In anticipation of the upcoming World War I first person shooter, “Battlefield One,” I decided to test out the entry in the series I missed, “Battlefield: Hardline.” Snagging the game for $5 during PlayStation’s “Best of E3” sale, I was greeted to the fast paced world of cops and robbers.
Of course, I don’t remember robbers killing themselves in the hundreds for a bag of loot or cops following the same. I mean how would they even split all that loot among themselves? They’d get like what, a dollar? But, maybe, times are tough in whatever world “Hardline” takes place in. It’s true that any single match would be a national travesty, and after a few days of playing, I wonder how there was any criminals or cops left. Maybe, they weren’t going for realism.
What you get is a fun, solid offshoot of the “Battlefield” formula, even if it is flawed, and ultimately the weakest entry in the series. When I think of “Battlefield,” I think of laughing maniacally, with my friends questioning my sanity, as I throw C4 onto a four wheeler and crash it into an enemy tank before blowing it all sky high. I think of buildings exploding, raining down chunks of metal and steel. I think of the futility of war as I spend the better part of an hour trying to capture a point that just won’t stay captured.
My mind doesn’t automatically jump to driving around in a muscle car blaring rap music. Though, maybe that’s what hip with kids these days. I also don’t envision myself grabbing bags of cash from a downtown bank. Though I am a sucker for a good heist game (I sunk way too many hours into the bank robber game “Payday: The Heist”), Battlefield’s mechanics don’t gel with the narrative.
You’re either playing as the most noisiest criminals ever or the most inept cops. There’s never a moment where you get to sneak into the bank, taking out alarms or holding hostages nor do you get to plan and execute tactical SWAT take downs because that’s not “Battlefield.” “Battlefield” is pumping baddies full of lead, blowing stuff up while capturing points, and occasionally crashing a jet when you swear to your buddies you’ll be flying through the air like Tom Cruise in “Top Gun.”
Truthfully, “Hardline” is a fun game despite this, but that fun depends on how many friends you have playing. The single player isn’t worth sinking time into. You play as a cop, and it’s actually frowned upon to shoot baddies, which is sort of the point of the game, but I digress. Who plays “Battlefield” for its single player though?
Multiplayer is where the action is. Running across a roof top with a shotgun and doing my best Hans Gruber impression is always a good time, but I’d gladly give up on my criminal ways, turn in my badge, and take my draft card because this boy’s going to war.
