A wall coming down, a bullet snapping past, and the feeling that the war goes on without you.

The profile splits the game in half. Controller in hand, Battlefield 3 sits ahead of 83% of titles, and its art style ahead of 86%, though that last line rests on only two duels and needs confirming. Fun and sound hold above the average. And yet attachment and the desert island question crash to the bottom, barely ahead of 10% of games. That is the real tension here: it impresses the moment you talk about feel, and holds on to nobody the moment you talk about bond.

That is almost the definition of the multiplayer shooter of that era. The destruction, the noise, the scale, all of it is admired in the moment. But a game like this is lived on full servers with friends in voice chat, not alone on an island. Take that away and only the memory of the racket remains.

So, who is it for? For you if you love the weight of a weapon, a battlefield that deforms around you, organised chaos with 32 players. Much less so if you want a game that keeps you company, alone, for a long time.