Battlefield 3: Aftershock iOS Review – Navy Squeals

After playing the iPad version of the EA tentpole Battlefield 3: Aftershock, it’s quite clear that no other subtitle could be created to accurately describe the glass cage of emotion felt after being put through this awkward meat grinder. Shock and awe, not of how good it is, but of how really awful the damn thing turned out to be. Someday, someone somewhere will make an FPS for the tablet/smartphone that will actually work, drawing on the benefits of interface and design while keeping in spirit with what makes a shooter so great. Until then, we will get games like Aftershock, a hasty port of a multi-million dollar franchise that tries so hard and fails harder.

The team at Digital Legends should be commended and grab a few brownie points for attempting to stay true to the franchise’s main tenants: First person running and gunning, pure multiplayer chaos, cutting edge graphics, exotic locales. Ultimately though, these are all things that are the game’s downfall. Hopping into a multiplayer lobby is easy enough on startup, but then, quite quickly, the cracks in the armor start to come into focus. Finding a game lobby to jump into is something that can take minutes and often times out, something that the player has absolutely no control over. Basic console-style multiplayer options like choosing game types or creating other sorts of technical filters made to optimize the time it takes to jump into a game are nonexistent. Probably most likely because those features don’t even exist even if you did want to toggle them. When a lobby finally opens up and a game starts up, it’s generally short lived, as eight out of ten times you are spawned into a map there are less than thirty seconds left in the match before you are once again dumped back out into the lobby. That, however, ends up being the best case scenario since jumping into a fresh match means you must contend with clunky, painful controls.

To be fair, no one has ever made an FPS for a touch-based device that really feels good. Even the best ones are mired in awkward turning and sketchy aiming mechanics that diminish whatever intensity was brought into the fold. There isn’t a great sense of urgency when you see an enemy run past you and then turn ohhhh-soooo-slowwwly to put him in your sights. The usual remedy for this is to pack on the hit points so theoretically there is time to react even if you’ve been shot in the back of the head seventeen times. It’s a novel solution, but one that dilutes what is so fun about a shooter. Aftershock’s controls are plagued by all of this and more. They do try to even out the playing field a bit by giving people some control scheme options; “Virtual Sticks”, where the analog sticks appear wherever thumbs are set down on the screen where they remain; “Tap Screen”, where the sticks move with your thumbs once they cross a certain threshold, and “Classic Sticks”, where the sticks are anchored to the HUD at the bottom of the screen. All options are appreciated but just end up being cumbersome and difficult in their own unique ways. Adjusting stick sensitivity helps with turning, but hinders movement, making the whole option moot and often I found myself kneeling instead of firing because those buttons were jammed so close together.

Graphically, the game is fairly solid, which is just about the only thing it does right, unfortunately it’s difficult to judge the breadth of the art because there is only one single map available to play. Yes, that’s right: One map for a multiplayer-only game. The final insult comes with the online gameplay which is filled with gross lag causing almost all kills in the game to be given or received unfairly. There are several weapon types, but none really feel any different. Perhaps they are, but it’s hard to tell with such sloppy gameplay presenting it.

EA is no stranger to the portable/casual gaming circuit. They very smartly abandoned the entire first-person perspective for their Mirror’s Edge port, opting instead for a side scrolling tap-action time killer that ended up being pretty fun and still retained the feel of the big console version; their iPad 2 version of Dead Space was that device’s game of 2011 and with good reason- that game’s over-the-shoulder perspective and control scheme married well with a touch-based interface. Perhaps they should have thought out of the box as equally with their heinous attempt at a Battlefield port, because what has passed EA’s standards certainly will not meet the bar any player has set for it. On the bright side, the game is free, so there is no real loss other than a bit of sanity when all is said and done. At least Battlefield 3: Aftershock does get one thing right: War is hell.