Battlefield 4 Review - Only in Battlefield
- Thread starter Slycne
- Start date
Good review!
The multiplayer really does seem like a refined version of itself... Building off what it promised in the series legacy from BF2 to the present. It's irritating to have to unlock everything again, when you have a a life to lead, but that's where we are.
The campaign... Ugh, I wouldn't trust my squaddies to run a bath, much less deal with enemies... Which is unfortunate, considering how Rainbow Six Vegas games showed working with 2 NPC teammates could be handled well in a military FPS. I think my frustration reached it's peak when tasked with charging across relatively open ground to assault a machine gun and sniper emplacement, whose hillside view only had eyes for my player controlled ass and it became apparent my mates weren't willing to engage at any range effective for anything but showmanship.
The multiplayer really does seem like a refined version of itself... Building off what it promised in the series legacy from BF2 to the present. It's irritating to have to unlock everything again, when you have a a life to lead, but that's where we are.
The campaign... Ugh, I wouldn't trust my squaddies to run a bath, much less deal with enemies... Which is unfortunate, considering how Rainbow Six Vegas games showed working with 2 NPC teammates could be handled well in a military FPS. I think my frustration reached it's peak when tasked with charging across relatively open ground to assault a machine gun and sniper emplacement, whose hillside view only had eyes for my player controlled ass and it became apparent my mates weren't willing to engage at any range effective for anything but showmanship.
I really only have one snarky comment to make: A modern, realistic shooter with a terrible campaign? How surprising. I'm utterly flabbergasted. No really.
To be fair, it's not my cup of tea. The gist of it all seems to be that it's just BF3 plus another one. So if that's for you, have at it.
To be fair, it's not my cup of tea. The gist of it all seems to be that it's just BF3 plus another one. So if that's for you, have at it.
Yeah....Going off of escapists 5 star system, I'd give it 2 and a half (Don't hate me entirely, I'm basing this purely off of single and multiplayer being taken as equal halves of the entire purchase. Which of course they aren't sadly). Let me tell you why.
The very first time I started up the single player campaign I ran into a glitch during the first firefight. Now I'm embarrassed to admit it did take me a little bit of time to realize what was actually happening (it's been some time since I've played a health-regenerating FPS so this was my fault); My health didn't regenerate. I made it past the first firefight, out into the more open area looking at a consistently black/white environment without really thinking about it. I of course died, then got stuck in a loop of respawning with 2 HP. I could not advance very far.
However, I did eventually get to the point where you ride the elevator. How did I get to this part you may wonder? Well persistence and the game bugging out yet a second time. Yet in a slightly more helpful way. After you get into the open area you can have the helicopter attack enemies as well (and unlike your squadmates they actually do a darn good job). For some reason, it glitched one of the spawns and instantly, before I could even move, started attacking enemies that spawned over the hill. Any enemy that spawned it would just immediately attack them leaving most of the way infront of me barren as I was confused where any of them went.. When you get to the tower the helicopter leaves so I had to brute force my way through that segment with 2 hp.
When you go up the elevator, you fall a little and have to run for a scripted sequence of "run while you get shot by a helicopter". The problem is, due to my low health I would instantly die. The furthest I made it was to the stairs at the end of the start point and that was nothing but pure luck as I typically didn't make it half way. After trying that 15-20 times I finally gave up. Keep in mind I did try restarting the chapter etc during this but it didn't fix the bugs...
So, needless to say I'm not impressed with the games campaign... But wait there's more!
I did eventually try again and it did work. However, through the entire game I saw other bugs/glitches. Nothing major but a lot of them were graphical glitches. This includes floating guns that were grabbed by NPC's during the cutscenes. My assumption was they weren't supposed to be in-shot during the pick-up. I saw dead bodies just floating there in the background during cutscenes. I have a somewhat poor quality of one of these instances as it reminded me a bit of slenderman and amused me.
I don't really want to type much more than I have already but, yeah...it's really bad. I'm not even going to discuss the plot, characters, and everything else because that isn't that great or even coherent.
As for multiplayer? It's OK. It's just another battlefield game. Nothing to get excited about. The multiplayer has quite a few issues with it right now actually. Some that don't let people play, some that are annoying, and a few that are just slightly bothersome.
