Battlefield: Hardline beta impressions
With the second Hardline beta ending on Monday, I thought I would share my impressions of the game so far. As a long-time fan of the franchise, however, somewhat of a critic of the two most recent games, it seemed that the most unique addition to the Battlefield series conceptually (with the theme of cops and criminals taking over from the theme of all-out war) would be yet another step away from the franchise’s roots that made me the series supporter that I am today - but far from it.
New developer Visceral Games, most notably known for its work on the Dead Space series, appear to be moving the series back towards the style and finesse of the community favourite Bad Company games and away from the generic nature of modern war witnessed in 3 and 4. So what makes Hardline so refreshing? Firstly, the large shift in theme does more than simply alter the game’s campaign. With Hardline, Visceral has placed a great importance on speed in every respect. The player won’t find the likes of tanks, jets, and other military vehicles and instead find themselves having to hop into a police cruiser, flick on the blues and twos and speed off from objective to objective in an environment where speed is crucial to success. Never is this clearer than in the game’s new flagship game mode: hot wire, which sees players having to enter various highlighted vehicles dotted around the map and drive them consistently fast enough to capture and keep them in a spin-off version of conquest. Not only is this immensely fun and unique, Hardline’s online game play creates more epic movie-style scenarios than I have ever experienced in a game before, even more so than most scripted campaigns. The game immerses the player superbly; in one game you play as a criminal trying to steal and secure loot you just grabbed from blowing open a vault, and in the next, you’re a cop pursuing bandits in a high-speed car chase while squad mates riding shotgun do their best to unload all they have at the enemies in front. It’s great.
Furthermore, not only have Visceral changed the game’s pace of play, its added a flair unseen in today’s FPSs. The maps feel vibrant and rich with a big emphasis on building interiors and detail. Weapons feel far less controlled and easy to use causing the play to consider how to approach each firefight, using burst fire if necessary. Even the in-game sound: funny character dialogue, in-game music, the satisfying sound of a muscle car passing at high-speed – everything has been considered to offer something more than the generic shooter gamers are far too used to.
As for evolving the franchise, Hardline certainly adds big changes but, personally, some feel unnecessary. Vehicles such as the transport helicopters in previous games were nothing more than something to get players into the fight before immediately bailing out of. In contrast now, a competent pilot along with some trigger-happy gunners can reap havoc on those below thanks to improvements to its guns and the addition that means all vehicles can take damage from small-arms fire. Battlefield’s classic four class system remains but now players are even more confined to the class they choose. Visceral has made all primary weapons exclusive to a class i.e. all shotguns can only be equipped by an Enforcer, all assault rifles can only be equipped by an Operator. This is good as it means players have to play to their class’s intended style more closely. As well as reducing the freedom of weapon choice per class, the number of weapons all-together has been dropped significantly from over 80 in Battlefield 4 at launch to only 51 at launch for Hardline. For me, the variety of weapons in 4 was always a positive, so this move to limit the diversity of guns to choose from seems odd. As well as this, some pieces of player equipment in practise, and in description, are over-powered to the point it’s hard to see the logic behind why they were added. Much of the community were displeased by the Survivalist (a self-revive device) for obvious reasons, however, another piece of equipment, the Saboteur Kit, is even worse. The device is placed on a vehicle and as soon as an enemy drives off in it, it detonates and instantly kills anyone inside. How could they imagine this being a positive edition in a game that promotes using vehicles and which can even be used on hot wire capture vehicles?
Although the beta highlights a number of flaws in the game, it is only a beta. Hardline looks to be one of the most promising Battlefield titles yet and despite the allegations of it just being a mod, Hardline ironically looks to be moving the series forward more than any recent title has yet. Bring on March 19th.
