It’s EB Expo time, and with that comes the latest and greatest in new and upcoming releases. We will be covering as much as we can, and what a better way to start than with EA’s upcoming title, Battlefield Hardline.
The booth itself was structured like a command centre with each station facing out onto the show each player doing their thing. It was a great to see EA go all out with the layout of the booth. It provided players with a more immersive experience.
Unfortunately the wonderful people at EA decided to have Facebook implemented into the Hardline event, with gamers forced to register the “Battlefield Hardline Rap Sheet” App to their account before actually playing the game. While I did see that people who said they don’t have Facebook were still able to play the game, the people at the booth were still funneling people through the queue, registering the app before taking a photo of them which automatically posted to the users facebook page (if they clicked through everything).
This is something that should NOT have been done and I swiftly deleted the app upon the playthrough completion. I’m unsure how much implementation this app will have with the full release of Battlefield Hardline, but I’m sure it can’t be good.
Getting into the game itself, we were able to participate in a quick game of Hardline’s new mode which had players controlling vehicles that also acted as mobile spawn points. The game mode quickly switched between slow building gunfights to intense bumper to bumper action. Once a control point vehicle was classed as Captured, you were able to spawn inside to defend it from the enemy. This created some hectic scenes with explosions everywhere.
This is the Battlefield game that Michael Bay would have wanted to create. You weren’t able to park and hide your control point vehicle to defend it because you had to constantly move and swerve through the battlefield. With so much action happening while in a vehicle, the game felt lacklustre when you weren’t in one. It has become a problem in the Battlefield games where vehicles play a big part in your enjoyment, and when you have a 16 side map and about 6 cars, it means people could miss out on a core experience.
I feel like it could be a little too much like Battlefield 4 to be called a new game. I think that if they announced a new “Cops and Robbers” IP, it would be more well received. But tacking the Battlefield franchise on to it tries to link it to something that it isn’t.
While we only got 15 minutes to play Battlefield Hardline, we’re looking forward to checking out the game in its full release in Q1 2015.