A few weeks ago, our Battlefield guru reviewed EA and Dice’s fourth major Battlefield game of the last few years on PS3. In the meantime, he’s been playing the heck out of it on PS4. We received a review copy for the Xbox One just recently, which I have dropped some time into but not nearly as much as Nathan. What follows is a sort of joint review, although most of it is pulled directly from his PS3 review, updated with experiences from both his time on PS4 and mine on the Xbox One.
While it’s been well documented that Dice has had a nightmarish rollout with Battlefield 4, with problems on all three platforms, and in both single and multiplayer, there is still no shortage of 64 player matches to be had on Xbox Live at the time of this writing. People are fighting through the bugginess because underneath all of the frustrating techincal issues, there is an excellent game to be found. While the time I spent with BF4 on the X1 is miniscule compared to what many players have logged since its Nov 22nd release, I haven’t experienced *too* many issues in connecting to multiplayer matches. Sure, there have been some disconnects and issues with the match-making service connecting me to a game, but usually just a re-try fixes these. Then again, I’m not even trying to use audio chat or play with my non-existent Live Friends. For others trying to understandably use Party Chat, flaky connection issues, some would say made worse with the freshly released China Rising expansion, are more rampant. That said, what follows is primary Nathan’s review from a few weeks ago…
The gameplay in Battlefield 4 has improved significantly, especially when it comes to controls, non-linear movement/decision-making and overall feel to the game. Last year’s Battlefield 3 was a bit of a lopsided affair, as the campaign was a stale, linear mess in comparison to the refined multiplayer experience. The campaign mode tried to merely keep the players in line and driven by an empty, sometimes confusing storyline, while the multiplayer showed DICE at its best. This year there is a little more balance.
The world is on the brink of chaos, China is the tinderbox and the gamer is the inadvertent spark that could ignite a global conflict. As Sergeant Daniel Recker, fans will play as a member of an elite group of unlikely heroes known as Tombstone squad, navigating the turmoil around them as they fight to save the final hope for peace.
Having another go at Battlefield 4 and its story produced better results on the next generation consoles, but it still kind of falls a little short on the interest department. The visuals certainly are the reason why you want to keep the campaign moving forward. The story just isn’t very compelling, though the characters are very defined through their actions. I enjoyed the personalities very much, but not enough to care about the entire story.
Story aside, the gameplay in the campaign mode is a bit more complex than other first-person shooter campaigns. When you’re not going through a bevy of doors in a confined area (during the ship scenes, it makes sense to be a little linear), is that you have multiple solutions to get through the BF4 campaign. If one way doesn’t work out then another way can be found to get through whatever obstacle you’re trying to get through. For example, there is a mission where you made it through a snowy escape and wind up in a Chinese run city. You have to get down from a building, go to a crashed helicopter, equip yourself with C4 (there are other options, but I like this one the best — personal choice) and proceed to blow up a tank to push through to the next portion of the mission. I died about 3-4 times in this mission because of multiple failed attempts at destroying the tank and escaping. Every time I would light up the tank, troops would be alerted to my presence. While I probably should have gotten to cover a bit better during these moments and taken my time taking out the enemy, I just didn’t feel like it. Solution? Well, when I restarted the mission a fifth time, I noticed that the troops attacking me were being driven into the mission on two trucks. I planted the C4 on both trucks and let loose. I took care of the trucks, the troops and still had time to find cover and strategize with my NPC counterparts. This felt like freedom in the campaign, something that wasn’t readily available in BF3. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to expand the world a bit more, which is great when you’re trying to make your campaign relevant in comparison to your multiplayer experience.
