Sitting in a hiding spot as I watch the flag change from
American Red, White, and Blue to Chinese Red and Yellow, I see a tank moving
down the hill. I spot it and wait for it to turn away, allowing me to launch an
RPG right into the back of it. Suddenly, I see a friendly tank and two more
engineers come storming down from Charlie and attack the tank with amazing
fashion.
This is what DICE calls an “Only in Battlefield” moment and
it’s true. I play a lot of shooters, and I really can’t think of any other game
that has the best pacing for a game of this scale. Arma doesn’t come close
because it’s too big and Halo has large maps, but not nearly as large or
versatile. Nearly everything epic in scope that happens in Battlefield 4 could
only really come from Battlefield 4.
But I think that maybe its downfall. Where Battlefield does
everything right in great scope, it becomes certain that the bigger the game,
the bigger the fall. And when a game is reviewed two months after a buggy,
rough release, it’s hard to really enjoy it to the most. Battlefield 4 is a great game… when it works.
So far, for me, it’s been good. But every so often, I get a
map glitch, or a netcode screw up. The biggest thing for me was the inability
to get into a game other than Team Deathmatch for 3 days. But maybe it’s the
console and not the game itself. But there are problem across all systems. It
sucks a lot, and takes away from the game, but it is inexcusable. Let’s just
hope they don’t do the same thing next game (or with Battlefront!).
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| How to piss off a gamer 101 |
But enough doom and gloom and about the bad things. Let’s
talk about the game. It is great fun. When you shoot something, you feel it.
When you take an objective, you feel amazing. When you defend an objective, you
feel unstoppable. Everything that happens in game is really fun. I’ve had the
pleasure to play this on all major platforms (360/PS3, PS4, Xbox One, PC), and
they are all just as fun as the other. The graphics look rougher on the 8 year
old consoles of course, but the game is playable, and still does look good, just
as good as Battlefield 3. And that’s good for the consoles. On the PC and next
gen, the game looks amazingly good. It’s pretty. Really pretty. This game was
brought to the pretty store, bought everything, and then went to the gorgeous
shop and bought everything there. It looks amazing, and it adds to the game in
this case.
But as I said earlier, the gameplay defines Battlefield.
Large, open maps transition to confined spaces in an instant. Chaos and
disorder is how every game starts out and the winner comes from who can rally
their side to make the enemy more disordered. Constantly changing your
objectives helps capture them quickly, and having everyone play their role
properly will make you win. This is what makes Battlefield different.
 |
| Only in Battlefield |
Balancing of the game is pretty good, too. I haven't really
found a gun that is completely better than every other gun in the game, even
with the myriad of attachments for each. The game seems to have been balanced
decently from the start, which is definitely something good despite a rocky
start.
Also, there’s a campaign that actually gives you stuff when
you beat it! I know right? Incentive, thy name is Battlefield. The campaign is
the typical “American’s gotta save the world” type story, but you actually seem
like the soldiers do care about each other, despite the terribly corny
dialogue. It was a decent campaign, though not as fun as Call of Duty Ghosts
was. I will say that I will probably play the campaign again, because upon
beating each of the three endings, you get different weapons for multiplayer,
hence the incentive. I think it could have been better, but Battlefield has
always just been a multiplayer centric game, as it is today.
To sum up, Battlefield 4 is a fun, immersive game that plays
well. However, after 2 months of release, there are still many glitches, bugs,
network code problems, and other issues. But, the game is in a playable state
as of now, and will continue to get better as DICE works diligently on it. The
game should be played on a next gen console or a PC that can play it on Medium
settings at 1080p, but if you can only get the 360/PS3 version, I still
recommend it.
The game gets an 8/10 on older hardware, but an 8.8/10 on
anything that runs it on medium or better settings at 720p or higher.
360/PS3: 8/10
PC/PS4/One: 8.8/10
Happy gaming.
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