Battlefield Hardline (Review)
Battlefield Hardline Review
Battlefield
Hardline is an EA game developed by Viceral Games. It was released in
March 2015. This game is not a military game like the previous
Battlefield games. It’s a police war-on-crime based game. If you like a
fast paced action game with a simple story line this is the game for
you.
The game is set in Miami. The main character is a new detective by the name of Nick Mendoza. Alongside him is a female detective Khai Minh Dao. The two detectives are surrounded by a drug war and their mission is to bring down the people responsible for bringing the drugs to the streets. Corruption also plays a part as they go off the books to get the job done.
It felt like the game was quite short. This was probable due to the fact it was so fast paced and full of action which made time go by faster.
You can complete most of the missions by using stealth or you can go in guns blazing. The best option is a mixture of both. Even though it is quite easy to sneak about (as the AI is pretty easy) it can take a long time to complete a mission that way. For me it was more fun to try and sneak around and silently take as many down as I can then open fire on the rest.
There is an aspect to the game that involves searching for clues using the scanner. It is also useful for tagging enemies and listening to their conversations from a distance. Experience points are gained by flashing your badge and arresting the bad guys and by takedowns and finding clues. This helps you unlock new weapons during the game.
The detail of the characters' faces was quite realistic with the facial expressions. The voice acting was quite good although the storyline quite simplistic and full of clichés. The visuals were quite good for a modern game and the music track was fun to listen to while playing.
I found that regular difficulty was quite easy and the AI was not that smart.
The whole game was made in the style of an action TV show. That’s why there is a cut scene that says "Previously on Battlefield Hardline" and gives you the gist of the previous mission. When you exit it shows you the cut scene for the next mission. In-between the missions there is a YouTube style browser that automatically starts the next mission with a count down or you just push the play button.
It’s as though they didn’t spend as much time making this game. I think they wanted to push something out that was high action and fast paced, but meant it wasn't as polished as their other Battlefield games.
The game still uses the frostbite game engine which I enjoy because when you hide behind a wall or inside a building it eventually gets eroded away from all the bullets flying at you.
The game is set in Miami. The main character is a new detective by the name of Nick Mendoza. Alongside him is a female detective Khai Minh Dao. The two detectives are surrounded by a drug war and their mission is to bring down the people responsible for bringing the drugs to the streets. Corruption also plays a part as they go off the books to get the job done.
It felt like the game was quite short. This was probable due to the fact it was so fast paced and full of action which made time go by faster.
You can complete most of the missions by using stealth or you can go in guns blazing. The best option is a mixture of both. Even though it is quite easy to sneak about (as the AI is pretty easy) it can take a long time to complete a mission that way. For me it was more fun to try and sneak around and silently take as many down as I can then open fire on the rest.
There is an aspect to the game that involves searching for clues using the scanner. It is also useful for tagging enemies and listening to their conversations from a distance. Experience points are gained by flashing your badge and arresting the bad guys and by takedowns and finding clues. This helps you unlock new weapons during the game.
The detail of the characters' faces was quite realistic with the facial expressions. The voice acting was quite good although the storyline quite simplistic and full of clichés. The visuals were quite good for a modern game and the music track was fun to listen to while playing.
I found that regular difficulty was quite easy and the AI was not that smart.
The whole game was made in the style of an action TV show. That’s why there is a cut scene that says "Previously on Battlefield Hardline" and gives you the gist of the previous mission. When you exit it shows you the cut scene for the next mission. In-between the missions there is a YouTube style browser that automatically starts the next mission with a count down or you just push the play button.
It’s as though they didn’t spend as much time making this game. I think they wanted to push something out that was high action and fast paced, but meant it wasn't as polished as their other Battlefield games.
The game still uses the frostbite game engine which I enjoy because when you hide behind a wall or inside a building it eventually gets eroded away from all the bullets flying at you.
