Say what you want about cinematic shooters; when they’re done right they can be absolutely breathtaking. And I have to admit that’s how I found myself after the first level of Battlefield 4’s campaign ‘ breathless. Despite the hollow nature of its ‘look don’t touch’ action sequences and the ridiculously over the top drama, I was squeezing the controller for dear life as I pushed on through the deafening explosions and stunning visuals.
Yes, it’s easy to be down on the simple and ‘ let’s face it ‘ shallow gameplay, but sometimes it’s even easier to just sit back and enjoy the ride.
DICE’s latest first-person shooter makes strides over its last game in this regard. Battlefield 3’s campaign was no less ambitious, but far more restricted in its gameplay. It tried to wow you by funnelling you down a very specific line and depending on your squadmates to move the action forward. Strictly speaking, the same is true of Battlefield 4, but the team has done a much better job of covering that up.
The vehicle sections are massively improved over last time
Vehicles now play a much more open-ended role. You can enter and exit them freely and in most cases you’ll have a large area to play around with them in. A quick skirmish across a city in a tank makes for several tense shootouts, while nimble boats are given huge playgrounds to skip waves in. It helps that the controls for both vehicles and the razor-sharp shooting are as tight as you could as for an AAA action game. All of that and you can open your own doors this time. Amazing, I know.
It’s clear that the team has taken on board criticisms of the last game in this area, although it’s still got a few kinks to work out in the story department. The plot is told through the bog standard ‘silent-protagonist watches his squadmates do the talking’ deal, but it’s got a few issues here. As squad leader, it’s jarring that your character remains completely silent when the team has its back pressed against the wall. There are some nice touches, like an effective delivery from The Wire’s Michael K Williams, but most of the moments when DICE is tugging at your heart strings either fall flat or feel corny.
There were some concerns about how Battlefield 4’s visuals may fair on the next generation systems, but the game really holds its own on PS4. It isn’t quite as stunning as some titles that have been developed exclusively for systems, but the detail on offer here is often dizzying. Waves smash into the side of wind-swept roads, rain torrents down buildings, reflecting dazzling light from all around, and dusty sandy stirs up around you as you pick off targets. The same goes for the audio, which Battlefield has already prided itself on. The ear-splintering gun shots and numbing explosions are at their best ever here. There’s still a few obvious signs that the game is also on PS3 and 360, so hopefully with the next game the team can get even more out of the systems.
Multiplayer remains best-in-class
Still, it’s easy to tire quickly of the endless ‘oh look at that’ and ‘Quick! Press this!’ moments. The campaign might be a stallion of presentation but it’s still a one trick pony. That’s especially true during one of the game’s many difficulty spikes. There will be a few points in each level where it feels like the team forgot to do a little balancing. Enemies surround and pound you while grenades rain down as if they fell from the clouds themselves. It’s safe to say there are more than one or two rage-quits during review sessions.
Of course, when you do tire of the endless noise, there’s still the main draw of any Battlefield game, the multiplayer.
DICE has a reputation for deep, rewarding multiplayer games and Battlefield 4 shows you why. The team has finally brought the full 64-player experience to console, having cut the numbers short in previous iterations. That means you can take part in full-scale battles without a decked out PC. The scale is definitely noticeable, particularly at the start of fights as teams stick close together.
Try as it might, DICE still hasn’t mastered story-telling
The online experience is overwhelmingly open-ended, with a huge amounts of modes and maps to explore while you level and customise your character to suit your play style. There’s not much here that’s especially innovative, it’s just all done very, very well. And at the starting point of the generation it’s a huge relief to have a multiplayer game of this scale and quality to keep you going through the slower launch months.
Still, we’ll admit to missing the days of Bad Company 2 and other more inventive entires in the Battlefield franchise. While both this and Battlefield 3 stack up well next to any other shooter (and yes, even it’s main rival), the series’ earlier days were undoubtedly more bold. There was a reason that Battlefield 2: Modern Combat survived for six years before a true sequel arrived, and we’d hope that it was publisher EA’s aim to support this one for that length of time too. We all know there will be people playing it for that long.
As far as ‘next generation’ shooters go, Battlefield 4 is currently your best bet to get shooty. It may well be that you’re over the bombastic, high-budget campaign approach, but it definitely provides some cheap thrills. The multiplayer, meanwhile, remains best-in-class. We just wish that class was a little more out there than the strict military shooter. We suspect that as the generation moves on and games like Titanfall try to push things forward, the series will have to drastically mix things up to survive. But for now, if you’re looking for the very basics in shooter satisfaction, DICE has you served this Christmas.
