Over the years when people have heard the name Battlefield, their minds jump to huge/insanely big maps filled with explosions, realistic gunfire and massive amounts of vehicular warfare. Now, the series is going in a slightly different direction with it's latest title Battlefield Hardline and moves to the streets where brave men and woman also fight a war on drugs, corruption and lawlessness. Hardline bases much of it's style around police and criminals, it's a more urban aspect to warfare and changes up much of what players have seen from the franchise over the years. This isn't a bad thing though as new game modes, characters and story come into play and I was anxious to dig right in.
Whenever I start a new game, even if it has a heavily based multiplayer aspect, I immediately have to play the single player campaign first and right from the start of Hardline's single player campaign I was glad that I act this way. A catchy opening theme song pops on as you zoom in on our main character, rookie cop Nick Mendoza, he's being sent to prison now for a crime he didn't commit. After this admittedly funny and quirky opening you move to the events that set this whole thing in motion, flashing back to the events leading up to his arrest. After the first initial car chase and drug bust scene though, things start to slow way down in terms of this campaigns plucky appeal. The whole thing plays out like a bad cop series like the Cop Drama spoof on South Park or something like it. There is way too much over the top drama to sell what is happening in the story and if it had been more spoofy like Battlefield Bad Company then I would have been more on board with what I was sitting through.
The other aspect to the story that doesn't sit well with me is the need to slink through the same basic level set up and enemy formats over and over again. For a game about a cop you sure do an awful lot of James Bond style sneaking around, this isn't to say cops/detectives don't have to sneak around and get the job done but I felt like I was playing Splinter Cell without all the gadgets and actual stealth options. The only way to sneak around in the game is to crouch and prone yourself, you hide behind various objects and get the jump on criminals, then you flash your badge and later yell and point at bad guys to arrest them. The new element to the game allows you to halt up to three criminals who are close together and move in to arrest them all, you have to be sure to stay out of sight of other criminals who will shoot your brains out though or notice one of their guys knocked out on the ground. You gain points for each arrest you make, you also can find and arrest people with outstanding warrants in levels too, this gives you access to more guns and gadgets. Don't get too excited though, guns are mainly police level so no grenades or anything huge and gadgets are just tactical vests and grappling hooks. You can go all out in levels and start shooting everything in sight, after six levels of sneaking around I almost felt I needed to shoot something. The whole experience really is a bust, there are no stealth attributes to this game and you spend all of your time doing just that, sneaking. Initially, arresting bad guys and skulking around has it's appeal but not enough and it really isn't in Battlefield's wheel house to pull off.
As for the multiplayer aspect to the game, the new cops and criminals element is handle much better than it was in the single player. There are seven new multiplayer modes to choose from and they pit the good versus the bad with groups of cops and bad guys trying to complete various objectives. Among them all, Heist is perhaps one of my favorites and it is a mode where the criminals must crack into a safe and make their way to an extraction point with bags of cash before the cops take them out and return the money back to the start. It is a mad dash of people and explosions, I watched as a teammate booked out of a vault with cash pouring from his bag and then get knocked out a few minutes later, I kindly picked up the loot and took off. The other maddening mode is Hotwire, players race across the map in various vehicles to gain points for their team while the opposite team does the same and tries to take each other out. I had my teammates leaning out of the vehicle with rocket launchers trying to take out the opposing car and screaming for joy when they got them, I promptly drove over a mine a few minutes later.
Online modes bring back the calamity for Hardline where the single player was far too quite and peaceful, online brings back the immense explosions and chaos to what I thought would be a lack luster game. There still may not be any huge tanks rolling across the screen, how would a cop get a tank or vise versa but their are new heavily armored troop vehicles that can take quite a beating and move a big group across the map. The game focus a lot on players on foot and fighting one another though and there is nothing wrong with that and it still separates itself from other first person shooters as it has done before. Maps are still full of different avenues and massive in their structure and even if their isn't an avenue, you can make one! The weather changing system also makes a comeback, in certain maps that will batter you with hurricane weather conditions. Then there are other maps with massive crumbling buildings and even a giant crane that can come crashing down on top of your entire team, it's simply a fantastic amount of chaos.
In conclusion, I think Battlefield may want to turn in it's single player hat as the recent years have shown that it isn't their thing anymore. The whole affair is far too ridiculous and takes all the wonderful cops and robbers aspects of the multiplayer and turns into something far less appealing. As for the mulitplayer, I think Hardline did a wonderful job with it's new avenue here. Online is filled with new game modes, skills/weapons and plenty of that solid chaos that I have loved in the past.
Good:
- A fresh new look to the multiplayer
- Stealing a big sack of money in Heist or whipping around in Hotwire were some of my favorite moments
- The look and feel is still fresh and polished just like previous Battlefield games
Bad:
- A very poor single player campaign
- A stealth game without any actual stealth options is a little ridiculous
Scully Rating: 7.5 out of 10
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