Battlefield 4 Review


Falling skyscrapers, thunderous effects and super graphics; EA finally outdid themselves! So, the main selling point of both next gen rivals, Sony’s Playstation 4 and Microsoft’s X-Bone was that they were taking games literally further in terms of graphics. I can’t speak for Microsoft in terms of how far they’ve taken graphics (probably around the corner for a kebab), but Sony has really given fans their moneys worth by taking graphics to the moon and back! This is most evident in EA’s next installation into the Battlefield series, Battlefield 4. Battlefield 4 was available to the world from the 07/11/2013 on the next gen consoles, but already with Sony vastly outselling it’s main Microsoft competitor it was destined to find it’s home among the heart of Sony fans. But is better graphics alone enough to spend £60 on a game? Well no, obviously not, otherwise game developers wouldn’t sell so much as a really, really, detailed picture of a hot-dog. So, no. That’s why it’s a brilliant thing that Battlefield 4 not only lives up to it’s predecessors, but improves upon them. Starting with the positives, the multiplayer experience is phenomenal, a straight forward levelling-up systems won’t confuse players as much as multiplayer has for other games (cough Call of Duty). Although this doesn’t mean that the online is biased towards more dedicated players, there are many ways to level up from providing ammo/health to repairing your team-mates’ vehicles. The environment is smooth and beautiful on the next gen console,  although players will be more focussed by the fact that you can literally blow up everything. Apart from trees, they still stand to be the most powerful components of the series. The spawn system encourages building squads and extending your friends lists which gaming has always been about, since when we invited our buds around to play Crash Bandicoot. The trophies online are relatively easy to obtain however perfectionists who want that 100% will have to download the map packs; this is more a fault of the PS4 rather than Battlefield itself. The campaign does fail to impress though, with the epic Battlefield 3 campaign, players will feel disappointed and saddened because EA have spent too much time on falling skyscrapers and not enough time on the actual campaign. Example, a Chinese character named Hannah. Enough said. Players will play as squad leader Recker who leads a squad against what players will feel is the whole of China, set in the near future the storyline is basically America vs China. However a good system comes from the campaign, the engage option where players can order the squad to kill people; but not much else. This is pretty interesting considering you play another mute lead, this shows the laziness that EA approached the campaign with. The levels are quick and easy, although the collectables and trophies allows players to have multiple playthroughs; this saves the games reputation. Although, fans will have to say a tearful farewell to the brilliant Battlefield 3 co-op missions, that were solely underrated and overlooked. EA made mountainous progression in terms of graphics and multiplayer, but drew up blanks in the rest of the game. Next gen consoles are the future, if game developers want to charge so much, then they should realise players aren’t the mindless eight year old boys that you find in Call of Duty; story is everything, impressive graphics and multiplayer but EA could give Treyarch a run in the money for the most sloppy campaign.