Battlefield is a game that has been around for a decent amount of time now and has been giving the Call of Duty franchise a run for its money. With Call of Duty coming out with Advanced Warfare, did Hardline do enough to win the hearts of FPS enthusiasts? Let’s find out.
Hardline stars a young and honest detective, Nick Mendoza, a Cuban immigrant who grew up in a lower income area in Miami.
New developer Visceral abandoned the old generic military vide and went with a cops vs robbers sort of theme, that honestly does give a different feel to it and helps segregate it from the Call of Duty titles. Has Hardline made the right choice with this new approach or should it have stuck with the established franchise?
New Approach
Going with the cops vs robbers approach could have proved both a risk as well as an opportunity for the company. With this change EA runs the risk of not satisfying their existent Battlefield’s fan base or they have a chance to gather a completely new following altogether.
Unlike its previous editions, Hardline has a much more memorable and innovative single-player game as this time you get to play as a young and honest detective, Nick Mendoza, a Cuban immigrant who grew up in a lower income area in Miami. His task is to take on Miami’s drug barons and in the process finds out that one of his colleagues is a part of it.
Visually the game is good, nothing extravagant. One aspect to the single player element that I found to be very interesting was the mechanism that allows you to flash your badge and take down enemies without having to fire a single shot. This works well especially when you find yourself low on ammo or just completely outnumbered.
Mendoza is equipped with a scanner which well, allows you to scan your surroundings. You will also find yourself disabling a lot of alarms which just reminded me a lot of Far Cry.
Structure
The new episodic structure of Hardline’s campaign sways away from the portrayal of the previous games. Chapters are framed with recaps and coming-soon montages. This contemporary style requires you to simply reach the end of any episode, where you are shown a picture that is inspired by the next-episode.
The game is moderately difficult as you do get spotted from time to time. Enemies move around with just enough unpredictability that you are kept on your toes and not so much that they irritate the crap out of you. The levels are wide enough for you to try different routes in case you find yourself constantly dying in that same spot. Enemies react to your last known position, which lead to some thrilling encounters if you manage to outsmart the AI.
One of the features that Hardline boasts of is the fact that you can sneak up to a perp and yell “freeze” and they lay down their weapon and surrender. It’s a bit too unrealistic if you ask me, but doing so rather than just blasting their brains out yields the most points toward the campaign’s character progression system.
One issue with the points system is that it reduces the value of replaying the campaign. By arresting let’s say two out of three perps, you can quite easily reach the level 15 cap way before the final chapter, hence eradicating the incentive to play through the story again.
Even though Electornic Arts portrayed Hardline as “The Fastest Battlefield Ever”, the thrill of a high speed car chase or a daring escape wasn’t quite delivered during the campaign’s driving sequences. EA could have done much more than just some ramp jumping and rocket dodging.
Multiplayer
Battlefield Hardline’s multiplayer managed to launch without much of an issue, I mean there were glitches in the gameplay, which quite honestly is something that we’ve seen in all Battlefields, but is still quite fun to play. Following the success of Battlefield 4 despite its bugs and glitches, one might have expected a lot more from Battlefield Hardline.
Verdict
Hardline definitely will spark debate among fans on whether the game goes too far in trying to appeal to the non-hardcore at the expense of the purists.
With its new refined engine, brilliant maps, including multiplayer modes like Team Deathmatch, Conquest, Crosshair and Rescue, Battlefield faithfuls should not have much to complain about unless they aren’t too upset about the military diversion.
Our Verdict
No, it’s not a typical Battlefield game. Yes, it is a good game. After a surprisingly stable release, I find myself already sinking hours into this unique “spinoff” for the Battlefield series. It’s action-packed, exciting, beautiful, and runs very well. It may not be the right game for so-called hardcore Battlefield fans (which I consider myself to be), but it is undeniably a fun and very playable game.
Single player puts an interesting twist on the typical shooter experience with a cop TV show feel. It’s not outstanding in any regard but it’s a fun few hours of bonus material added to a great multiplayer experience
