignoring the audience after claiming they'd decide isn't nice. Forgiving them of that fopa the set was great. They played all the classic you'd want, including Break Stuff, My Generation, My Way, Roll' (Air Raid Vehicle) and my favourite tune the cover of George Michael's Faith. If you're not farmiliar with Limp Bizkit then check out their album Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water.

Of all the festivals I've been to in the past I've never seen anything other than a band headline the second stage but Sonisphere 2011 differed. The comedian, Bill Bailey was the Saturn stage's headliner. Well technically Bill Bailey did have a band support him and the majority of the set was musical but he's a comedian really. I've been wanting to see Bill Bailey live for years now as I love watching him on programs like QI and his live DVDs. There's denying it, Bill Bailey is an unusual man but a genius. The set was a mix of musical numbers including Gary Numan's Cars in French, Scarborough Fair in the style of Rammstein (Simon & Garfunkel are most well for this song) and ending on Enter Sandman by Metallica on the horns! Watch the video! He filled the breaks with some stand up and supporting videos. One video he looks into the self service checkout and is hiding behind a bush. If you know Bill Bailey you'll know they are situations filled with humour old he could obtain. His 50 minute set is one of music fun 50 minutes I've ever had.

Last but by no means least (wow imagine is festivals didn't saved the best till the end?) was Slipknot. The first and last time I saw these was at Download 2009, not long before the untimely death of Paul Grey. It was one hell of an experience and one I wanted to relive. The thing about Slipknot that people, who aren't fans, don't get is that it's about pure aggression. Shouting and hitting things to get everything out of your system. This is what I love about them and is what you will get, guaranteed, at a Slipknot gig. The set opened with an intro (which according to setlist.fm is a combination of Iowa and 742617000027) that went straight into (sic). Their music gets my blood pumping and Corey Taylor's gripping and chilling voice brings the music to life. Without the incredibly powerful voice of Corey Taylor, Slipknot wouldn't still be around. And the same applies for the reverse, without the 7 strong army of guitarists and drummers making that unique Slipknot sound they wouldn't have been there. Duality bought out the biggest roar from the 50-60k strong audience. Slipknot played songs from all around their back catalogue and all were chosen well. If the heavy metal wasn't enough for you then there was some big explosions, flames and fireworks to keep you busy. The energy in a Slipknot set is unmatchable. 

So far each year at Sonisphere there’s always been a band that didn’t particular fit in with the rest of the bands. In 2009 there was the ABBA tribute band, Björn Again. 2010 had The Fab Beatles. This year it was the tour of the comedy lounge band Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. For those unfarmilar with the work of Richard Cheese, he cover unlikely song in the style of a lounge bar singer, think Frank Sinatra. What makes this awesome is he sings metal songs in this style. The most listened to one (on Spotify) is currently Nirvana's Rape Me. He didn’t perform Rape Me this time but he did do Limp Bizkit’s Nookie, Disturbed’s Down With The Sickness and my favourite, People = Shit by Slipknot. Everyone in the crowd was laughing and smiling throughout. I just love the contrast between lounge/swing music and heavy metal. He also mixed in some Snoop Dogg and Sir Mix-A-lot for good measure.

Sum 41 were next up for us. It was back at high school when I first go into Sum 41 and I have many fond memories especially of the All Killer, No Filler album. I was hopping that they’d only play songs off that but they obviously weren’t going to do that played a mix of old and new (a bit too much new to be honest) and they had a crack of Metallica’ Master of Puppets and Enter Sandman which they did pretty well. The last two full songs they played Fat Lip and In To Deep, which is what the audience were clearly waiting for. Finally they attempted to play Still Waiting even though they had over run. The organisers handled it well and slowly turned down the volume until all you could here was faint sound of drums but they kept going. It’s always nice that a band wants to keep playing but it’s very arrogant which I didn’t like. Overall a pretty decent set but would have been much better with more of the old stuff.

We headed off to the Jagermeister stage next so Neil could be near the front for Tesseract who we found out later actually on the Red Bull Stage. While waiting (in vein) we did catch the last couple of songs from Six Hour Sundown. Theses guys and girl were pretty cool. The lead singer (Lauren Harris) was pretty tasty, which of course doesn’t skew my ability to give an unbiased write up. I later found out Lauren is the daughter of Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris so there’s good music in her blood. Neil, as the leader singer of his band Icons, didn’t think much to my suggestion of replacing Icon’s lead with a sexy lady. Heading back to their performance and music. They were alright. Lauren has a decent set of lungs on her and everything worked well but I’d need to listen to them again to give a proper review. 

