Battlefield 3 Multiplayer

Over time, it becomes clear that simply spawning and dashing to the jump is a fool's game. We wait for someone to grab a chopper. Then, after he spirals and clatters his way to a messy demise, we wait for someone who can actually control the thing to grab a chopper. Then, as they strafe the landing site, the rest of us make the jump, some aiming for rooftops to provide more covering fire, others bound for the objectives.

As we glide in, the flutter of the chute roaring in our ears, I spot an enemy taking aim below. Somehow, brilliantly, I manage to take them out with a mid-air headshot, swooping in for a landing next to his defeated corpse. It's a pure fluke, of course, but undoubtedly my first "you'll never believe this" Battlefield 3 war story.

It's a breathless action-movie map, but one that never loses sight of the freedom that defines the Battlefield experience. What it demands is that you adapt to the terrain as you go, adjusting tactics according to the situation. After the tight funnelling and close quarters combat of the first push, you land at the second pair of objectives in the middle of a large industrial mining facility.

There are large warehouses and processing plants. Intricate pipework provides elevated walkways and sneaky rat runs. Push the defenders back from there, and they retreat into the mine itself, a cavernous space with gantries and rock formations where attackers must either find a secret path inside or else risk an all-out frontal assault on an enemy with plenty of opportunity to dig in.

It works, and it works exceptionally well with the Rush modes. Some fans have complained that Rush is taking precedence over Conquest, which is seen as the "true" Battlefield mode. Maps like Damavand Peak, which is clearly designed to favour the push-and-fall-back rhythms of Rush, give some credence to that, but that's not such a bad thing.

For one, Battlefield 3 also boasts maps like Operation Firestorm, an absolutely enormous open plan theatre of war where vehicles are essential and anyone planning on going lone wolf can expect to spend a lot of time jogging aimlessly along with only the crunch of their combat boots in the sand for company.

But Rush is also, arguably, a more refined take on military engagements than the free-for-all sandbox of a Conquest map. Rush imprints structure on the battle, giving both teams a clear through line to follow, and that results in better, more organic teamwork and a greater sense of drama, either the elation of the attackers as they take another objective or the backed-into-a-corner resolve of defenders with nowhere else to retreat to.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding Battlefield 3, not least concerning its single player campaign and the introduction of standalone co-op maps, but it seems that when it comes to players finding exciting new ways to shoot each other's faces off, the standard will be as high as ever.