In Battlefield Hardline’s single-player campaign,
I had as many chances to arrest the bad guys as shoot them – and I
actually wanted to take them alive. That was only the first of many
surprises.
nlike most video game bad guys, these enemies actually
respect the badge of a police officer, and that gives you options. If
you can get the jump on a group of three or fewer, you can order them to
freeze by pulling out your badge and shouting. From there, you can
arrest them... or gun them down. If you can stay out of sight, cuffing
them is usually the superior option because it earns you more points,
which unlocks more weapons and gadgets.
If you’re really good, these levels are designed intelligently enough to allow you to sneak around arresting bad guys
one by one until, finally, when you look around, all you see are
handcuffed, knocked-out criminals. It’s not the kind of satisfaction I
expected from a Battlefield game, but it requires patience and skill,
and I was constantly delighted to see my enemies’ numbers dwindle while
my magazines stayed full.
Again, you can also run
around shooting everyone, and that works too. Part of Battlefield’s
legacy includes realistic weapons that feel and sound great, and that’s
no different here. When I forgot to disable an alarm and 10 enemies
surrounded me, my rifle was a lot more effective than handcuffs.
Second, Hardline’s seven-hour campaign is –
and I never thought I’d say this – just as fun to play in stealth as it
is running in guns blazing. Before entering combat, you can scan an area
and tag enemies, explosives, or alarm systems so they’ll appear on your
radar. It’s rewarding to formulate a grand plan from afar before
jumping into the action.
With proper preparation,
enemies’ cones of vision appear directly on your minimap, Metal Gear
Solid-style. If you can avoid detection, it’s entirely possible to make
it through most areas without firing a single lethal round.
My
biggest gameplay gripe is that the unlock system doesn’t appropriately
award your playstyle. The best way to boost your level, which dictates
the weapons and gadgets at your disposal, is to play stealthily.
Strangely, mastering stealth mostly unlocks tons of big, noisy guns that
made me want to shoot the place up. Likewise, if you want to shoot
stuff all the time, you’re not going to get your hands on new guns as
quickly as the stealth player who doesn’t need them. And there are very
few unlocks that make stealth more interesting.
The third surprise was that I cared about
the characters. My disapproving partner, my stern boss, and the motley
crew of ex-cops, coked-up criminals, and more than a few traitors – all
of them felt like people, thanks to good writing supported by strong
voice and animation work. Make no mistake, Hardline’s drug-peddling plot
is one you’ve almost certainly seen before, but it does such a fine job
of making its characters funny, sympathetic, and believable that I
wanted to keep playing to see what would happen to them.
Hardline
has a few issues with some of its enemies though – specifically, a
group of one-dimensional Tea Party caricatures in possession of a
safe-cracking robot. They’re presented as over-the-top evil racists to
give you an unambiguous sense of morality when gunning them down. They
told my character “You look Mexican, so I’ll assume you’re a burglar.”
An hour later I was facing off against their leader, who hooted and
hollered as we engaged in tank-to-tank combat. It’s fun, but hard to
take as seriously as the subject matter suggests it should be.
By
comparison, the story’s main villain is devious and cunning. He’s not
the most interesting or memorable bad guy, but he’s the kind of
narcissist who keeps the secret switch to his penthouse vault inside a
carved bust of himself. I can appreciate that kind of vanity, and going
after him was less of a black-and-white decision thanks to a few shades
of gray.
The last surprise Hardline’s campaign had for
me was moments of comedy. Several laugh-out-loud moments make some
self-aware fun out of its own crazy situations and mechanics. In one
especially clever moment, after being flung into a room packed with
enemies, the prompt to order enemies to put their hands up briefly
flashes on the screen. In another moment, nearly $10 million worth of
cocaine is ruined in an unfortunate forklift accident. It’s not forced,
and those nods to Battlefield fans makes the campaign that much more
enjoyable.
Battlefield has a history of looking and
sounding excellent, and Hardline continues the tradition (though
resolution is a disappointing 720p on Xbox One and 900p on PlayStation
4). Through gunfights, car crashes, and explosions, it all runs at a
smooth 60 frames per second that stayed rock solid on PS4 and Xbox One.
