Battlefield 4
Producer: Electronic Arts
Release Date: October 29, 2013
Platform: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, PC
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-Person Shooter
This is WAR!
Written by Josh Schilling
Entertainment is intended to elicit emotions. Whether they are good or bad, the feelings we receive when watching a movie, reading a book, or viewing a painting are how we eventually decide how much we love or hate what we experience. Video games are no exception, and as with other forms of art, the more memorable the emotions that are felt, the more the subject creeps up the favorites list, or descends into the realm of loathing. With Battlefield 4, I have had perhaps the most numerous memorable experiences I have ever had in a video game, although unfortunately, too many of those emotions were of the teeth-gnashing-frustration variety. But whether my arms were raised in consternation or celebration, the experiences I had playing this game were truly memorable and I can’t wait to jump in for another match.
This is a multi-player, military, first-person shooter on a grand scale. It has a single-player storyline as well that is epic and mind blowing as it is with all these types of games, but the intent of the developer as to the solo campaign can be best summed up with their Battlefield 4 game guide. The 400+ page book has about 6 pages devoted to single-player at the very end, and the rest is dedicated to multi-player. The developer has no qualms about showing which side their bread is buttered.
In multi-player, you have some choices about which style of match you want to jump into, but the star of the show is Conquest, a mode where it’s full scale battle with up to 32 individuals on each side battling it out on foot, in land vehicles, in the air, or even water. You can coordinate with a squad of four other like-minded compatriots or try to go alone all Rambo style, and the variety of play makes it easy to get overwhelmed. One minute you’ll be parachuting from a burning helicopter, and the next moment you’ll be yanking the dog-tags off of an unsuspecting sniper. You can even jump into Commander Mode if you like, where you can coordinate the troops, assign targets and defense points, and call in gunships or missile strikes. If vehicles aren’t your style, there is still your typical Team Death Match mode with smaller troop counts and slimmer locations, but there is one Conquest map that is a must try. “Operation Locker” has 64 soldiers battling it out in tight quarters with no vehicles whatsoever. It is a concrete hell of explosions and death that is quite stunning and most of all memorable.
When discussing Battlefield 4, the elephant in the room is the numerous bugs that ravage the gameplay. The most prevalent one is being booted from the server to the main screen, although I have had a litany of other weird and distressing things happen. My campaign save was lost, I’ve jumped into empty servers, and I’ve had odd black blotches appear and disappear from the screen. These bugs would be absolute deal-breakers in a lesser game, but if you can overlook them, (like I’ve done in the past with certain Bethesda games,) then the fun you will reap will be well worth any angst you might feel when getting dumped from a match time after time.
The differences between the next-gen console/PC versions versus the old-gen are mainly cosmetic, as the level of detail is amped up considerably in the higher-end machines. The maximum number of combatants is also halved on the older consoles which leads to some wide open spaces in Conquest mode and therefore a much less intense experience of battle. This game is still fun on the 360 and PS3, but it is clearly intended for the newer and more powerful units. The Battlefield franchise has played second fiddle to Call of Duty for quite a while now, and Battlefield 4 could very well be the turning point that pushes them into the forefront. Some heavy duty patching needs to be done, and hopefully it is done fast, because I want to jump in and create a bunch of fun memories and not simmer on a bunch of bad ones.