As I loaded up Battlefield Hardline for the first time, the intro cinematic blew me away. With lights and sirens, bombs, and guns firing, Hardline took me into its world and never let me go. The latest entry in EA's popular Battlefield series, Battlefield Hardline's single player campaign puts you in the shoes of Detective Nick Mendoza, the “good cop” of the story, who gets swept up as a pawn in a corrupt drug force game of figurative chess. The Hardline story has everything you'd want from your typical “cop show” on primetime TV and then throws in the kitchen sink.
I'll go on record here and say that Hardline is the best campaign of a Battlefield game ever. While that might not be saying much to some (I'm looking at YOU, Battlefield 4), it is the first game in a long time where I couldn't stop playing. I just had to see what was going to happen next. The story is engaging and the dividing the levels into “episodes” was a very smart decision on Visceral's part. Every episode has a beginning, middle, and end that is clearly defined within their own story arc and make you feel as if you're playing out an episode of The Shield or one of the many CSI spin offs. It was exhilarating. Each episode is different and exciting in their own way and the re-playability is quite high given the amount of extra “stuff” the game throws at you, like the evidence collecting for each episode which gives you more experience and unlocks new content for the game as well. It had me stopping and looking around with a Batman Arkham style “detective vision” (here called simply “The Scanner”) which allowed you to tag enemies and also scan in evidence for the aforementioned system.
Game combat was given a new twist as well. Instead of your typical FPS shooty-bang run and gun, rinse and repeat, Hardline introduces a stealth element along with take downs and arrests. You can actually complete entire levels without ever firing a single shot if you're careful and stealthy enough. This was a hugely refreshing change of pace from other FPS titles like Call of Duty. It had an almost Thief style feel to it where you could run and gun your way around each episode and blow through the levels fairly quickly but it was much more immersive and impressive to me to spend some time looking at the enemy layout and movement pattern and decide the best route to take to take them down silently. I never thought I would enjoy that in a game series that is usually defined by big and loud guns or tanks but I was proven very wrong.
I played each episode twice through, once with the “typical” Battlefield style of run and gun and once through with the more stealthy approach, only shooting or taking down enemies when I had to and I had massive amounts of fun with the latter playthrough. It's amazing to me how Visceral Games was able to incorporate both types of gameplay so seamlessly and it really makes me understand why they delayed the game to March instead of its original Fall 2014 release date. They really spent a lot of time polishing the details and making sure there was something for everyone here and thats no small feat when you're talking about Battlefield.
The game looks amazing while running on high settings on PC. Running the same Frostbite 3 Engine as Battlefield 4, I was worried it would be plagued with the same issues that BF4 was at launch but I'm happy to report this is nowhere near the case with Hardline. I rarely noticed any graphical glitches or errors in the game which surprised me given the amount of bugs and graphical woes Battlefield 4 had at and around launch. Were there a few times where I pushed a character into the ground to arrest them and their face glitched into the floor? Sure. But I can forgive an error here and there if the story and gameplay is good enough to overshadow the small issue that happens every once and awhile.
The music is intense and perfect for the title's style. With varying styles of hip-hop inspired beats, mixed with the Battlefield signature Rock N' Roll-esque action songs it really pulls you further into the game and picks up or dies down at the right times. It's a wonderful score with a mix of all styles of music that is worth a look into outside of the game.
I've spoken at length about the campaign and its merits but at the end of the day this is still a Battlefield game. When you think of the Battlefield series, you think of one thing; Team and Squad based multiplayer matches on a massive scale.
Hardline turns Battlefield multiplayer on its head. Sure, it has familiar game modes like Conquest, but where the multiplayer shines this time around is in its new modes Heist, Blood Money, and Hotwire. Heist has two teams (divided in to Police vs Criminals) fighting over piles of money with a need to make a getaway. Blood Money is an objective based game mode where a huge pile of loot has been intercepted and both police and criminals must fight over the cash and then transport it back to their respective teams vault, while Hotwire is a mobile take on Conquest where each capture point is a car you must drive around at high speeds to keep it captured for your team. These new modes make Hardline a unique and incredibly enjoyable experience.
Playing with a squad of friends makes the whole experience even better. Rolling around in a helicopter with squad mates and shooting down cars and unsuspecting infantrymen had me hooked in multiplayer for hours on end. The usual Battlefield classes return here, albeit with different names this time around. All new weapons and equipment can be purchased with cash you earn by completing various objectives in game while all attachments for weapons or upgrades to equipment must be unlocked by completing certain criteria (achieving a certain number of kills with X gun, for instance).