Multiplayer
The
tone of Hardline’s multiplayer is downright bizarre. If a smack-talking
gamer kid grew up to be a cop or a criminal, this game would represent
them. Through in-game emotes, the characters trash talk each other,
recite internet memes, and blare loud, obnoxious music as they ride to
war. I didn’t expect to hear my allies give their own takes on Oprah’s
famous “You get a car” line, nor did I expect to hear “Woop! Woop!
That’s the sound of da police,” moments before a cruiser ran me over. At
least in the short term, the emergent comedy is unexpected gold – and
sometimes you won’t see it until it literally flattens you.
New gadgets, like the grappling hook and zip
line, add further options by letting you reach higher vantage points
and move around quickly in a way we haven’t seen in a Battlefield game
in 10 years. Plus, your team can use them too, so they can use their
gadget slots on something else. The issue is that these mobility items
don’t feel useful unless you grab both – a way to get up, and a way to
get down – which limits your capabilities for what you can do when
you’re up there. I often had to sacrifice body armor, breaching
chargers, or some other useful gadget.
The most
astonishing thing about Hardline’s multiplayer is how successful it is
in trying to please everyone. If you want more capital-B Battlefield,
like the iconic Conquest mode and its large-scale vehicular combat, 66
players, and tons of weapons and gadgets to unlock, you’ll find it here.
Even Commander mode is back, now dubbed as “Hacker mode,” and it lets
you hijack cameras, release tear gas, and disrupt enemies across the
map. It’s a great way to be proactive without firing a weapon, if that’s
not your thing. If you’re feeling franchise fatigue, its new modes and
gadgets alleviate that.
Hotwire is Hardline’s fresh
marquee mode, and it injects some much-needed mayhem into Battlefield’s
13-year-old multiplayer formula. Think of it as a special version of the
traditional capture-and-hold Conquest mode, but, instead of holding
structures, you have to keep control of moving vehicles; if you don’t
drive them fast enough, you don’t get points. (It’s the sort of like the
concept of the movie Speed, but gamified.) When the most contested
combat areas are mobile, the flow of the fight itself becomes dynamic,
and it’s difficult to skirt around the fight. A sniper might feel safe,
for example, crouched on a crane near the edge of the map. Second later
two vehicles might roar by, packed with thugs firing their assault
rifles. Those cars might then attract the attention of a heavily armed
helicopter, belching out bullets from both its sides.
Suddenly, your safety zone isn’t so cozy.
War
can descend on you at any moment. You’re rarely comfortable, and you’re
never safe. That makes Hotwire a great mode that forces you to move
around and adapt to new situations quickly. I had some trouble adjusting
because of my old habits of patrolling one area (it’s not camping!),
but I had a good time learning to adapt to the new reality. After a few
hours of getting my butt handed to me, I was back in business.
Some
of Hardline’s other modes take everything Battlefield is known for and
do the opposite: 5v5, round-based games that can be over in seconds. In
one mode, the police must rescue a bound hostage and escort him to
safety. In another, a VIP must be escorted from one side of the map to
the other. In both modes, you only have one life. The action is quick
and brutal, and the big, unfolding combat narrative found in typical
Battlefield games is absent. It’s not missed, though, because, that
“story” is replaced with awesome kills, tense standoffs, and plenty of
amazing comebacks.
The payload of nine maps isn’t a ton, but
because they’re so varied and change depending on the game mode, so I
never felt like I was stuck in the same place for too long. Settings
range from small, tight, urban areas to sprawling swamps, where an enemy
could be prone behind any patch of grass or below any crippled dock.
Across both current-gen versions of
Hardline, all of the multiplayer matches I played on launch day
connected in literally two to six seconds. This includes both quick
match games and games I connected to through the server browser. The
connection stayed consistent too, and I was able to see them through
until I won or lost.
The game is rated MA15+. It has violence, coarse language and drug references.
I give the game 7/10
I give the game 7/10
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