Recently I spent time playing the Beta of the latest game in the Battlefield series, Battlefield Hardline. I first played the game in Beta form during E3 as EA was kind enough to offer early access to the game which depicts a conflict between the police and criminal elements.
The Beta is multiplay only and is comprised of three modes, Heist where players either attempt to rob or thwart a robbery, Hotwire where players attempt to capture or destroy marked cars as they drive through the maps with reckless abandon, and Conquest Large which tasks players with capturing and controlling various locales on a map.
The game does offer players a choice of which class they will play and also allow them to customize weapons and gear with money earned in games based on their various achievements.
The game also offers several vehicles from cars, helicopters, motorcycles, and trucks for players to drive or ride in and those who ride are able to shoot from the vehicles at enemy targets.
The helicopters can be the most difficult to control but can also be the most fun to control especially when you have gunners to assist you.
While it is announced the game will have a campaign mode, I can only address the multiplay aspects I have played of the Beta so please remember that that is what my comments are based upon.
The game plays out like a mix of Grand Theft Auto and a Battlefield 3 and 4 Multiplay mod. In many aspects it was like playing an Add on to the game and did not play like a brand new entry into the series.
Visceral who are best known for the Dead Space series are working on the game instead of Dice, but have appeared to go with the tried and true path instead of rocking the boat or trying things that are radically different.
The graphics in the game are good but at times look dated especially in the facial depiction of players who have fallen or characters you see on the road. They look ok, but are certainly not anywhere close to the detail level shown in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Hit Detection was a huge issue in the game as was weapons balance. On several times I detonated grenades at the foot of a player only to see them just stand there and take it. One player took two grenades point blank as well as a full clip from my gun and was still able to one shot kill me while I was reloading.
Another player was against the wall when I fired a grenade launcher which detonated near his head, point blank, and he was unscathed.
My favorite was the car that I used a launcher on. It took two grenades and had the third one sail clear though it before it kept going with no clear damage.
There are countless examples of this sort of issue happening in the game to me and other players.
The gameplay is also very repetitive and became tedious and boring to me very quickly. I cared little about completing the objectives and more about trying to survive and take out other players but this became a huge frustration quickly. Perhaps when the additional maps are included this may change but for now, it was not enough.
The vehicles handle well enough and they are fun to drive but the gameplay mechanics and physics need some help. For example, a car at full speed hits an enemy player who went through and then over the car to walk away unscathed, yet a slow moving car glazing a player kills him. While in most cases contact with a car is deadly it has some frustrating moments when attempting to take out an enemy in this fashion.
By comparison Call of Duty offers far more weapons and customization options and although they are working in a fictional world I would mention that it is illegal for police vehicles to be armed so the idea of helicopters and trucks mounted with machine guns and such is not very credible.
I was hoping to see some S.W.A.T. vans come into play but hopefully that will happen in the final build.
I can hear supporters’ already saying that we should relax as it is only a Beta version of the game. My response to that would be how many issues did Battlefield 3, 4, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter have, all of which are built on the same gaming engine. I would also point out that Battlefield 4 was rife with bugs and issues a year after release and became such a p.r. nightmare for E.A. that people had to be pulled from other projects to compile a mega patch for the game.
As it stands now, I would say if you are a hardcore Battlefield fan than you are likely going to get the game but we have spoken we several players in the Beta who said they have cancelled their pre-orders after playing the Beta as they do not see enough to justify the purchase at this time, and they are very concerned about the issues in the Beta.
I was posting my concerns about it playing more like a Beta in the feedback forums only to have a moderator tell me not to post that sort of thing here and to Tweet it instead. When the majority of the thread users came to my defense noting that they are asking for feedback and then getting angry when they do not like the responses they are getting they instead locked the thread to prevent further comments.
As it stands now I would advise fans to play the Beta and decide for you but based on the track record of the series and the history of bugs at launch, my advice would be to wait until stability is confirmed and perhaps the price is lowered before diving in.
Good write-up for sure, but for me the mp is a pure afterthought. I think there’s a clear line of distinction to make regarding this game, its easy for hardcore mp or Battlefield fans to write off the title based on the performance of the last game & the feel that its just a .5 type iteration, but there’s also a crowd of singleplayer gamers like myself only interested in Visceral’s & Papoutsis’ next title regardless of what series it happens to be in. The Dead Space trilogy was a masterclass in creating a compelling world & introducing fluid mechanics & gameplay techniques, so they’ve earned a fan for life in me as long as they can continue w/ that level of quality. Easily one of only a handful blue ribbon devs of last gen in my eyes. I’m hoping it’ll break the genre conventions of typical mp fps campaigns & offer a worthwhile gameplay experience & meaty campaign that could stand on its own w/o ever taking mp into account. The early talk about it being inspired by shows like Justified and the episodic nature of the campaign is very promising for me personally and I understand that you & most others haven’t gotten hands on w/ the campaign yet, but going solely by the track record of the developer (the only other tangible thing we really have), this game & its campaign could potentially stand on its own. I’m just hoping that EA didn’t force them to gimp on it in order to cater to the mp crowd. It’d be a shame to see such a masterful campaign dev be forced into the role of a mediocre multiplayer one.
Thank you. I think the big issue is that many gamers believe EA burned them in the past and simply does not care about releasing stable games. The games built on the Frostbyte 2 engine have had stability issues and between that and the perception that there is dated gameplay that is bug ridden on the way, they are naturally concerned. I honestly did not see anything that would make me want to buy the game, especially at the full retail price. Now in a few months when they patch it up we will see.
Has the Frostbyte engine resulted in issues in single player components or mainly multiplayer ones? Like I said I’m not an mp gamer at all so any bugs on that side wouldn’t really matter to me personally, but if it results in problems w/ the campaign then that would be upsetting. I totally understand the trepidation from you & other fans of the series & its mp component, but I’ve personally never played a Battlefield game, this would be my first & that’s solely because of Visceral’s competence at campaign creation, so it’s not a stretch to assume there are at least a few others out there like me that EA could attempt to cater to as well. I hope this isn’t a situation where EA muddies Visceral’s track record by forcing their square peg into a circular hole, but I’ve kinda always assumed (or hoped) this was to be a one off for Visceral & that EA would let them move onto creating a new IP or continuing Dead Space after its release. Maybe it’d actually be in Visceral’s best interests if the ‘Battlefield’ portion of the game fails while the campaign receives acclaim, so they can stick to their obvious strong points. Of course that’s all assuming that Visceral didn’t really desire to create an mp-centric title, but it’s obvious from the prerelease interviews that they still hold a solid campaign & storytelling very highly. Storytelling seems to be falling by the wayside a bit so far in the current gen on consoles, I just personally would like to see these aspects succeed so its not obliterated altogether in favor of cranking out games w/ more continuous monetary value but little to no creative or artistic value.
I think the big issue is that there has been stability issues on both sides of the gaming experience and as such people are cautious.