Battlefield: Hardline Review Impressions

Single-Player Campaign

Having arrested a good number of people, but also having shot many more, we finally have our main suspect in our sights. We've shouted "Freeze" but he's not particularly cooperative. He's wanted for drug trafficking, and it's our greatest wish to send him to jail. We get a little distracted, he mumbles something about this not being a part of the agreement and pushes down the throttle on his speedboat. Agreement? What's he talking about? There's something not right about this.

Life as a police detective in Miami can be tough. You're surrounded by drug trafficking, violent gangs and corrupt colleagues, and it's not easy to know who to fear more - your co-workers or the criminals. What Hardline tries to tell us, often more than once, is that the differences between these two sides can be tricky to make out.

We play as Detective Nick Mendoza, a Cuban refugee with a shitty father and a desire to stop criminal activity. The investigation takes Nick way out into the deep end, and before he knows it he is stuck treading water between a corrupt system and his own principles. The result is a trip to jail, but he breaks out to assist in the fight against those who locked him up in the first place. From here he operates on the opposite side of the law, which seems to work well for everyone concerned.

The single-player is built up as you might expect to see in a television series, and it's clear that the crew at Visceral Games likes their cop drama. References to famous movies and TV shows are dropped non-stop, and fortunately the developer is so laid back with Hardline that it works. It's intended to be an easily consumed action experience, and that is precisely what you get. Visceral has brought in Bill Johnson who has worked on series like The Americans and The West Wing, and the actors come fresh from working on True Detective, Justified and House of Cards, to name but a few. Despite a great deal of poor lip sync work, there is little to complain about regarding the voice actors' achievements. On top of that, the script also works inline with the aspirations of the game.

We're calling it Hardline here because the Battlefield name may be a bit misleading. If you loved the military jargon in the previous two games, then it's worth bearing in mind that this isn't the same kettle of fish. Maybe a little more Miami Vice with a dash of The Wire (except we can't vouch for the same quality in Hardline as is present in the latter of those two television series).

It's with this in mind that we experience the heavily-scripted Battlefield: Hardline, but unlike before, the narrative is strong. We're not let loose in sandbox missions, but there are at least several paths to each goal - though there's some bottlenecks to funnel you at certain moments. Nick Mendoza can sneak around and take out the criminals in silence, or he can shoot his way through. We preferred to work unnoticed, so much of our time playing went into scanning areas for enemies and alarms. Upon detection by one or more enemies we can always show our police badge and arrest the whole gang. In these cases you must act quickly; they're going to try something if given half a chance. Creative director at Visceral, Ian Milham, said that it should be possible to play through the entire story without killing anyone, but when we think back we have some difficulty seeing how that can be correct. However, we've only played it through once, but we seem to remember situations where a peaceful solution was out of the question. If correct it does mean more options throughout the game, and this we like.

You get two helpful tools that make it easier to find alternative routes, and these are a zip-line and a grappling hook. Very convenient if you want to enter from the ceiling, or if you want to escape quickly from the roof down to ground level. It's also smart to bring a gas mask on most missions, there's plenty of teargas flying around - just a tip.

The AI offers a mixed experience. The enemy is not merciful when we're discovered, and they move towards us rather than hiding behind cover. They are, unfortunately, not as clever as the developer claims, so by finding a suitable place to position yourself, one can take out the enemy by simply waiting for them to poke their heads around the doorway. They can be distracted by throwing empty cartridge cases, but we had little success with this. The result in our case was mostly a more aggressive mob who seemed more focused and less distracted.

You rise up through the ranks by arresting certain people while you are out on the job, or by scouring areas for evidence that will help you in solving cases. This gives you access to better weapons and equipment, and it adds a little more depth to a single-player element that is historically pretty basic. Stopping to pick up a Mac 10 from a fallen enemy will store it in your inventory for the rest of the game. Convenient, simple, and the way it should be.

The weapons, sounds and graphics are as we have come to expect from the series, but the latter varies widely in quality. The neat textures, weather effects, the reflections seen on wet asphalt, and particle effects all look good on PlayStation 4, although vegetation does not impress. Grass and shrubs look jagged and one dimensional. The weapons look good as always in Battlefield, and they all sound great.

It's worth mentioning again that Battlefield: Hardline is not the Battlefield we already know. The story is an enjoyable single-player experience for anyone who likes action games and cop shows, and Visceral is playing with both the TV series format and foundations laid down by Dice. The result is an action game that doesn't take itself very seriously, but that's quite enjoyable.