After a nice down poor and a queue to get into the Bohemia tent we saw Periphery. Another Neil band, but his previous recommendation of the weekend turned out alright so I gave them a try. Once again I actually enjoyed he’s recommendation. Their sound is heavy progressive metal but to my surprise the majority of the time the word were actually sung! I couldn’t fault the performance and did enjoy it but I probably won’t be  putting Periphery on my iPod as that, at the moment, would require me to delete something.

While heading back to the tents we did walk by the Apollo stage where Weezer were playing. I’ve never been a huge fan of Weezer so we didn’t stage long.

To end the day we had Biffy Clyro. They did at first seem like an unusual headliner for Sonisphere but I do like them so it’s all good. The first thing I noticed as walking through the crowd was that there wasn’t anywhere near as many people as there had been for Metallica the night before. It’s too be expected really but those who didn’t show missed out. As they started it was instantly apparent they weren’t there to faff around. They were louder than Metallica! Last year I saw Biffy at Leeds and my quote was “These boys did a cracking set. Really good quality”. That still stands and should be improved on. My favourite song is Mountains and it stood out as the best one of the set for me. During the set they launched some streamers and bubbles in to the air. I was a little infactuated with the bubbles as they floated away, seemly forever and didn't pop. It was definitely an amazing performance by Biffy Clyro so I’ll end with post with three little words.... mon the Biff!

Once again I have an untimely review to write. It’s getting a to be a bit of a habit, leaving some time between doing and reviewing. Something always comes up. Anyway, here’s my review of Friday at Sonisphere 2011.  

Well to start it off I might as well talk about Thursday evening as what we did explains why we only really saw three bands on Friday. Only one of the thress was from the Big Four. On the way down we saw a DOUBLE RAINBOW (STOP RIGHT THERE! Did you click the link and watch the video? No!? Go back and watch it. You’ve seen it? Watch it again! You clicked? Some people are weird aren’t they!) which was nice. The heavy rain wasn’t so nice for the driving but that didn’t last long. After arriving we did the usual setting up of tents and cracked open a beer and headed in for a little wonder around the area. On the way we bumped into some pigs on horses! Well police on horses. I asked the best way to the arena, and made brilliantly witty and hilarious remark (after thanking them for their help of course... which turned out to be wrong) the two horses and female office enjoyed. The other officer, male, was clearly unamused and lacked all sense of humour. Anyway, at least the nice officer liked it and away we went down the wrong path. We did get to the arena and had a quick look around but soon headed back to camp for some grub and wine...

Friday came and to start it off we had some sausages and eggs and then headed off to the arena for the compulsory wonder around to see what’s what. We wondered, taking in the sights, sounds, smells of the arena. It smelt alright at the moment in time. After that we went to the guest area where there was a sofa and a bar. This is were we lost the day. Only 1 pint was consumed each but that red liquid from the previous night has a habit of making me sleepy. One minute I was awake then, what felt like only 10 min later, an hour had past. Then another one of those magical 10 minutes past and it was about 5pm! This was probably the time to go see some bands, so we did. 

First up was Firewind in the Bohemia tent. As I previously explained, this review is untimely and over three weeks have gone by. Thus, I’ve forgotten Firewind but I had made this excellent note on my phone to remind me what I thought. “Firewind. Very Iron Maiden voice”. I’ll take that as being a good thing.

Next up were The Black Dahlia Murder who Neil was dieing to see. As always, when Neil suggests a band, I was wary. The Black Dahlia Murder are one of a long list of bands who’s vocalists roar down the mic, making it impossible to know what they are actually “singing” about. I normally hate this but I actually enjoyed these guys. The set was solid. The music was quality and well preformed. For me the music seemed more original and varied compared to other bands I’ve barely listen to in their genre. I’ll also add that preceding the start of their set there were some technical issues but the band were on stage messing around and talking to the audience which was nice. 

Skipping to a few hours later it was Metallica time. Having seen Metallica numerous times before I knew what to expect and that’s what we got, then a little bonus at the end. They are definitely a band who have mastered the art of live performances and then execute flawlessly. It started with the clip from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly accompanied by The Ecstasy of Gold as they have done for many years now. Of the 18 song set my top tunes were Master of Puppets and All Nightmare Long. Along with the heavy head banging goodness there were some cool visuals and fireworks, which I always welcome. The encore was a bit special. Members for the other three quaters of the Big Four and a member of Diamond Head joined them on the stage to perform Diamond Head’s Am I Evil?, after a lot of hugging of each other... that’s rock n roll for you. For any fan of the Big Four this was something else. Never have I seen 3 (or was it 4) drummers sharing the same kit. It was quite the spectacle, even though the timing was a little off. Ha, I’m not really taking that last comment into account at all. All I’ll say now is that I’ve never been to an below awesome Metallica gig.