Along those same lines, if you think you can do something within Battlefield 4 then it allows you to give it a shot. There aren’t a lot of restrictions in terms of trying new ways to defeat your enemy. For example, during the prison break in the game, towards the end, you’re trying to make it through the last door of the level (and you’re waiting on your new Russian friend to get you through). As you wait outside the control room for the giant steel door to open, several helicopters containing Chinese special forces fly in overhead dropping Chinese troops into the building. If you want to you can actually take down the helicopters or at least damage them enough to score some points. Again, this is an example of a more expansive, gamer friendly campaign that allows you to go in a few directions when it comes to solutions. Trying things during missions is at worst going to get you killed, but at best going to garnish some points for you.
Speaking of gamer friendly moments, a huge addition to this year’s Battlefield campaign is the ability to spot enemies so that your NPC can help you take them out. This helps in a couple of ways. The first, as I mentioned, it helps get the NPCs in the game with you. There is nothing more frustrating than having a bunch of NPCs charging in with you and then they do absolutely nothing to help the situation. It’s irritating and pathetic, and a big reason I despised the first Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign. If the game is going to simulate help then dammit let the NPCs be a part of the action and help the situation. Otherwise, why are they there? It’s a common theme in most forgotten first-person shooter campaign modes, but I’m happy as hell that DICE addressed it and helped it by adding ‘spotting’. It helps out a lot, but be careful because when you call out enemies then your NPC characters will open fire despite the situation (sometimes stealth missions call for not spotting).
The second way this new ‘spotting’ ability helps out is that it allows you to locate the enemies on the battlefield. Even though they might be hiding behind walls or charging in as a group, it helps bring their presence to life onscreen. To be fair, their indicators do eventually fade out of sight, putting them back into mystery positions onscreen, but it helps when you’re trying to find the right positioning on the battlefield, even for a moment. It’s a very cool addition to the game and one that I wish was on multiplayer (I know, I know…it would be cheating).
Now, sticking with the NPCs, for the majority of the time they’re helpful. Sometimes they tend to do their own things and become bossy, and useless, but for the majority of the time they’ve got your back. This is some good AI for a game of this caliber. For example, when you’re trying to extract VIPs from China, and you break into a hotel to get them out, Irish and Pac (your two comrades) shout out warnings of enemy positions and tend to have your back in the heat of battle. Specifically, there is a scene where Pac is unlocking a door to the upper part of the hotel where the VIPs are residing and you and Irish have to cover him. Irish does a great job with shouting out enemy position, while also keeping enemies from getting too close to your area. Again, it’s solid AI that is actually helpful.
With that said, the enemy AI is focused squarely on you. No matter where you are at or what position you are taking in the game, the enemy will find you and fire on your first before going after the NPC, or at least it seemed that way during my experience. This is something that is prominent in all FPS games, and something that needs to be addressed. While i understand the gamer is the main character of the mission, there are multiple targets to be had during the gameplay. It would add more depth and make more sense if the CPU enemies would once in a while try to take out your squad instead of focusing on you. While I appreciate the story of John Rambo, it’s unfair and illogical for one man to take out an army, or have an army go after him. 10 out of 10 times in real combat situations, that lone soldier will lose.
Having said that, if John Rambo had a weapons box laying around in every stage then maybe his odds would have been better, especially against the Russians. What’s a weapons box? Glad you asked!
Things to help you ‘win’ instead of lose in BF4 start with the weapons. As you pick up weapons from fallen enemies, or earn weapons as you progress through the storyline, you collect them in a weapons box. This box shows up in every mission and allows you to switch between weapons as you keep fighting. It’s a nice element to the game and it opens up a LOT of weapon opportunities, and replay opportunities, as the game goes on. I mentally compare it to the weapons boxes in the early Resident Evil games, as it’s easily accessible and somewhat cheating when it comes to bringing kick-ass power against your enemies.
