It’s that time of the year when everyone gets excited for Call of Duty’s Next big release, and as usual it is released with plenty of fanfare, but this year it has to compete with what is usually considered its biggest rival, EA’s Battlefield 4. Now a lot of parallels can be drawn between these too big releases, they are both getting next gen releases as well as current gen, both have “Dynamic maps” and both seem to advertise the DLC packs more so than the actual game. Though that stops there, everyone knows the bonus of Battlefield is the size and scope of the maps, the fact that you can actually use vehicles instead of having kill streaks, which is what makes a Battlefield game ‘Battlefield’.
Battlefield 4 is a terrible sequel to battlefield 3, it is not a bad game in its own right, but it is in no way fit to be a new game in the franchise after Battlefield 3. Why you might ask? Well the game feels more like Battlefield 3.5, when someone see’s you play a game, they shouldn’t automatically assume it’s the version that came out 2 years ago, and the only indicator of this is a different UI change. Dice have used the new Frostbite Engine ‘Version 3’ however this does not change anything, the levels and weapons all look the same, it all feels like Battlefield 3, it doesn’t feel like there is anything new here apart from the “Dynamic” maps that has been showed around. This may seem like it’s a bit harsh for EA’s new blockbuster game, but when you look at the game objectively you can see what they were aiming for with it.
Premium is once again the same price as the game, sure it adds plenty of maps but Battlefield 4 looks identical to Battlefield 3 apart from some slight extras. This makes me question why this game wasn’t released as an expansion. I mean sure it’s been a long time since a good solid expansion pack has been released outside of…well blizzard games, but surely there is still a market for them?
Of course without releasing a new Battlefield game, how would EA be able to release a brand new premium pack? Because after the entire first set went down swimmingly and didn’t decimate the player base by isolating them into so many different groups, did it? When China Rising the “pre order” DLC hits, that will also split the community even more, and considering that Bad Company 2 still has a massive player base, many are questioning if Battlefield 4 is even needed.
Another great mishap for this game is the glitches, so many game breaking bugs that you have to wonder with the amount of money that is sunk into these games, why the Internal Game Testers, Quality Control Unit or even the Q&A, the Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Closed Beta and Open Beta did not find and fix all these issues, this is just abysmal.
The single player pre-set ‘cinematic’ moments becoming completely out of sync, with explosions occurring 10 seconds after the sound effects play, and the camera moves and pans across to seemingly nothing. One of the more amusing of these was that if a silencer was attached to a certain weapon, the whole server became muted, this couldn’t even be ignored as a small error, this is a massive server effecting glitch and it was not even fixed before release or a patch pushed through on release of the game.
Of course there is more to Battlefield 4 than just the multi-player, though if you do bother to go through the single player campaign, you wouldn’t think each section was deemed as important, or even the single player was just a secondary thought. The length of the campaign is very short, 4 hours at most which is pretty pour, sure I could get months from multi player, but of course now this kind of length is deemed acceptable. The campaign is very movie orientated, big wonderful looking set pieces, big explosions and some very owe inspiring moments which look fantastic as your running around. Of course as already mentioned this is if you can see them without it glitch out and loosing timing of the event which seems to of happened a lot for myself. The story is mediocre at best, it’s what we’ve seen before plenty of times before, gung ho and all that, it just gets very boring very quickly .
Right, let’s move away from the issues of the game ‘somewhat’ and move towards what we expect from a Battlefield game, massive 64 player multi-player zones, ranging from wide open, to the industrial and building complexes. Each level has plenty of opportunities to take advantage of long range kills with the faithful sniper rifle, or the use of some well-placed tank shells. The zones also give plenty of space for jets or helicopters to come and give support or pick up a player who just happens to be a bit too far from the combat.
Now these levels are exactly what you have come to expect from a Battlefield game and with the use of the new Frostbite 3 Engine which does improve the visuals, yet for me, it still felt like I was playing the previous game which is a shame. What really makes this version different to Battlefield 3, is the dynamic maps, which allow you to cause a large cinematic, which even changes the entire scope of the level, be it destroying a building or breaking a dam to flood an entire map. The new events are fun and fresh, due to these being scripted events you know exactly when they are going to happen, not really realistic like you would expect? In the end these events lose their shininess and become dull and boring. Take the damage that was present in the last two games, you could never destroy whole buildings, just set areas would be destroyable, it was so predictable it wasn’t anything big, it was just boring.
When it was first announced that Battlefield would have destructible terrain, people hoped for buildings being reduced to rubble, players being able to hide behind rocks, instead we get tiny holes in walls, and one scripted event per map, underwhelming is an understatement.
Battlefield 4 feels like a game that was rushed out of the door to take advantage of the release of the Next Generation of Systems, a game that looks and feels like Battlefield 3. The game has been released with many glitches and could not have in anyway been tested in-depth by the quality team. Many gamers are angry as they feel this is simply a way to cash in with a new generation, especially with the premium pack.
There was nothing wrong with Battlefield 3 and to say the upgrades are “dynamic” maps is just a little bit of faff, and those who own the previous versions may not even bother with this version. Saying that if you skipped Battlefield 3, you will be getting a fresh new game that is completely fresh in comparison to Bad Company 2, or even Battlefield 2, for the rest of you, not so much, for that the game gets 3/5.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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