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Ben Kuchera - Mar 2, 2011 8:50 am UTC

EA's Battlefield 3 event was everything wonderful and terrible about gaming journalism. I waited in line, herded like a cow until I put on a name tag, was shown the open bar, and was handed a piece of meat on a stick to eat until the game was shown. The crush of crowd was fantastic; EA seemed to have underestimated the amount of people who would be interested in the game. At one point they separated those who were press and those who weren't; those without a press badge were asked to leave the main floor, and they had to be content with a lesser seat while still enjoying the free drinks.

"Ears plugs are not a bad idea," we were told before the trailer began. There is a reason they wanted those of us who wrote about games on the floor—the floor itself was part of the sound system, bashing the bottom of our feet with the rhythmic sound of gunshots and explosions. My ears began to ring instantly. The screen was large and the graphics were overwhelming. We learned nothing about the game.

The best part of the demo was the fact that every control on-screen was a mouse, and we were told that the PC was the lead platform for the game. Seeing such a high-profile game shown to the press at an event on the PC is a rare thing these days, and it made me very, very happy.

The game looked great, the character models are amazing, and the environments crumbled and were blown away in a very satisfying manner. The game looks absolutely astounding, well above what we're used to from first-person shooters, and it may give gamers the excuse they've been looking for to upgrade their systems.

So go ahead and take a look at the trailer, tell us what you think, and get out the Motrin... I have a terrible headache. The event did what it was supposed to do, we were rocked by the video and everyone left suitably impressed. Now I just wish we had the chance to play the damned thing.

The event was mostly flash with very little substance, but the flash is enough to get us excited. There will be time for more information, and we're sure to know more around E3, but for now the hype trains continues. We saw a little more than than the trailer shows at the event, but we won't ruin the rest of it. Enjoy, and tell us what you think!

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