Last night like thousands of others, I got my hands on BF3. When I got home last night, this little package was waiting for me, this was a nice surprise.
I pre-ordered BF3 from Bestbuy and was expecting to get it later in the week. I was really hoping it would arrive by Friday, so I could have the weekend to play with it, but I certainly wasn't expecting it to arrive on launch day. Well done Bestbuy, this makes pre-ordering games more palatable.
The PC game comes on two DVDs. Insert disc 1, run installer. I'd been warned about needing the Origin Client, but I figured I'd let the installer install the client it came with.
It does, then, it wants to auto-update. Sigh, okay, I let it auto-update.
Then I create my Origin account directly from the client, not too bad so far.
The client's title catches me off guard "Origin Beta". Beta!? Is the game still in Beta? If not, why is the client which is required to run the game, beta? Anyway, I fill in my CDKEY, it verifies it, and voila, says I have activated BF3.
But, how is the install going? I don't hear my DVD drive spinning... I look at the Origin client, it says "Preparing..." I sit there... waiting... waiting...
5 minutes later it still says preparing, and I see no network activity, and no DVD spinning.
I look all around the client, trying to see if there was a button I have to click to install the game. Nop. No such luck. I click on help. It says make sure I have at least Origin client v3.x. I do, it forced me to auto-update to 8.x.
I click on Live Chat. It says the queue is at least 35 min long. I am getting annoyed. It is 11 pm at night, I started this half an hour ago, and was hoping to play the game a little before going to bed.
I eject the disc and insert it again, click on English, then install. It pops up the Origin client already installed and running, and still saying "Preparing..."
I think it's gotten stuck. So before doing the 35min wait, I decide to do what all PC users are told to do first, reboot!
Upon restart, I login to the Origin client, get my password wrong, type it again, get it right. Ah, now the BF3 icon is allowing me to install, but when I click on it, it says expected download size about 11 GB. 11 GB?! What the f*ck! I have the bloody discs right in my hand!
I google around and apparently some people have been given wrong CDKEYs, apparently some CDKEYs are online download keys, and other ones are retail keys. So those unfortunate people with the wrong keys had to wait for tech support to give them a new key.
As a last resort, I insert the disc anyway, and much to my surprise, it shows a bit of intelligence and lets me install from the disc!
As I wait for the install to churn away, I long for the days in the past where I could install a game in 10 minutes, and be already playing it. Instead, now I am 40 minutes into the install, and about 30% done.
Thankfully the install finishes without any further drama. Aside from the slew of user agreements I had to agree to.
After the disc install finishes, the game auto-updates itself. I read about that... so that takes a little bit as it downloads and installs any patches. The finally, I am given the check mark prompt to "Play now?"
Damn right, I've been waiting for an hour! Make go go now!
But wait, not so fast. Normally I expect the EA logo to come up, some opening sequence, instead, I am greeted by my Firefox popping up and loading some EA site. WTF?
It appears I have to select which mode I want the game to launch in, Multi-player, Single player campaign, or Quick game. I click on Single player, and oh lord, more things to install. Since I am clicking this in a browser, the browser needs a plugin to launch the game. So it asks me to save this plugin to disk, then install it.
I do so. At least I didn't have to restart the browser.
Do I really get to play now?
Maybe. It seems to be doing something...
It occurs to me again, what happens when EA's server is down? Can I even play this game? Despite the fact that the Origin client is running, without this website to launch the game in the appropriate mode, how does one do that without it?
Blink blink, alert pop up.
Oh lord, what now? Apparently my nVidia driver version is too old, it says I should upgrade before running the game... but before I could do anything, the game launches!
I get the EA and Dice intro, and finally I am in the game! Looks good!
I'd been warned about the game's demands on the PC, so before anything, I check my Options, and see that it set my video to 1920x1080, not bad, I expected it to try to run at 1024x768 or something terrible like that.
Alright, campaign, start! Subway mission, graphics look good, whoa, guns have significant recoil (like real guns!)
Btw, it is now just about midnight, about 90 minutes after I started installing the game.
A few minutes later, I am finally in Iraq, or Iran, or some middle eastern combat zone. Whoa, graphics do look astonishingly good. Some mission briefing, run following my team... fire fight!
What the, bleep, white screen, awhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Graphics error, my video card ran out of memory, it recommends at least 512 mbs. It's been so long ago I bought my video card, but I check the specs, yeah, it has 512 mbs. It's a 8800gt, nothing great, perhaps the last of the quiet single slot PCIe cards.
Okay, I guess it did warn me about the graphics driver version before launch. Go to nVidia's site, oh god, when did graphics drivers before full blown apps? Another 130 MB download later, another install, and relaunch the game through the Origin client, select the single player campaign in single player, and I am back in the game...
But, what the, the movement is all jerky now... umm... okay, just indoors, outdoors combat seems to work fine... f*ck it, I'm not going to try to fix it now, I just want to shoot somethings!!
About half an hour of game play, I wind down and get ready for bed.
You know, the game play is good so far, very realistic, graphics are awesome, so they delivered a great product, but the whole installation experience is really really bad.
What was wrong with the old school Installsheild install? They were so simple, autorun, click Next a few times, and voila, game is installed. On start up, it runs some CD authenticity checks, and you are in the game. And from inside the game, you select which mode you want, single or multiplayer. Now this is in a browser? Connected to some website which may go down at any moment??
So much forward progress, and so much lost as well.
I surely hope Mass Effect 3 isn't going to be wrapped in this debacle.
