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Battlefield Hardline


Battlefield 1942 was a game that was truly ahead of its time. The PC shooter mostly ignored a campaign in favor of large multiplayer maps filled with vehicles, class based combat, and the capacity to put 64 people on each team in these maps. At a time when the WWII shooter was king and the campaigns in these games played out the best scenes from movies of the era. So anyway...heres Battlefield Hardline.

WWII and modern conflicts got boring for a time before WWI looked attractive so in 2015 Battlefield decided Cops and Robbers was the way to go. I sound critical of this but I'm all for people trying new things. And this showed promise. Battlefield Bad Company had been a very story driven experience so why not tell a story other than war with the same mechanics. I was even a bit excited when the opening of the game resembled a crime show. Then the problems started.

In the first mission your asked to chase someone in a car and wow. Just wow. The controls for driving are really bad. The route you need to take is bad. The segment and all the other ones in the game stopped me up and drove any pacing the game had into a wall.

It makes sense cinematically to have your character to be able to move his head independently of the car he's driving and a bit of the plot is explained while driving. Unfortunately when it come to controlling the vehicle this is a major hindrance and I came to dread the vehicle sections.

Speaking of plot it's  really really really bad. I mean where do I begin. The main character stumbles from one betrayal to another without learning a thing, the villain's big plan is a  private police company, the story twists and turns in the most jarring way possible, and the clunky dialogue is particularly awful. It's just plain bad.

There are a few good things. There a stealth segment where you have to avoid prison guards searching for you in a desert town without killing them and it's actually challenging and fun. Another beat mechanic is the ability to arrest enemies rather than just shoot them. It's fun and neat but it makes no sense why you can do it during the segments when your an escaped prisoner.

The good:
-it's cheap
-the stealth segment is well done and fun.

The bad:
-the plot is awful.
-the driving segments are just plain bad.

The game is a Frankenstein of Payday and other Battlefield games.  Not surprisingly it does neither well and is further weighted down by bad writing. A bad game alone but downright disappointing when you remember what series this game came from.  Cannot recommend.

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