Battlefield Hardline’s multiplayer has launched without disaster. There
are glitches and dumb physics (which could be said about any
Battlefield), but hell, it works, and it’s fun. After Battlefield 4,
that deserves a clap. A slow, slightly sarcastic clap, but a clap.
Bravo!
Hardline is fun, but in the words of Roger Murtaugh, I’m getting too
old for this shit. It’s exhausting. I pine for Battlefield 1942’s simple
structures, sprawling terrain, and Lee-Enfield rifles. The same
fundamentals are still here—big maps, classes, vehicles, 64 players—but
the speed and firepower of Hardline make it a constant struggle to
survive long enough to do anything fun.
It’s got the rhythm of an old car lurching forward and then bouncing
back off its front tires. I spawn into a helicopter and blow up
immediately, or spawn on my squadmate and instantly trade lives
(somehow) with a guy right in front of me, or spawn and get run over, or
spawn and drive head first into an RPG. Objectives are pelted with
explosives and there's always someone with a shotgun around the corner
(or crouching in the corner). When crappy, short lives like these pile
up one after the other, the screen gets a good flipping off.
The only thing I wouldn’t mind going faster are the unlocks. There
aren’t all that many guns, but not having the good ones is a barrier to
fun. I spent the first several hours struggling with the Mechanic’s
default MP5K, losing short range duels I felt I should have won. So I
switched to the assault rifle-carrying Operator and had a better
experience. And then I realized I had a battlepack sitting unopened with
my Deluxe Edition ACWR carbine. Suddenly I’m getting tons of kills, and
that’s some bullshit. My apparent skill level shouldn’t jump a bunch of
notches because I have a special weapon. I like progression systems
because they give me something to work toward—guns and attachments to
experiment with—but I’m interested in lateral progression. It shouldn’t
feel like I’m walking head first into a gale of bullets until I
progress.
And while Battlefield’s signature glitchy physics anomalies can be fun
(I saw a motorcycle launch into a helicopter, hehe), I have a lot of
questions about my bullets. Hardline has not launched disastrously, no,
but I have experienced occasional frustrations—apparent hits that don’t
register, or being killed through a door before it opens and before I
should have even been visible to the enemy. It’s hard to prove any of
this stuff when it’s subtle, but I’m not the only one noticing it.
Battlewheeled
But if all that doesn’t aggravate you so much that you step away, this
stupid game is a lot of fun. My favorite mode is Hotwire, which
epitomizes Hardline’s speed. It’s still about capturing and controlling
points, but those points are now cars which must be driven around the
map. This makes sense, because driving cars in circles is how you uphold
the law, and also break it.
There are three basic activities in
Hotwire—finding RPGs and blowing up cars, providing air support, and
driving or riding in cars—along with little shootouts when you cross
paths with the enemy on the way to do those things. When you’re bouncing
around in a car with music going, leaning out the window spraying
bullets, it’s hard not to have fun.
The biggest problem with Hotwire is that while the new cars are mostly
nice to control on a keyboard (a light tap on the brakes really zips you
around corners), they sometimes want to go faster than the server,
stuttering and rubberbanding against each other as the physics sorts
itself out. One time I collided with a motorcycle and flew into the
ocean—and I was in a sedan. The maps also feel way too small—Hardline
seems to value speed over size—and I’m often driving out of bounds.
You'd have to be a pretty good sniper to hit anything from a moving car, but be my guest!
Heist, in which the criminals must steal two packages and deliver them
to drop off points, works well on maps that are big enough to support
it. In some cases, it’s just a meatgrinder, but the Bank Heist map
especially can be tactically rewarding. Coordinated squad work is
essential, and I only wish people talked to each other more.
I also really enjoy Blood Money on maps with vehicles. It’s as
nonsensical as Hotwire: both teams must retrieve cash from a central
repository and deliver it to their vaults, but can also steal from each
other’s vaults. There’s just constantly stuff to do. Grab an armored
truck and drive it into the enemy vault if you want, or just chase
around their money carriers, or steal some cash yourself, or find a
Stinger and blow up a helicopter. You’re going to be blown up too, any
second now, so just go nuts. It’s a madhouse. It’s tiring. And it’s an
enjoyable, loud, farcical chaos that will probably get old, but for now
is a big, dumb exploding playground.
Conquest and TDM are back, too. Conquest is conquest, and still fun
even though it has nothing to do with the cops and robbers theme, and
TDM is where people go to speed through the progression—that hasn’t
changed. There are also two new 5v5 modes, and while they’re fine
(Counter-Strike on big, open maps, essentially), they’re not being
played much. I don’t expect Hardline to compete with CS:GO. It’s just
not what it’s about.