I'm not fond of saying this, but come on guys...you can hire people to QA your stuff pretty cheap. I found so much without trying that I'm embarrassed that this is a classified as a "AAA Title".
EDIT:
I'd like to add it's just come to my attention that, while I appear to keep the couple unlocks I managed to get (for the time being), my campaign's save doesn't appear to be there. Meaning I now need to play everything all over again, including getting the collectibles (as I didn't obtain them all in the first few chapters, nor did i beat all the scores)for achievements/more unlocks. That's 100% unacceptable for reasons that should be obvious.
I was being civil prior, but now I can say this game is not worth anyone's time unless you're a hardcore battlefield player.Though you could just stick with BF3 ...but oh well. If you're on the xbox anyway. I heard PC was having issues too but I didn't look into it (and im sure there's an article on the escapist somewhere..maybe..if you're curious).
The very first time I started up the single player campaign I ran into a glitch during the first firefight. Now I'm embarrassed to admit it did take me a little bit of time to realize what was actually happening (it's been some time since I've played a health-regenerating FPS so this was my fault); My health didn't regenerate. I made it past the first firefight, out into the more open area looking at a consistently black/white environment without really thinking about it. I of course died, then got stuck in a loop of respawning with 2 HP. I could not advance very far.
However, I did eventually get to the point where you ride the elevator. How did I get to this part you may wonder? Well persistence and the game bugging out yet a second time. Yet in a slightly more helpful way. After you get into the open area you can have the helicopter attack enemies as well (and unlike your squadmates they actually do a darn good job). For some reason, it glitched one of the spawns and instantly, before I could even move, started attacking enemies that spawned over the hill. Any enemy that spawned it would just immediately attack them leaving most of the way infront of me barren as I was confused where any of them went.. When you get to the tower the helicopter leaves so I had to brute force my way through that segment with 2 hp.
When you go up the elevator, you fall a little and have to run for a scripted sequence of "run while you get shot by a helicopter". The problem is, due to my low health I would instantly die. The furthest I made it was to the stairs at the end of the start point and that was nothing but pure luck as I typically didn't make it half way. After trying that 15-20 times I finally gave up. Keep in mind I did try restarting the chapter etc during this but it didn't fix the bugs...
So, needless to say I'm not impressed with the games campaign... But wait there's more!
I did eventually try again and it did work. However, through the entire game I saw other bugs/glitches. Nothing major but a lot of them were graphical glitches. This includes floating guns that were grabbed by NPC's during the cutscenes. My assumption was they weren't supposed to be in-shot during the pick-up. I saw dead bodies just floating there in the background during cutscenes. I have a somewhat poor quality of one of these instances as it reminded me a bit of slenderman and amused me.
I don't really want to type much more than I have already but, yeah...it's really bad. I'm not even going to discuss the plot, characters, and everything else because that isn't that great or even coherent.
As for multiplayer? It's OK. It's just another battlefield game. Nothing to get excited about. The multiplayer has quite a few issues with it right now actually. Some that don't let people play, some that are annoying, and a few that are just slightly bothersome.
I'm not fond of saying this, but come on guys...you can hire people to QA your stuff pretty cheap. I found so much without trying that I'm embarrassed that this is a classified as a "AAA Title".
EDIT:
I'd like to add it's just come to my attention that, while I appear to keep the couple unlocks I managed to get (for the time being), my campaign's save doesn't appear to be there. Meaning I now need to play everything all over again, including getting the collectibles (as I didn't obtain them all in the first few chapters, nor did i beat all the scores)for achievements/more unlocks. That's 100% unacceptable for reasons that should be obvious.
I was being civil prior, but now I can say this game is not worth anyone's time unless you're a hardcore battlefield player.Though you could just stick with BF3 ...but oh well. If you're on the xbox anyway. I heard PC was having issues too but I didn't look into it (and im sure there's an article on the escapist somewhere..maybe..if you're curious).
Honestly it's just like 3 except I feel it was rushed, I tried the beta and it was exactly what the finished game was. I always thought betas were used to help fix things people might not like and show people why they should buy the game, during the beta I swear they lowered your overall health or increased how much damage weapons did which killed any sense of pacing for me, I'd just die and have to sit at the loading screens which seemed much longer than before. The weapons don't really feel as satisfying to me and to be honest I can't see what they really improved on.
