Oh EA, you just can’t help yourself by making fun of Call of Duty with your renowned Battlefield series. Yet, you’ve excelled the gameplay beyond that of Call of Duty, only to mimic it, and never very well. The latest installment, Battlefield Hardline, breaks away from the military shooter formula, and creates a concept of war between law enforcement and brutish criminals in the Miami drug scene. Or, it could end up a bizarre story of dirty cops becoming James Bond style villains, lacking any intensity or action, and forces repetitive stealth gameplay and hardly has any redeeming features. I’m warning you now: this review won’t end well.
The main problem with Hardline’s that EA had a promising idea: To remove a series that’s been heavy handed with military warfare themes and take it to a more grounded, heavy-handed scenario. To make a game that takes elements of an engaging crime thriller mixed in with the Battlefield charm to bring a new experience like no other. Yet EA decided that this alone wouldn’t do and looked at Call of Duty and Wolfenstein to steal a few ideas that sadly end up being a complete and utter mess.
Where to begin? How about it’s broken narrative for starters. Hardline starts off just fine and if the game just carried on in the same manner as the prologue, things would’ve been so much better. We see good cop, Nick Mendoza, trying to tackle a drug smuggling ring and soon things go from bad to just plain stupid. We learn from the beginning that Nick’s framed by a group of dirty cops and sentenced for the long haul in prison. However, as the game progresses things suddenly turn from Miami Vice to James Bond, with the narrative taking a radical change in pacing that seems a little extreme for a police show inspired game. This includes an antagonist who starts off as a humble good cop, only to turn into a super-master criminal who has the world at his fingertips towards the end.
I don’t understand if this is to outdo any of the Call of Duty plot lines by going to such an extreme with a simple concept, but Hardline gradually lacks any logic in its story telling by taking such a radical change in pacing from a grounded crime thriller, to mind numbing spy drama. However, the character models are lovingly designed with the game world and destructive physics looking wonderful. Shame that there was no depth in any of the characters and world, as both lack any substance and end up being rather bland. Characters are here to provide tiresome dialogue with a collection of jokes that hardly bring a smile, while most of the game takes place in the emptiest parts of Miami, where the police never show up – even when there’s a tank battle raging on.
The game could’ve stuck with a simple concept of cops vs robbers that could have allowed us to take on several roles in law enforcement. How the older Call of Duty games put players in many different roles to observe the war and its horrors, Hardline could have involved a detective, SWAT officer, and even just a simple cop on the beat to bring us a fresh experience of warfare. This could have been the video game equivalent of Heat, but ends up being the poor man’s 24.
As for Battlefield Harline’s appeal towards dynamic gameplay – It lacks it. A new twist here, however, is that now you are given the choice of two distinct gameplay styles: Similar to Wolfenstein: The New Order, players can use either stealth or brute force in order to progress through a level, being either the good or bad cop. Using Stealth effectivity and making arrests on criminals will gain rewards and higher XP which unlocks new weapons. Playing as the good cop focuses your efforts on arresting NPCs by telling people to freeze, and then handcuffing them. It’s an interesting idea, but what’s strange is that you can do this 90% of NPCs in the game. Even the most harden mercenaries wearing protective body armor fall down at your petty command. It’s just as well that Nick carries around a billion handcuffs. It’s an interesting idea, but doesn’t work that well, and breaks immersion
Hardline also feels as though it forces more use on stealth rather than taking on enemies in the classic Battlefield way. Deciding to use firepower is usually met with overpowering enemies who always throw the most perfectly aimed grenades, and know exactly where your position is at all times, even if you’ve not been seen. This is not further helped by the oh so clever “last known position” concept, which does not work, and was much better designed in games such as Splinter Cell Conviction. We are also treated to a rather punishing checkpoint system, and with the long, over drawn stealth segments, it quickly becomes an annoying issue. It’s unbalanced, and most of the game just ends up being very dull. The very few interesting moments don’t last long, nor are they creative or original–They just rip off Call of Duty, or seem completely over the top, yet boring.
The mechanics that involve more of the police aspects of the game aren’t truly dynamic. You just arrest people. Even when you’re not a police officer, but a man on the run, you still feel compelled to arrest people, and you still carry handcuffs. We could’ve had a simple, yet intense experience with fire fights, bank robberies, and CSI style game play. Instead, we’re offered a dull, repetitive, and unbalanced cop simulator which bears no resemblance to the style or structure of previous Battlefield games. It’s as though this game’s just an expansion of Battlefield 4, trying to be a 24-style game, and not a good one at that.
What can I say about multiplayer? For the most part, it’s extremely disappointing and broken. Battlefield once held high acclaim for their multiplayer, delivering dynamic game types, intense gameplay and spectacular visuals, this has now become a thing of the past. “Level-lution” from BF4 was a grand step up from its predecessors and even bettered Call of Duty. But now, the game does a poor job at delivering a set of broken game modes and dull multiplayer experiences that take inspiration from other games – such as Payday – and fail. It lacks the content and immersion factor of BF4 to keep hardens fans playing it. I will say that the Blood Money and Heist modes are fun, yet they seem let down by the lack of content, and frequent graphical issues and bugs. You’re just better off playing BF4.
It’s sad to say that this is a huge failure for the Battlefield series. The concept had great potential, but EA pushed the developers to create a game that had to mimick Call of Duty, and it does a poor job at doing so. Lame stealth gameplay, with a poor story, and forgettable multiplayer makes for one of the worst Battlefield games to date. I admire Visceral Games for Dead Space and trying to bring on a new look for Battlefield, but with EA at the wheel, it just makes for a big mess.