Staying with weapons, a very improved aspect of weapons is how well you can control them. Their individual preciseness has been dramatically improved. Less kick-back, more stability when it comes to going nuts on enemies. Granted, each weapon has a varied amount of recoil during firing and such, but the process of controlling them and firing them has become more user-friendly. While hardcore gamers like myself prefer a bit more accuracy with the real things, I understand that less frustration when it comes to using/firing weapons is always a good thing. Along those same lines is the improvement when you look down your sights. I’m a FPS gamer that doesn’t really like firing from the hip. I prefer looking down my sights and trying my best to kill the enemies in one shot. BF4 actually rewards accurate players like me with better control and better results from doing this process. It definitely felt a bit more under control when I looked down my sights to fire. This counts for both multiplayer and campaign modes, so expect it across the board. The Xbox One controller works great as you would expect and the additional Kinect voice commands to call for medics or give/suggest orders is a plus in multiplayer.
Now, something that is incredibly useful in the game, which might only be more useful in MP, is how you can counter melee combat. You have a small window to actually block a knife attack in the game and counter with your own. It’s a much needed addition and something that at least gives you a fighting chance. Granted, it might actually piss off a few gamers who make it their sole purpose to be knifing douchebags in the game, but it’s more true to life if your character can fight their way out of a melee combat situation. Flipping someone over, raising a knife and striking just seemed too robotic in the last game. I understand that it is a reward for being stealthy, but it seemed cheap and clunky. I’m really happy that DICE changed it up and made it a bit more interesting.
On the X1, expect a very lengthy install approaching an hour partly depending on your connection speed to download what is presently around 1.5GB of patches. Installation size tops 30GB as well. In-game, BF4 certainly has a next-gen look and feel to it just in terms of texture quality and resolution. I haven’t experienced any major techical problems or framerate troubles in my time on the X1. As for audio, the constant din of gunfire gets old, but other effects are nicely done.
The icing on this BF4 cake is going to be the multiplayer experience. It’s probably one of the main reasons, if not THE reason that you’re going to purchase this game. To be quite blunt, DICE doesn’t disappoint in terms of the amount of content, but presently the issues across all platforms gives reason to pause regarding the quality of this content. In short, when it works, it’s great, but my own few issues aside, multiple friends of mine who have been hardcore Battlefield fans for years are even getting antsy with the amount or problems they’re having with BF4 (on the X1, although all platforms are having issues of some kind or another).
Inside of MP, you get the following matches right off the bat:
Conquest – Capturing and holding objectives never felt so good. With the huge environments to play within, the match just seems a bit more challenging when trying to capture and hold places. I enjoyed this one a lot, as I did in Battlefield 3.
Team Deathmatch – Kill or be killed, it’s as simple as that.
Obliteration – I had some fun with this one. You capture a randomly placed bomb and get it to specific locations on the enemy’s map. You then place the bomb and detonate it. Pure fun and it brings together teams pretty darn well.
Rush – Fast and furious. If you have never experienced it, you basically try to blow up the other team’s bases or zones.
Squad Deathmatch – Much like team deathmatch, multiple squads compete against each other to try to reach the ‘kill limit’ before the other teams. It’s an expanded version of Team Deathmatch, but nonetheless an interesting one.
Domination – Capture the flag. You’ve seen this before.
Defuse – It’s either plant a bomb to blow up an enemy target or defuse the bomb before it’s too late.
While reviewing this title, the two most popular matches to play were Conquest and Team Deathmatch (naturally, right?). Now, what about the environments you’ll be playing in? Here’s a breakdown:
Dawnbreaker – This is a gigantic cityscape that is just full of nice tall skyscrapers. The sheer scale of it all makes for a wonderful MP playground and is easily one of my favorites, especially if you can lay down some respawning devices in the appropriate spots. Lots of multi-tiered buildings, hillsides and whatnot reside in Dawnbreaker. If you can get on top of the buildings via helicopter, as a sniper, then you’re going to be set on this board. Lots of nice places to pick people off from above.
Flood Zone – It’s a third-world city lying between two major highways. You basically spend a good portion of your time running from rooftop to rooftop trying to find the appropriate positioning for this one. The unique flavor of this board is when the levee breaks in the city causing a massive flood. The streets you once walked/talked/fired in are now mostly water ways. It’s pretty neat and definitely in my top 3 for this game. After playing this for the last few weeks, it’s still one of my top 3 MP maps.
