DICE has revealed the second of four maps included in June's Battlefield 3 expansion pack, Close Quarters. As the name suggests, this upcoming expansion pack is themed all around close tight indoor environments to present "relentless infantry action with unprecedented HD Destruction".
The new trailer shows off gameplay footage on the map dubbed "Donya Fortress". In today's trailer you will see more the gameplay changing HD Destruction, but keep an eye out for the new game mode being introduced in the expansion: Conquest Domination. According to DICE, Conquest Domination is "basically a clever mix of the tactical Conquest mode and the instant action gameplay approach in Close Quarters, tailored to the tight level design and frantic close quarters combat."
Battlefield 3: Close Quarters is expected to release in June 2012, one week early on the PS3. It will include 10 new weapons and four new maps all themed around close quarter combat.
"The HD Destruction in Close Quarters lets players riddle the environment with bullets, reducing entire locales to ruin. Everything from furniture to plaster can be shot to pieces, and players can see the result of the mayhem as rubble and broken pieces pile up on the floor," the description reads. "The tight level design and many opportunities for vertical gameplay mean players will need to bring their A game if they want to stay alive in this highly competitive theater of war."
Key features in Close Quarters include:
- Get plunged into frantic and relentless infantry combat
- Check your corners as death can come from any angle
- HD destruction lets you reduce entire locales to ruin
- Earn new weapons and bring them back to the base game
- Complete new assignments and equip unique dog tags
- Play in new ways, mixing team play and instant action
Welcome back, Game of Thrones. It’s been a long winter, but at last you have returned to allow us to bask in your glory. And it feels good. Game of Thrones has always been a show that struggles with focus, (a pattern which it broke from noticeably and successfully in last season’s ‘Blackwater’) having so many characters and locations to catch up with each episode that it often feels like the show is racing around the fictional world of Westeros, trying to split it’s time as evenly as it can amongst it’s major characters. This is a pattern that it continues in the season three premier, ‘Valar Dohaeris,’ but the scenes are generally so well executed, and it feels so good to be back in this world, that I didn’t really mind.
This episode didn’t feature Bran, Arya, Varys, Jaime, Theon, or Brienne, and that’s quite alright. I’m sure we’ll catch up with some or all of them next week, and in the meantime there were still a lot of faces to catch up with. While it sometimes feels a bit like the show is just saying ‘hey, remember this guy/girl? He/she still exists!’ the majority of it feels as though it is actually setting up future conflicts, or hinting at unexplored character depths. There was a lot of cleanup to do after the end of season two, and the season three premier manages to do this in a way that feels a lot less like work than it could have. This is a very good thing.
There are no major thematic threads that run throughout the episode, which does make it feel a bit haphazard, especially in regards to which scenes we see at which points in the episode, but there’s a common tone that unites the affairs of the episode, one of new beginnings and fresh challenges.
Let’s start, as I’m so fond of doing, in the land beyond the Wall. The episode picked up with Sam running from the army of White Walkers that we saw at the end of last season, only to be attacked by a wight and rescued by first Ghost, then Ser Jeor Mormont. The scene isn’t mindblowing, but the imagery of the zombie coming out of the snow holding an axe was very cool, and it was nice to see Ghost in action. All in all, the episode was much more visually interesting than I’ve come to expect from Game of Thrones, (I mean this in regards to it’s action and staging. The sets/costumes have always been stellar) and this scene was a good way to show that off right out the gate.
Elsewhere in the North, John is being introduced to Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall. John first bows to a big, bearded man chowing down on chicken, who turns out to be Mance’s righthand man, Tormund Giantsbane. Oh, and speaking of Giants, we saw one of those. So that was cool.
Ciaran Hinds turned out to be great casting for Mance, who instantly conveys his unique mix of charming and threatening. After a speech from Jon about wanting to be on the side that will protect the Kingdoms, Mance seems to grudgingly accept him into his crew. This is good news for Jon, not only because it means that he gets to live, but because now he can continue his flirtation with super-cute Wildling babe Ygritte. And who knows, maybe Mance will turn out to be a great wingman.
