Battlefield: Hardline

[FlyingMongoose]

Some leaks thanks to NeoGAF http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=826582

Yet another installment of: "Not really battlefield since at least 2142 since that was still at least BF2 engine and kind of counts"...

[FlyingMongoose]

http://blogs.battlefield.com/2014/05/bf-...this-fall/

Official announcement, now that the leak happened...

[Versus]

relieved because it's not dice?

[FlyingMongoose]

No. Dice is actually a solid company the problem is they listen to their EA Puppet masters about stupid shit.

Sent from my subdermal neurological implant.

[Squishy3]

relieved because it's not dice?

yeah but this is also the company that made dead space 3

[K2]

No. Dice is actually a solid company the problem is they listen to their EA Puppet masters about stupid shit.

Sent from my subdermal neurological implant.

I could understand the DICE apologists a couple years ago, but at this point it's getting really hard to believe that EA is solely responsible for all the shoddy crap they've done.

[FlyingMongoose]

[quote author=FlyingMongoose link=topic=7271.msg278825#msg278825 date=1401461722]
No. Dice is actually a solid company the problem is they listen to their EA Puppet masters about stupid shit.

Sent from my subdermal neurological implant.

I could understand the DICE apologists a couple years ago, but at this point it's getting really hard to believe that EA is solely responsible for all the shoddy crap they've done.
[/quote]

Typically you don't say no to the people who pay you.

It's EA's fault. Not Dice, Dice themselves had made solid improvements to numerous game engines (merging works to make the BF2 engine which many of their games ran on), they had a near-open platform (much like valve does with Source), a solid development community, and lots of great developer and community interaction. Hey guess who runs all of Dice's PR and community management? Oh yeah, EA execs and reps.

Dice themselves also was originally founded by a team that made a little Half-Life mod called Firearms (ages ago).

Dice, as a developer is solid, and if Dice themselves had the choice, this frostbite engine would be as open as the bf2 engine was for development. But no that was EA's call, they want exclusivity on that engine.

Valve is the only company that actually has a good deal with EA, EA prints, distributes, and publishes Valve titles, but only the discs, all other aspects of any valve game remain the sole intellectual property of valve, no ifs ands or buts about it, any artwork, logos, etc represented by said boxes, all property of valve excepting in the case of the tiny little EA logo that gets put on the physical boxes of valve titles.

Back to EA being the primary cause of problems, oh yeah, PR and community interaction is run by EA, the lack of solid server administration support is because EA got too many complaints about "badmins", it wasn't Dice who got those complaints, it was EA, so EA said "Anyone who wants to run an "official server" isn't allowed to have control over it", and so Dice complied.

I am a Dice apologizer because of the fact that EA is the problem here, not Dice, hell, EA's been sued in the UK for numerous things.

[FlyingMongoose]

After this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex1GlZS-t7c

It looks like a cross between Payday and BF2: Special Forces, if only it actually was like that... I honestly don't expect much out of it.

[cbre88x]

I got in the Beta. I'll let you know how it pans out.

[Cineo]

I'm In too Origin ID: KillerObe

[cbre88x]

It's BF4 cops and robbers edition. It's kind of cool, but it's nothing I would pay more than $20 or $30 to get. It's more like a BF4 mod than a stand alone release (unless they include a single player campaign).

[Cineo]

The single player campaign is supposed to be a big draw to it but I agree. It's basically a over glorified DLC for BF4. (which was a over glorified DLC for BF3)

[backfire]

So I think I got into the beta. I have the game downloaded but it's still not letting me play it. Is being in the beta and having the game on your origin account not the same or something? I'm in.

[Goffin]

Fuck EA


Fin

[FlyingMongoose]

Fuck EA


Fin

Yeah I will not be running a server for this title. I may pick it up if they do a 50% sale on it next year like they're doing with BF4 for E3 right now.

[zaneyard]

BF is EA's CoD.

[FlyingMongoose]

It is,

I am in the beta now... we shall see how I feel or if I get a chance to play it.

[FlyingMongoose]

So I was able to sit down and play Hardline alongside a friend.


The beta currently only has one map based on a small section of downtown Los Angeles, the game's theme seems to be based on early to mid 90's cop dramas alongside the news stories of that time as well. Despite the tech and weapons being current (at least current enough).

You earn money, and you can utilize that money to upgrade your weapons and equipment and vehicles (similar to points in other games). None of these upgrades seem to provide any major advantage.

Currently there are two game modes available:
Heist and Blood Money.

As it was the first mode i played I will outline Heist first. When you spawn in as the robbers/thieves you see a series of police vehicles and a couple of armored trucks topple over and one falls over a bridge. As the robbers it is your job to plant explosives on the doors of those armored trucks, steal the loot, and take it to an escape point, of which there are two possible.

One escape point (which seems to spawn more often) is behind a blockade of police (why the police don't just take the vehicle I don't know), the other is on the roof of a building (a lot more difficult to get to). I do believe the escape point spawning is a little broken as I've seen some people move to the rooftop attempts, while I still saw the ground escape option.

Of course, the downside to the current positioning of the armored cars is they are very close to each other, and having enough enemies close by to those cars as the robbers can make it damn near impossible to get out with any loot. In order to win as the robbers you must get the loot from BOTH armored cars.

The other game mode, Blood Money is sort of like a capture-the-flag, there is a loot drop or some safety deposit boxes or something in a central location, both the cops, and the robbers are tasked to get $5 million to their vault prior to the opposing team doing so, each player can carry a maximum of 500K (takes about 3 seconds while holding E at the loot location to get 100K meaning you have 15 seconds prior to being able to leave unless you only take small amounts at a time). As there is only one loot drop location this is a highly contested area, however, you can steal loot from your opposing team's vault, last night I played and we not only managed to win with 5 million, we emptied out their vault too, at least the best we could, it was 5 million to 4.8 million, but pulling out all we could at their vault took it down to 5 million to 2.2 million. That was a rather intense battle.

In classic BF fashion you have numerous vehicles that can be driven, but they, unlike in BF4 and other predecessors, are not armor plated and they CAN be taken down with enough general gunfire (this makes them more viable as quick entry and quick escape as they do move fast, but less viable as something to defend yourself with) rocket launchers are simply devastating to all vehicles. The Vehicles are as follows
Attack Helicopter - Both Teams
Escort Helicopter - Both Teams
Armored SUV - Robbers
Mobile Command Unit - Police
Cruiser - Police
Interceptor - Police
Sedan - Robbers
Muscle Car - Robbers
Motorcycle - Both Teams

This game was developed by Visceral games, one of EA's many development studios, but it doesn't necessarily feel like EA's pushing buttons (as much) here as they did with BF4. They are most well known for Dead Space. It seems like the Dice is only "on the box" because they were the lead developers behind the frostbite engine, and EA because, well, Visceral is an EA subsidiary, but also the publisher.

But the plain and simple of it all is, what it boils down to, as it does with all games, is it fun? Did I enjoy my time playing it. Honestly, yes, I did have fun playing it. I didn't get to play around with the grapling hook or zip line as much as I would have liked, but I did enjoy it. Do I think in it's current state it's a full priced title? No. But maybe after a few more maps, and maybe a couple more game modes, and the single player get unveiled I may say differently.

[FlyingMongoose]

Those of you who want to, I'm going to be playing in a few minutes.

[Goffin]

I got in the beta on the weekend and have yet to fire it up.      EA still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  Hit me up on Steam Goose and i'll be your wingman.        Can we just get in a car and spam the horn?  That sounds like fun to me.  ;D