And before anyone says anything my friend got it and I tried it, really it seems like someone added more map packs but messed with the damage and stuff to make you die faster and push it closer to what Call of Duty already does perfectly fine, which is hectic close quarters fighting. But battlefield was always more tactical and team based to me which is why this game's a letdown to me.
And before anyone says anything my friend got it and I tried it, really it seems like someone added more map packs but messed with the damage and stuff to make you die faster and push it closer to what Call of Duty already does perfectly fine, which is hectic close quarters fighting. But battlefield was always more tactical and team based to me which is why this game's a letdown to me.
My review on the game:
- Single player campaign is meh, not worth playing and the only way they forced you to play it was to tie unlocks to it. You finish a few chapters and get a few knifes. Finish the game and get a gun. Go for the three different endings (two of the endings are exactly the same) and you get three different guns.
- Multi player is OK. Not great but good enough. They finally went back to the drawing board and redid the engine so that it's similar to the one in BF:BC2 as in you can actually take out walls properly now. Apart from that I don't exactly like it (keep in mind that the game crashes a lot so I only saw maybe five maps all in all). It seems that they went the COD way and made a lot of corridors and choke points. The weapons are the same with a few tweaked stats in terms of handling. They also changed the way assaults and supporters work and they now carry small ammo/med packs into the field and you really have to work hard to earn the standard packs. The problem is that since the game suffers from selfishness syndrome you'll be lucky to have someone resupply you when you're low on ammo/health. No luck here so far.
Bugs:
- Multiplayer crashes (a lot) when I play so I'm lucky if I play a whole match without crashing. I have played three whole matches so far.
- When you reload half a clip in normal mode you loose the bullets in that clip. That was meant to be in hardcore mode but it's bugged. Add the small ammo packs to the mix that only refill one person and you'll be running with a pistol as your primary weapon half the time (unless you get shot).
As you can see from my rant they have a looong way to go. I'd stick to BF3 for a few more months and give it a 2/5 because hey at least the single player portion only crashed three times.
- Single player campaign is meh, not worth playing and the only way they forced you to play it was to tie unlocks to it. You finish a few chapters and get a few knifes. Finish the game and get a gun. Go for the three different endings (two of the endings are exactly the same) and you get three different guns.
- Multi player is OK. Not great but good enough. They finally went back to the drawing board and redid the engine so that it's similar to the one in BF:BC2 as in you can actually take out walls properly now. Apart from that I don't exactly like it (keep in mind that the game crashes a lot so I only saw maybe five maps all in all). It seems that they went the COD way and made a lot of corridors and choke points. The weapons are the same with a few tweaked stats in terms of handling. They also changed the way assaults and supporters work and they now carry small ammo/med packs into the field and you really have to work hard to earn the standard packs. The problem is that since the game suffers from selfishness syndrome you'll be lucky to have someone resupply you when you're low on ammo/health. No luck here so far.
Bugs:
- Multiplayer crashes (a lot) when I play so I'm lucky if I play a whole match without crashing. I have played three whole matches so far.
- When you reload half a clip in normal mode you loose the bullets in that clip. That was meant to be in hardcore mode but it's bugged. Add the small ammo packs to the mix that only refill one person and you'll be running with a pistol as your primary weapon half the time (unless you get shot).
As you can see from my rant they have a looong way to go. I'd stick to BF3 for a few more months and give it a 2/5 because hey at least the single player portion only crashed three times.
The front page says "Escapist Video Review"... but... unless I'm blind, I can't see the video? Disappointment abounds, I like listening to the video reviews. And now, you know, reading. :/
The multi player is Battlefield and with the addition of the commander and squad chat as well as the tweaks to classes is a significant improvement. The campaign however is forced on you which sucks if you want to get all the unlocks. I just keep waiting for Irish to say "It's all in the game" or start whistling Farmer in the Dell, it's very distracting.
Battlefield 3 came out in 2011. What about this screams a yearly release with a 2 year separation there? Doomsaying OP.Credossuck said:
How could that be? Their CEO just said [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129314-EA-CEO-Wants-Its-Games-to-Fail-For-the-Right-Reasons] they're trying real hard to not be a-holes anymore!Hawkeye21 said:
Sorry, I must be too cynical when it comes to EA.