Battlefield: Hardline review

[Neon Ignition]

So, managed three quick games this morning on Blood Money mode. It's pretty straight forward, the menus etc effectively reskins of Battlefield 4's. Same goes for options etc, the biggest change being the cops theme.

First thing you'll see is the visuals, it's aiming for BF4 quality but to be honest falls short. The level in question lacks the lighting and effects polish of the last game. Also, overall animation is a step back too. Vehicles don't feel as robust as DICE's game with the same rigidness being applied to the player movement too.

The map features some destructible elements but I've not seen anything like the scale or randomness BF4 contains. It's fun though and the basic framework of the series holds up. There's little sense that Visceral have made it distinct though, the final release would need a lot more polish than this to impress as in current state BF4 quickly stands out as the better title. Other modes in the full release might show more scope for the action but at the moment it seems like a fun, scaled back map pack until some uniqueness appears

[Mr Ono]

I am hugely disappointed so far. I know it's only a beta but man, the graphics are poor. Character models look rough and the city map is just plain, well ....plain! The servers are only 32 player max at the moment. Hopefully they will be 64 player but it looks so empty even when full. I suspect most people are on the rooftops.

Only plus is the vehicle handling.

This will be a wait and see jobbie now.

[Tobal]

I put some more time into last night and my opinion on the gameplay changed for the better (not the graphics, they are just crap). I didn't realise just how vertical the map you get is, 4-5 buildings allow you to get to the roof by various means and get to choppers, and this is where all that ziplining and grapple hook stuff comes inhandy, and from never seeing a the criminals win it started to be 50/50 across the matches played.

one heist match (which is carry the bomb mode really) I managed to get the 2nd bag off a body of a team mate running on the ground like headless chicken while another tram was working their way through the to the skyscraper for site B, not realising this I had grappled up to broken window and got into an adjacent building with the intention to zipline across to site B but the other team got there 1st which was a surpise as you have be pretty dam good to fight you way to site b through all those cops, so I guess dividing up the cops chasing me and others worked... to I parachuted of the building and over the cops manning the defence of site A for criminal win in 8mins!

Played some blood money mode to, which is basically 3 point capture the flag, where you can take from either the money pile in the middle or from the enemy teams vault from what they have collected.

also saved 15 min video of me storming the criminals on heist with the Swat van, so, so many badguys ran over.

[Panta Rhei]

This isn't good. It looks cheap, more like some sort of BF4 expansion. But then actually worse than BF4. Will not buy at all.

[originalbadboy]

To be fair if it was a ?15 - ?20 game I would probably pick it up. But as a BF mod which in effect is what it is, there is no way I am paying full price for it.

[Neon Ignition]

Been on and off this and I think I'm in for the full game, I have to give it credir for not having any of the issues BF4 has always had and whilst it's not as good as the main entry it starts to feel a bit different when more verticality options start getting used. Had some good fun so not to bad.

[darkangel]

I enjoy it, graphics are solid. Frame rates are solid and the map is pretty fun.

For a Beta to play better than the final release code of BF4 I'm pretty impressed and goes to show how freaking lazy Dice were with testing BF4 before release.

I mean, this is actually you know, PLAYABLE.

[kryss]

I have to agree with Darkangel. But I'm not buying it purely to spite EA. Give it to me on PS+ and I'll be all over it faster than

[nonny]

Most interesting thing I've seen about this is Jack Frags on YouTube listing the good and bad things about it in separate videos. Definitely watch them if you have time.

The one most interesting point is it shares identical code base with BF4 so even though the beta is running with a tick rate of 10 that closed test going on for BF4 is actually going to fix issues in this before launch. Could be the most polished BF at launch if that's the case, though that wouldn't be hard!

Also in those videos he mentions the Devs listening to feedback very carefully and making changes. Audio is being ramped up, some gadgets nerfed or removed. That sort of thing.

I'll not be buying this at launch after being so burnt by BF4 but after watching those videos I haven't written it off completely and will keep tabs on it as it gets closer to release.

[Mr Ono]

The tick rate has already been increased in the actual BF4 (but not yet in the BFH Beta). I still get shot round the corner and have kill trades n BF4 so don't expect miracles. It is better but not perfect still. BFH seems less busier than vanilla BF4 to me so that should also help with the netcode side of things.

As for BFH - I just don't like it. Probably need to get to know the beta more.

[Neon Ignition]

It's been surprising how slow players have been in this to utilise the helicopters for Heist. Soon as they do its possible for a team to win a match in under 2 minutes too. Cops need to quickly take out the crane as well, pretty much kills the robbers access to helicopter access which can really affect their ability to win the match.

[Tobal]

The best strategy for cops are preventing the initial charges on the vans going off as it kills at least minute for robbers and only takes 2-3 sec to disarm so alot of matches are decided on the initial confrontation. Copters usefulness for robbers hinges on the cop engineers not carrying stingers, very fast lockon/reload and quite easy to make a copter smash into the many tall buildings.

[Uli]

will this be a browser game? my origin account asked me to just install a plug-in.

[Mr Ono]

BF uses Battlelog as a front end server and stats browser. It updates the browser all the time.

[Neon Ignition]

Circle button has been proper glitchy today, no trouble on anything else so it's def this game. First trouble I've had.

Edit - Tell a lie, I can crouch fine, it's just getting out of vehicles that's a no go. Try again tomorrow before the beta starts wrapping up