Developer: Visceral Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PC
Tested on: PS3
Battlefield Hardline – Review
Another year, another Battlefield you might think. Well, this time around, you might actually be surprised by the game Electronic Arts put on the market. Hardline is the hard needed innovation the fans asked for all those years and I must say, I’ll keep returning to this game for quite some time.
Story
Battlefield Hardline has a nice, lengthy singleplayer campaign with a pretty decent story. You play as agent Nick Mendoza and when a drug bust goes wrong, the captain of the police force links you up with a new partner, Khai Minh Dao. Khai is a pretty straightforward woman who stands her ground and doesn’t hesitate to act if necessary. The two agents soon discover a trail which exposes one of the members in the police force as a dirty cop. Unfortunately, not everything works out as it should and eventually, Nick is framed for a crime he didn’t commit. After that, we find ourselves three years later and the game still throws around plot twists and unexpected events. For spoiler reasons, I don’t want to get into detail but honestly, the plot was one of the better ones Battlefield has provided over the years in the campaigns. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a part of the game you’ll want to skip to dive straight onto the online section.
Graphics
The graphics are certainly not bad at all but there’s a huge discrepancy between the cutscenes and the actual gameplay parts. In the cutscenes, you’ll see some above average quality which is really enjoyable to experience, but when the game shifts back to ingame gameplay, the quality drops drastically. Although Hardline still looks quite presentable, the differences between either cutscenes or gameplay is just too visible which might get irritating. Besides that, there’re some graphical glitches too where the screen shows some strange behavior.
Although the general graphics might not impress, the special effects do what they can to create a Hollywood movie vibe. They cannot completely erase the fact that the graphics are quite ‘meh’ but without them, Hardline would look even worse in the gameplay segments (again, the cutscenes look a lot better).
Sound
The voice acting in the campaign is decent enough and sound effects too, hit the spot. Gunfire is dynamic and bombastic and hearing the Weewoo Weewoo of a police car never gets old. The more subtle environmental sounds like music coming from a radio or people chatting put the icing on the cake. The main character in the story mode, Mendoza, sounds like a real bad-ass police agent once he starts shouting to put those hands up. Of course, with a cast that big (there’re quite a few NPC’s in the campaign) not everyone sounds as convincing, but the overall quality proves to be quite alright.
Gameplay
For Battlefield veterans, Hardline will feel very familiar controls wise and how it plays overall. Running, shooting, grenade throwing, knifing and all basic features are present and work all as it should. The novelties are found in the new modes and gadgets Battlefield Hardline has to offer its loyal fanbase. First of all, there’s a singleplayer campaign as you already noticed in the story department of this review. In the campaign, you’ll have the chance to flash your badge at the crooks you encounter. This is a very cool feature which never seems to get old, although it takes away some of the challenge if you manage to keep up to three enemies in your scope. If you encounter only one enemy, the badge is mostly worth an instant arrest but when there’s more people around, you’ll have to switch your weapon from one person to another, to keep them from doing anything foolish. Once they start shooting, it’s best to run away as you don’t want to find yourself in the crosshair of three opponents right in front of your face. Still, the badge-flashing makes you feel like a bad-ass cop and can definitely be counted as a successful innovation. Other novelties are the grappling hook and zipline which are a both pretty cool to use but sometimes feel a bit like overkill. The best thing about those two additions is that you can use them in the singleplayer campaign and the multiplayer. It’s really cool to see people grappling and ziplining around whilst it’s even more fun to shoot them out of the sky.
As we’ve reached the multiplayer part of this review, why not talk some more about the new modes that come with Hardline. You’ve probably already heard that this game is all about classic Cops ‘nd Robbers chasing and the game modes have been adapted to fit that need. First of all, we’ve got Heist. Here, the robbers try to infiltrate a vault and run away with the bags of money while cops obviously have to prevent them from doing so. This game mode is very fun as the robbers constantly feel hunted down and there’s a nice amount of stress going with the job which makes you almost feel like you’re robbing a bank in real life. The thrill is real! Meanwhile, being a cop is as much fun as being part of the other team. Dropping a guy running around with that bag of fortune feels just as good as carrying it yourself. Next up, we’ve got Blood Money where both cops and robbers must take hold of a humongous amount of loot. It plays a lot like the well-known Capture-the-Flag mode where you grab a mutual precious object and bring it back to your camp. The twist here consists of the possibility of robbing the vaults of the opponent’s team, so while they’re out to snatch the pile of loot, you can just take everything they’ve got stored in the vault and bring it back to your base camp. Shooter fans will know what to expect from Conquest (try to capture and control certain spots on the map) and Team Deathmatch (kill everyone that isn’t wearing the same colours as you). Crosshair and Rescue divide the players in two small teams and in the first mode, the cops need to protect and escort one player (the VIP) while the thugs try to kill him. In the latter, the robbers have taken a few NPC’s hostage and obviously, the cops need to save them. These modes are a bit more difficult than the previously mentioned ones and my advice is to play the other ones a bit more before you dive in Crosshair and Rescue. Once you get the hang of it, they’re really a blast to play through.
Lastly we’ve got Hotwire. Here, there’s a lot of vehicle action so if you’re into that, you might want to spend some time here. The goal (for the robbers) is to steal particular vehicles while the cops need to chase and capture them again. It’s pretty cool to drive around and fight off ground troops.
This is already a lot of stuff to keep you busy with but what if I told you this wasn’t everything the game has to offer? If you’ve played Battlefield 4 in the past, you might remember that the maps knew some kind of crazy twist. Like the dam shattering in BF4, Hardline surprises with for example, a kind of sandstorm which makes it a lot harder to spot enemy troops. It brings a nice variation in the gameplay but once you get used to it, the magic kind of disappears.
Occasionally, there were some small bugs and glitches but none of them really interfered with playing the game. A big thumbs-up to the developers for getting a pretty stable version out there (in comparison to Battlefield 4, which was a bit of a mess at first). Although you might encounter an occasional disconnection or lag issue, most of the time, the game plays pretty smooth and satisfying.
Conclusion
Battlefield Hardline proves to be a fresh reinvention of the Battlefield franchise and truly surprises in more than one way. A lot of new gadgets like the grappling hook and the zipline were thrown in the mix and what’s even better is the fact that you can use them in the multiplayer as well. The graphics are unsatisfying in the gameplay sections of the game while they look pretty alright in the cutscenes. Still, if you wanted something new in the shooter genre, Hardline is innovative enough to keep you going for a while.
Battlefield Hardline - Review,
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