Battlefield, Hardline
Producer: Electronic Arts
Release Date: March 17, 2015
Platform: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3, PC
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Police Brutality
Written by Josh Schilling
Call of Duty has dominated the military, first-person shooter genre. The formula of high-powered multiplayer plus a serviceable solo campaign has graced video game consoles annually for almost a decade. Visceral, the creators of the popular Dead Space series, have now whole-heartedly joined the first-person shooter community, and have gripped the reins of EA’s Battlefield franchise which has always been seen as the Pepsi to Call of Duty’s Coke. Battlefield has tried to innovate and differentiate itself from its big brother before, but despite their efforts, and however mediocre that year’s CoD title might be, they have never been able to defeat the juggernaut. Battlefield has always centered around…well…a battlefield, but now instead of buzzing around in various armored vehicles, the strongest shield you have in Battlefield Hardline is your badge.
As usual, this Battlefield game does have a solo campaign. The difference here is that you get a mildly interesting homage to cheesy cop television shows as you roam around the streets of Miami while trying to thwart a drug war, and now instead of always pulverizing the bad guys with different varieties of bullets and explosives, you get the chance to subdue and arrest them just like a good cop probably should. Don’t get me wrong…you can still skip around and shoot everyone in the face if you want to, but this game does give you the option to employ stealth when needed, and to show your badge if you feel the need for a peaceful solution. But that’s the solo campaign. Who cares about the solo campaign? Hell, even Battlefield barely cares about the solo campaign. The meat in the first-person shooter sandwich is and shall always be the multiplayer experience, and Hardline is eager as ever to be the roast beef, although what it lacks now in sheer quantity, it makes up for in flavor, and a nice accoutrement of unexpected flavors that create a nice lunch.
The multiplayer side of things pits cops versus robbers, and like Battlefield games of yore, there are still lots of vehicles that other guys can use to run you over. The maps aren’t nearly as vast, and the weapons don’t get as heavy, but this makes the game more relatable, and able to focus on the constant action. The different game modes are somewhat familiar spins on the modes seen in other games, but they are definitely fun and addictive. Heist is an all-out money grab where the robbers grab a vault load of cash, and the cops have the Sisyphean task of trying to stop them, and Hotwire, the standout mode of the bunch, has you playing a mobile king-of-the-hill, where the “hills” are cars that you either spend your time driving around while racking up kills or stopping the other team from doing the same thing.
One of the best things about this game is that it’s not a broken EA mess that frustrates as much as it thrills. Of course it was pushed back five months, as I’m sure the publisher wouldn’t have been able to weather another buggy release of a highly anticipated game. What you end up with is a well-made and fun game that hits way more than it misses, and sets you in a different yet familiar environment. Comparing it to the other major cops versus robbers game that’s dominating the multiplayer world, what GTA V might have in beautiful and often hilarious chaos, Hardline has a structured, competitive balance that comes from years of trying to build the perfect multi-player beast. It is what you would probably expect, which is a good thing in this age of video games, although when you take your first bite of this title, you might experience some interesting and unexpected new flavors.