Battlefield Hardline

- Reviewed on PS4 -

Battlefield Hardline released on March 17th, 2015.

Taking a detour from its traditional, war like, military persona, Battlefield Hardline is / was an enjoyable story (game) full of plot twists, memorable characters, outstanding graphics that hold up even today (as of writing this blog post), and addicting gameplay that really serves, both, stealth players, and the traditional war like (non-stop action) players!

Developed by Visceral Games, this episodic, police game, takes you on a thrill ride that you should definitely seek out if you haven't already. 

This review WILL have Major Spoilers so keep that in mind before continuing...

Battlefield Hardline is a game that I truly adored from a game design and storytelling prospective.

To start, Battlefield Hardline's story is an extremely well written plot that includes many talented voice actors (and screen actors) and combining this with excellent gameplay and realistic graphics... it was pure magic!

Nicholas Gonzalez, Kelly Hu, Alexandra Daddario, Benito Martinez, Eugene Byrd, and a ton of others, brought their characters to life. 

Some (majority) of the actors in this title even had their likeliness (appearances) imported into the game via motion capture!

The story (SPOILER) is about a Miami police officer (detective) named Nicholas Mendoza who is partnered with Khai Dao (another detective) to help bring an end to the ongoing drug war. 

Battlefield Hardline takes place in Miami, and with this installment of Battlefield being episodic, there are a total of 10 episodes (missions), 11 if you include the prologue, that you can play. 

The episode names are...

    - Back to School

    - Checking Out

    - Gator Bait

    - Case Closed

    - Gauntlet

    - Out of Business

    - Glass Houses

    - Sovereign Land

    - Independence Day

    - Legacy

Each mission has two main collectibles for you to be on the lookout for. 

They're completely optional but do serve an important purpose of unlocking more gear, such as weapons, attachments, and / or increasing your rank. 

These collectibles are Warrants and Evidence. 

These collectibles play into the gameplay quite well as you will be using the Police Scanner a lot in Battlefield Hardline.

The scanner helps you scan for enemies nearby, evidence, and if an enemy has a warrant, you can scan their face and once (or if) they're arrested, you can gain a lot of experience points.

Evidence meanwhile needs to be scanned and can be located by using the meter in the top left corner. 

This brings me to my earlier statement of two different playstyles in Battlefield Hardline. The stealthy approach and out right firing approach.

I found in my playthrough that I absolutely must do the stealth playstyle first, in order to obtain all collectibles (which I succeeded in doing so), and if I needed to revisit a level (episode) and get a warrant or evidence I missed, I could then go guns blazing and get it done quick.

The game is generous in allowing you to revisit episodes before beating the whole campaign, but I hated how I had to watch cutscenes I've already seen and couldn't skip them. 

I believe whole heartily that Visceral Games intended players to be stealthy, as the missions themselves aren't long at all but are only long if you take the quiet approach instead of head on. 

There still is multiplayer for the guns blazing playstyle, so don't worry if you think Battlefield Hardline is only for stealthy playstyles! 

You can use suppressed weaponry, or most of the time, freeze enemies by showing your badge and arresting them. 

Don't worry, you have unlimited handcuffs apparently in Battlefield Hardline too.

Using other gear such as the grappling hook or zipline is also available for you to enhance your gameplay.

My favorite aspect of Battlefield Hardline is not only the story, and the characters, but the graphics!

The lighting in the many vibrant locations such as the swamp or even downtown Miami were beautiful, and the sound design is great too with accurate weaponry sounds and the satisfying scanner beep when you find something important. 

The scanner will also buzz and shake the PS4 controller if / when you're near an unscanned piece of evidence. 

If you collect an enemy's gun that you haven't unlocked, you automatically unlock that specific gun then and there, if you haven't already reached that required rank yet. 

I thought this was clever, and using the scanner to see the red outline of dropped guns helped me know if I needed to go near that enemy's corpse or not. 

Using the scanner and zooming towards enemies also plays their audio conversations that you couldn't otherwise hear, and this also works for wildlife! 

For example, in the Gator Bait episode I curiously zoomed into a gator and started hearing its hissing.

Little details like this in the gameplay and graphics make Battlefield Hardline so memorable and enjoyable! 

One thing that was not memorable, nor enjoyable, were the glitches / bugs.

The biggest flaw was the audio mishaps where it would stop playing dialogue during cutscenes, or in the midst of gunfire. 

A detection meter is also used in gameplay, where if the curved white line expands too far, the enemy can now see you.

I say this, because sometimes you'll hide to avoid the bar from filling, but for some reason the enemy could still see you (me) and cause my stealth approach to fail.

You can also throw bullet casing to distract enemies and make them move if / when needed, by pressing the touch pad in, on the PS4 controller. 

The radar in the lower left corner at all times marks the distractions and when an enemy is alert, the theme turns into a yellowish field. A red aura on the radar means they see / know your there. 

There were only two episodes (Gator Bait and Legacy) that were semi open world, and all the rest were very linear. 

I didn't understand the approach to this, but perhaps since Battlefield Hardline only has 10 episodes, this could've been to stretch out the length, considering collectibles are again, optional. 

Another feature that had sparce appearances were driving vehicles. 

However, when you did drive a car or even a tank in one episode for example, the controls were very well programmed and realistic!

Battlefield Hardline might not be as popular as other Battlefield installments, but the campaign and the unlockables were just so good that I had to revisit this game years later! 

I highly recommend playing this in order to experience this great story that I didn't want to spoil too much of.

Pros: 

    - Memorable Characters, Plot, Settings, etc.

    - Great Sound Design

    - Collectibles

    - Smooth Frame Rate Throughout (at least on PS4)

    - Enjoyable and Satisfying Gameplay (such as the Scanner and Arresting Enemies)

    - Multiplayer

Cons:

    - Audio Glitches / Bugs

    - Not the Best Replayability for Campaign

My Rating for Battlefield Hardline (on PS4):

4 / 5

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Disclaimer

All Reviews, Ratings, Pros, Cons, and Opinions Shared on this Blog (Press A Reviews) are my (Connor Butler) own Thoughts and Feelings.