Good cop, sad cop
The Hardline campaign is to The Shield
what Call of Duty is to Tom Clancy novels. They’re both stories of
corruption and betrayal—tough men with tough faces making tough
choices—but any grounding in real police or military work is upended by
car chases and shootouts and last second escapes, explosions and
impossible odds.
“This city is a battlefield… and you’re walking a fine line, kid.”
“No, sir, I’m taking a hardline.” Pew pew!
Alright,
it’s not that dumb. The story’s actually fine: you, a good and honest
cop, are a pawn in a corrupt force’s drug game, and it’s time to take out the trash.
(Also not a real line, but I’m just summarizing here.) The acting is
good—there are some talented folks involved—though sometimes the
plasticine faces are creepy. Whenever Nicholas Gonzalez or Kelly Hu
sweat it looks like their skin is going to melt into a puddle.
Police
work is simple in Hardline: arrest criminals, shoot criminals when you
can’t arrest them, find evidence. It has so little basis in reality, my
initial unease about the subject matter—modern police corruption and
brutality isn’t a frivolous subject, especially right now—almost wholly
evaporated. I had to laugh when I was reprimanded because my partner
punched a guy after the two of us filled a hotel with bodies. The bad
guys are gun toting lunatics, you’re a gun toting lunatic, and everyone
shoots everyone. It’s a lot like Max Payne in that respect.
It
plays a little like Payne, too. There’s no shootdodging, but each room
is something to try and try again until the puzzle is solved. Generally,
I solved that puzzle like Max would: by shooting everyone. I’m
crouch-walking between cover, conserving ammo and taking shots
carefully, and it doesn’t take much to kill me. This is true, at least,
on the hardest mode, which is how I recommend you play Hardline. It’s a
decent shooter campaign, with the freedom to take on most areas from a
variety of positions and with the arsenal and gadgets of my choosing.
In
one part, I have to breach one of two buildings, the outsides of which
are guarded by patrolling baddies. So, what’s a cop to do but load up
with a grappling hook, zipline, revolver, and P90 submachinegun? I
approach around an unguarded side of the right building, and fire my
grappling hook to the roof. I could have gone any other way, but this
way I’m up and out of sight quickly. As I creep through the roof access
door, though, I’m spotted. A quick finger on ‘G’ flashes my badge.
“Freeze!”
Police academy
performance and settings
Unlike Max Payne, Nick Mendoza can actually do police stuff. He can
make arrests (sometimes) instead of shooting, it’s just a bit tedious.
Flashing your badge at isolated enemies causes them to drop their guns
and surrender, at which point you can take them down and cuff them. Then
they fall asleep. Seriously, there are ‘Z’s above their heads.
The catch is that you can’t arrest more than three guys at once, and if
you’re spotted cuffing someone, they’ll open fire. It’s the most
ridiculous thing about Hardline’s campaign, and it’s not a great a deal
of fun—it’s Metal Gear Lite. Later in the game, for instance, I was in a
small room with about eight guys. Tossing a shell draws guards to me
one at a time so they can be arrested in my secluded arrestin’ spot. I
cleared the room slowly, building a pile of sleeping goons in my little
corner. Hard as it would’ve been, the John Wick approach would’ve been
more fun. And the fact that you can arrest criminals makes it even
weirder, and slightly uncomfortable, that you can shoot them. Either I’m
Max Payne or I’m Lennie Briscoe, either this is a shooter or it’s
Police Quest—I don’t think you can have it both ways.
I’m rewarded for the non-violent approach and other police-like
behavior with points, but none of it really feels worth it. Early on,
I’m driving around a swamp boat with my partner, having long boring
chats as I poke around for evidence. I have to peer through my ‘scanner’
to collect evidence (it’s much better utilized as a way to mark enemies
and alarm systems), shuffling around looking for highlighted objects to
click on. Sometimes you have to collect evidence to progress, but I
didn’t go above and beyond. Because it’s boring. Oh, and there are a
couple mandatory stealth (get ready to run from spotlights) and car
chase sequences that just obstruct the good, more open sections. They
are not very fun.
But when it’s not infuriating, Hardline is fun—weird, chaotic, brutal
fun. The multiplayer is the important bit, and it’s a parade of points,
mini-achievements, goofy car crashes, motorcycles flying into
helicopters, and incendiary grenades. It’s too much too fast, with a low
time-to-kill that makes every life fleeting. It’s not elegant, but the
lawless bedlam has its moments. When I’m doing well, getting kills and
screaming around a map in a stolen sports car, it’s worth it.
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