It was November 2011. All of my friends were picking up MW3, and i had been a big fan of the previous iterations in the series (mw1 is my favorite fps of all-time) , but i felt that i really needed something different to play than just COD all the time.
Enter Bf3. EA had been touting its fps since it's reveal in January, and i had played the beta heavily while it had been available. The different pace of the multiplayer, and its 'destructable' environments were really osm and great. Even though none of my friends were going to buy it (even my best friend said i was making a mistake) i went with bf3 instead of Cod.
i ended up playing it for over 350 hours.
Fast-forward a few years, and Battlefield 4 has been released. Me, being a Sony guy, picked it up for the PS4, and in my 6 weeks with the game, i've sunken over 80 hours into it's multi. The multiplayer is the main focus of the series, and DICE knocks it out of the park. Sure there are some balancing isssues that render some guns absolutely useless and others op, but the it's still ridiculously fun experience. 64 player conquest is a sight to behold, but my favorite game mode is obliteration. There are many game modes that can fit anyone's play style, from fast paced TDM, to Conquest Large, there is something for everyone.
The map design is really good and they all have their own quirks and levolution events that make them all unique. There are many weapons in the game and DICE shook things up from Bf3. Instead of having DMR's exclusive to the recon class, they are now available for every class; and the same thing happened with carbines and the engineer class. While it is nice to be able to use a dmr as a support, or a carbine as an assault, having a large portion of the guns available for all of the classes kinda breaks up the class barriers and make the only difference between them the gadgets unique to them. Also, due to the balancing issues, DMR's in their current state are almost useless, while assault rifles (such as the ACE 23 and the M416 are slightly OP), and it doesn't look like DICE is going to be fixing this issue anytime soon.
While most people don't give a rat's ass about BF's campaign, I still try to give them a play through just to see what they are like, and i have to say, BF4's campaign wasn't that bad. It was no Halo or Spec ops , but it does what it sets out to do pretty well. It is kind of a run of the mill modern FPS campaign, and even though i love these types of games, their story telling could use improvement. The characters are all under-developed, with the slight exception of Irish, and the plot is pretty predictable, but i found it all to be a pretty fun experience. DICE wisely got rid of a lot of the linearity from Bf3 and instead gives the player alot more freedom in how they attack enemies. When DICE gives players the opportunity to approach enemies the way they want, the campaign is at its best.
Now to address the elephant in the room: the bugs. Across the 5 platforms, all of them has had some sort of issue and while everyone has had varying experiences with them, this wouldn't be and honest review if i ignored them. On launch day, Bf4 on the ps4 was a mess, and even though i didn't own a PS4 yet (I played at a friend's house, same friend who said i was making a mistake picking up bf3) we couldn't play any conquest at all. fast forward 2 and a half weeks, and alot of these issues were still there. I had gotten a Ps4 by then, and was disappointed to come across some of these issues even after a major patch. among some of the connectivity issues, there are some series netcode issues (too many freaking times, i've shot someone, seen the kill come up on my hud, but then die as i round a corner because they shot me on their screen and the game was too slow to register), battlelog can be a hit or miss experience, the lag can be infuriating, and at the beginning of matches their is no sound. With no word on when the next patch is coming out, is really disappointing that a studio as big as DICE released such a buggy game.
To wrap up my review: The graphics are amazing on the Ps4 even though there is some serious texture pop-in.
The sound is ridiculously osm, fully immersing you in the action.
60 frames per second, with 64 player conquest is an amazing experience
To put a score on the game, i'd have to give it a 7.5. When it works, BF4's multiplayer can be a 10/10 experience, but it doesn't work more often then it does. The campaign is okay, but it doensn't stand out from the mountians of other modern fps'. To close, this game feels like a big wasted opportunity. It's a shame that the game is so buggy because this was a chance for EA and DICE to really get a good foothold on the next-gen consoles, but they failed. The bugs in this game are so serious, that I really think Battlefield's rep has been trashed with the latest game, and that's a shame. The game is fun when it works, but it doesn't work often enough.
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psn id: rychussnik
