Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Battlefield 3 Dinosaur Mode: Can a Prank Become Reality?


Over the years, first person shooters have come a long way, evolved if you will. From humble beginings with arcade, rail shooters, then progressing to the genre as we know it today, developers still had to find a way to move on to the next level. The most recentevolution has come in the form of “Horde” style gameplay. Whether it be Horde mode, Zombies or Firefight, all the biggest shooters have got it but dinosaurs would just take it too a whole new level.
Pure Awesome
Ever since the demise of Turok, I miss Turok 3 and still have it for Xbox original, the dinos have been left at the back of everyones mind, a forgotten time when people were happier and had more of a challenge taking on giant lizards rather than some overgrown, alien insects. But dinosaur mode could change that in so many ways, not just as normal, horde style gameplay, it could set the bar for all future attempts.
Perhaps the best reason for Battlefield 3 to bring in a dino mode is diversity, adding modes is what makes games better, the more people can do, the longer the game will keep their attention for. Battlefield games already given us some of the most diverse combat, especially in the way of vehicle combat. So imagine, having mastered the use of jets in the game and then, just to mix things up, you could go out, shooting down some enormous pterodactyls and other scaly winged menaces. I want to shoot pteradatyls and I want to do it now.
Diverese combat doesn’t have to be limited to how many vehicles a game has, picture yourself reliving moments like the Tyrannosaurus chase from Jurrasic Park, but rather than being some unarmed palientologist, you are a badass, gun toting, US soldier, firing from cover whenever you can find it, then having to move on, after being spotted and the chase begins again.
Overall, dinosaurs are some of the toughest creatures to have walked the earth, for the sake of my point we will ignore the mass extinction, but even then, maybe they ceased to exist, not through poisoned plants, global warming or an asteroid strike, but through US Marines, travelling back in time because they fancied a bit more of a challenge than zombies and aliens. This may seem far fetched, but think of the way the Call of Duty series handled zombies, here was a series that had always took itself relatively seriously, but with the addition of zombies gameplay, it gave an oppurtunity to become more fun, less serious and gave us something to laugh about, even poking fun at world leaders gone by.
Unofficial. But Would Be Well Worth Paying For
While Jurrasic Park the game is due for a console release at some point, I always envisaged it would have more of an adventure feel rather than trying to build on the remains of a shattered Turok franchise. Whereas Battlefield is already a kick ass first person shooter, so having a horde mode just helps it to catch up with some of the other, big games in the genre that are already utilising this style of gameplay and let’s face it, this is the only thing Battlefield needs to catch up on.
Rest assured, whether or not we see a dino mode with Battlefield 3, the game will still be awesome, but it is a feature that shouldn’t be overlooked and having been hinted at already, there is probably at least some truth in the rumours. For now though all we can do is sit and wait until October rolls around and we find out if there is any truth in Battlefields dino mode.

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