A lot of time was spent in King’s Landing this episode, which means that a lot of time was spent with Tyrion, which I am totally okay with. We got a series of great Tyrion scenes this week; he’s not doing too hot in the wake of getting his face sliced open by an agent of his sister, so he’s understandably nervous when she shows up to have a little chat. Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey have a great chemistry that they got to show off a lot last season, so it was nice to see that that’s going to continue. She knows full well that he knows that she tried to have him killed, and the tension here is so lopsided (genuine nervousness and fear from him, mild amusement from her) that it’s a joy to watch. Cersei finally has the upper hand over her meddlesome little brother, and you can tell that she knows it.
This scene is interrupted by the arrival of Bronn, who is none-too-pleased with Podrick Payne for interrupting his session with a very enthusiastic prostitute. When he shows up to Tyrion’s chambers he reminds his friend and employer that he’s a knight now, which means he expects a raise. Bronn and Tyrion is always a fun combination to watch, and that’s even truer when we’re reminded of how fragile that friendship is.
The big Tyrion moment, though, and my vote for best scene of the episode, is his confrontation with daddy Tywin. He demands what is his by right; gratitude for saving King’s Landing, and more importantly, Casterly Rock, the ancestral home of the Lannisters. Last season viewers fell in love with Tywin, due to his scenes with Arya and his penchant for showing up to save the day just in the nick of time, but this scene went a long way towards reminding us what a cold, arrogant bastard he is. He tells Tyrion that Casterly Rock will never be his, despite the fact that he is technically Tywin’s heir, and that the only reason he allows him the Lannister name at all is because he can’t prove that Tyrion isn’t his. Harsh, dude.
There’s also a scene between Sansa, Shae, Littlefinger, and Ros at the docs of King’s Landing, but there’s not much to say about it. Shae is intense, Littlefinger is creepy and sleazy, and Sansa wants out of King’s Landing. That’s about it.
The last big chunk of King’s Landing stuff is all about Joffrey and his new fianceMargaery, who he seems to be simultaneously smitten with and baffled by. She stops them in a poor part of the city so she can hang out with some orphans, and because know that Margaery is a player, it’s hard not to see it all as a calculated move. She’s a smart lady, and if she keeps it up, she’ll have Joff wrapped around her finger in no time. It’s a hoot watching Cersei respond to her during the dinner scene between them, Joffrey, and Loras; her face practically drips with jealousy and contempt, wordlessly establishing tension between the two queens.
The other major thread this episode was Davos, who is alive, even if his son wasn’t so lucky. I was delighted to see Sallador Saan again, although he wasn’t nearly so jolly and amusing this time, what with being a bit pissed that Stannis’s play for King’s Landing didn’t go as planned. I thought that the sequence with Davos’s rescue was fun, with a nice sense of visual flair as he attempted to flag down boats which may or may not have been full of people that wanted to kill him. Once he finally convinces Sallador to take him to Dragonstone, where he hears that Stannis and Melisandre are burning people alive, he tries to kill the Red Priest with his own hands, which doesn’t go too well for him. Poor Davos. That guy can’t catch a break.
And that brings us to Dany. The first scene doesn’t serve to do much other than remind us that her Dragons are growing, and that Dothraki don’t like boats, but once she reaches the slaver city of Astapor, it becomes clear that her storyline is going to be much more exciting this season than last. A slimey slaver and his slave interpreter show Dany their army of Unsullied, who are so hardcore that they killed babies as part of their training, and don’t even flinch when their nipples get cut off. The interplay between the slaver and his interpreter is funny and well-played, and you can see the wheels turning in Dany’s head when she hears that there are eight thousand Unsullied available for purchase.
The episode ends with the return of Ser Barristan Selmy, (who you may or may not remember from season one; he yelled at Joffrey and stormed out of King’s Landing) who shows up just in time to save Dany from a creepy kid and it’s pet scorpion-thing. The design on the killer scorpion was neat, and the show did a pretty good job of re-establishing who Barristan is for those that may have forgotten.
Whew! That’s a lot of stuff going on, and as I mentioned before, there’s still plenty more that we haven’t yet begun to see. All I can say is damn, it feels good to be back in Westeros.
FOUR STARS
READERS CORNER: (Only read this if you have read the books! Spoilers within!)
-In that scene at Harrenhaal, with Robb and Roose, we met a character who is going to factor majorly into future plots: Qyburn. A lot of the circumstances surrounding Qyburn have been changed from the source material, so I’m curious to see how they work him into the proceedings.
-Did anyone else think that the ‘Sam the Slayer’ scene was getting moved up to that opening sequence? I certainly did.
-No Strong Belwas! That makes me sad.