Head to the next page to find out what we thought of the multiplayer side of the game.

Multiplayer

Although it's good that Battlefield: Hardline delivers a single-player that's well worth your time, many of you will be more curious about the multiplayer. The first beta last summer was a small disaster, and many felt that they were playing Battlefield 4 with cops and robbers, but without that making any difference. Then the game was postponed and a new beta was released. This time it felt as if things worked a little better. So now, the game is finished, and after more than 20 hours in multiplayer, we have many good experiences that we can look back on, as well as some that were not so good.

Multiplayer offers great variety with seven modes and nine different maps. It should therefore be possible to find a favourite, and we advise you to start in one of the five modes that are designed specifically for Hardline. These five are Hotwire, Heist, Blood Money, Crossfire, and Rescue, but before we go into detail on these we should explain a little about how Battlefield: Hardline differs from the previous games in the series.

The maps are smaller, you spend more time in the heart of the battle, and you run faster. The idea is that you should spend less time moving around the arena, and more time having fun. This naturally adds some downsides for those who would rather drive tanks or jets, since none of these are represented in the game. Instead, you get different vehicles that fit better into the cops and robber fantasy. This will require an adaptation from many series diehards, but it also makes sense that the vehicles of war aren't included this time around. Instead you'll find grappling hooks and zip-lines that'll ensure easier vertical traversal around the maps.

Among the new modes we've had the most fun with Blood Money. Here the two teams compete to secure the lion's share of a cash pile to be deposited in each of the team's bases. As the battle unfolds it becomes equally important to attack your opponent's base as well as the initial pile, but one must also protect their own stash. This offers an interesting dynamic and it ensures that the fight changes in character several times throughout each round.

Hotwire we have talked a lot about the past, and that is with good reason. As always it presupposes that you have cooperative teammates, because you need at least one that can hang out the window and shoot both pursuers and those who have lined up along the road with RPGs and grenade launchers. In a similar style to Conquest, you need to hold specific control points on the map, but the twist is that these are vehicles; vehicles that you have to keep above a certain speed as the opposing team's tickets run out. Here one can hand out damage if you've a skilled helicopter pilot and an accurate 12.7 shooter, but it's definitely more fun to be one of the three firing out of a sports car that's doing 60 mph.

The mode which really suits the setting is Heist, but here we've not quite found our flow as yet. The criminals break in, steal something valuable and send off the stolen goods in a helicopter. We feel that there's advantages being the police; often you can intercept the guy who runs with the valuables on his back since he rarely has someone there to protect him. This may of course change after launch when more groups of friends and clans can cooperate to a greater extent.

Crossfire and Rescue are very fast-paced modes where you only get one attempt. In the former you should either operate as a bodyguard for an informant, or you need to make sure he doesn't make it to safety. Playing as the informant - or VIP - you have nought but a handgun to defend yourself with, so it's essential to stay in the background while your teammates ploughs the way. In Rescue you play five versus five, and the goal is to release one of two hostages - or ensure that the police do not save them. Both of these modes are very tense since you only get one life, and it's scored best of nine rounds.

In addition to these new modes we also have the larger battles taking place in Conquest and Team Deathmatch with up to 64 players. We understand that these have been included to appease fans of the series, but they seem a bit counterproductive here. It's here that much of the atmosphere that Visceral has built up elsewhere in the game is lost, and that's not helped by a dipping framerate; we feel that fans of these large-scale modes will have more fun sticking to Battlefield 4.

Something that must be addressed is how vehicles behave. We understand why Visceral has chosen to make the controls tight, and why they've given the cars perfect grip, but it just doesn't feel natural. Moreover, it's not so very different either driving a sports car or a big rig, and it pulls you out of the whole experience. They may have made decisions based on the assumption that you have enough to think about in a game like this, but a more varied and realistic experience when it came to the vehicles would have certainly been preferable.

Battlefield: Hardline is an exciting addition to the series, but it must be seen more as a step to the side rather than a step forward. In addition to the enjoyable campaign Visceral has put together an entertaining, faster and more accessible selection of multiplayer modes, and they do something a little different than we've seen with the series so far. This is no revolution, but the new developers use the fundamental pillars of Dice's shooter series to create something that stands as a fresh alternative to the military-focused games in the Battlefield series.

As you can no doubt tell, we've played plenty of Battlefield: Hardline, but we're not going to put a final score on the game until we've played it on public servers, so stay tuned for that.