Golmud Railway – The first go around with this map back on the PS3, I didn’t like it too much. I felt like maybe they had just dialed it in. The brilliance of it started to shine through, though, as this sprawling flat landscape really did open up to some massive firefights. The railway system on this map is useful for attacks across the board and acts as a flag carrying vehicle during dominance. Love this map more than I thought I would have.
Hainan Resort – This was the first level I played, which pretty much revolves around a centralized hotel. It’s pretty flat and open with the occasional wall wrapping around and up the hotel sides. It’s a very restricted, small place to play MP and does well with close quarter combat. Of course, the map stretches out just a bit when you take into account the surrounding islands, which includes a villa or two on them. Still, the real action for this map revolves around the gigantic hotel in the middle, which is very destructible.
Lancang Dam – One of my top 4 maps in BF4. While I can’t say I’m impressed by the destructible damn, there are so many multi-tier portions of the level that lend well to different types of soldiers and gameplay. This is one of the more diverse maps on the MP side of Battlefield. Enjoy it and learn all the secret nooks and crannies.
Operation Locker – This map is very complex. You get about 2-3 story levels on this map, but the big issue I have with it is the bottle neck that always happens at the guard tower. You will see a massive amount of people fighting each other right at this tower. It’s okay, but it gets stale really quick.
Paracel Storm – Islands, boats and an enormous storm to deal with…what more could you want? This is my second favorite of all the MP maps. It’s just a sprawling sea scene of intensity. The storm itself makes for visual eye candy on the ocean side of things.
Rogue Transmission – My favorite to date. An enormous satellite dish surrounded by buildings and large climbable towers. I could play this map for weeks, folks…and sorta did. There’s so much to it and it’s very sniper friendly.
Siege of Shanghai – You’ve seen this in the trailer, the demo and it’s still fun to play in this level, even after the overdose of exposure from EA and DICE. There are a lot of fun elevators to the rooftop in this level and it gets really going during Conquest. Definitely one of the more impressive creations for BF4.
Zavod 311 – I didn’t like this one at first, but having played it over and over again, the small map certainly gained some traction on the ground of entertainment. Two large factories that are surrounded by small facilities and plenty of woods. Sniper friendly stuff, especially if you can get to the tip top of one of the factories. If you can get in a helicopter then it’s even more fun.
I have been playing this for more than a month now and it still is a game that I crave. The next generation version of this title brings a lot more to the multiplayer side, especially when it comes to visuals. Having a good game mixed with great visuals really does make you want to come back. If the gameplay modes on the MP side don’t draw you in, if the maps don’t completely fill your fancy (and they should, but we’re playing the ‘what if’ game), then certainly the reward system will drive you to keep going. You get a fair amount of unlockables, upgrades and such as you progress through the game. You’ll still have a lot of familiar mixes/matches to customize your experience and you’ll spend a large amount of time finding the one configuration to make you happy. Those of you who have a style of play that you like, you won’t be disappointed with how DICE delivers the goods. One last note about this is that you should expect a bit more mathematical slowdown to the leveling in the game. Unless you play every waking moment in BF4 (and maybe you should — if you aren’t married and have kids), you won’t be maxing out too quickly. Is that a bad thing? No. It extends the gameplay on the MP side of BF4 a bit, which is what you want from your MP experience.
So is there a downer to the MP side? Yes. It’s like we’re in ‘patch’ hell with things on the next generation side right now. At the beginning, it was tough to get on the conquest mode. Then things got better and it seemed problems just faded away. Then more people got on and things got tough again. Another patch arrives. Things are up and down with the MP side of BF4. Depending on traffic, you could have no wait for a game and sometimes you simply can’t get on a game. I won’t even begin to guess what is going on, but hopefully a definitive patch will be released soon to clear all issues up.
Onto the summary!