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Battlefield: Hardline Game Review

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q0r5sr3kccqdbasd5lyrIt’s easy to see why games producer Visceral made a decision to change up the pace with Battlefield: Hardline. After the much criticised (but nonetheless well acclaimed) Battlefield 4, most players would agree that the typical war format of First Person Shooters (FPS) has been done to extinction. As such Battlefield: Hardline represents a refreshing take in the genre; the Lethal weapon, the Michael Bay, the Die Hard or Bad Boys film. The presentation visuals being instantly recognisable to a weekend cop show and, it has to be said, for each and every moment of distinction it actually feels better for it.

Hardline follows a hard-working, honest young cop as he helps tackle a drug ring, falls afoul of police corruption then tries to set the world to rights. It’s a plot that seems determined to pack in every imaginable cop movie cliché, but wins you over thanks to entertaining dialogue, a little personality and a desire to put you in the thick of some amazing action scenes.

Some of the pillars of previous Battlefield games return: this is still primarily a first-person shooter where you’re propelled along from one objective to the next. Much too is made of the series’ signature destructible scenery, which sees solid-looking stud walls torn apart by shotgun explosions, and a rusty trailer offer little protection when you’re under assault from buggies with mounted heavy machine guns. Yet Hardline does bring something new to the table, by emphasising stealth and infiltration over all-out warfare and by focusing on non-lethal takedowns as well as headshots.

Playing this online game you learn different techniques of getting through each scenario, sometimes you need to sneak up on enemies and take them down one by one, sometimes you need to arrest them with badge and gun. using this method means you rank up faster and unlocking new weapons, customisations and gadgets you can use within the campaign, while the same goes for using your handy scanner to find crucial bits of evidence. You’ll still find sequences where you’ll be forced to fight your way through waves of attackers in a more standard Battlefield style, but these tend to be lobbed in as climactic set-pieces – and even here there are rewards for playing smart. In short, Hardline actually makes something of its whole cops and robbers premise, whether or not it can’t resist the occasional shoot-out, or blow up the entire set with spectacular set pieces.

And what set pieces await you aren’t restricted to the cops and robbers premise, crazy tank vs helicopter scenes out in the desert, car chases through industrial zones or a frantic escape through a ramshackle town and down a mountain, hiding from searchlights and patrols. A great deal of action games boast of being thrillers, but Hardline can be thrilling and quite suspenseful owing to the episodic nature of the campaigns meaning the characters actually have an story arc through the game and as a result you actually start to care about them, compare that to Battlefield or Call of Duty where you could play literally anyone from a multitude of characters who may actually die at the end of the stage.

Yes there is still the occasional classic ‘follow this person and do what they say’ kind of stuff, whilst some episodes are happy to give you an objective in addition to a wide area full of possible routes and bad guys, and leave you to make your own way through. New gadgets, together with a grappling gun and a mobile zip line, play their part, giving you ways to find a way in from the rooftops or over the wall. It doesn’t always work, with suspiciously brilliant sharpshooters, alarms and minimal checkpointing spoiling the fun, but by and large it’s a minor distraction.gYph9WmIK8l6.878x0.Z-Z96KYq

I played the game on a PS4 and I was a fan of the quality of the visuals and the trademark Battlefield destructible scenery. Character models, skin and shiny surfaces look wonderful, so does the voice overs although I did spot some lip sync problems a few times. My other problem with the game was the length of time it took to download, my gosh it was hefty. The full download of all the episodes taking a good few hours to complete, this was even when it bought was on a physical disc. I felt annoyed that I actually couldn’t play the game straight out of the box.

So how does battlefield measure up on-line? Well, the cops and robbers modes play out a bit like ‘Heist’ ‘Payday’ and ‘GTAV’ rolled into one. Having said that I am going to go on record and say that they are not all as brilliant as you might expect, variants of the genres we’ve seen and played before ‘capture the flag’ is heist under another guise, where one team has to grab a bag from a vault and take it to the extraction point while the other team try to stop them.

Hardline affords four separate classes – Operator, Engineers, Enforce and Specialist – with loads of unlocks and weapon upgrades available, there’s no shortage of scope for detailed customisation. Similarly, the maps won’t yield up all their secrets overnight, with vantage points to discover, interactive elements to mess around with and some great rooftops and towers where you can put the grapple gun and zipwire to good use.

Verdict:

I really like Battlefield: Hardline; the single-player campaign just works brilliantly and it has a fantastic set up as a big, dumbass cop action thriller. As a game it easily fits into the class of ‘next gen’ in terms of the quality of graphics and sound. Multiplayer too is enjoyable and competitive. Yes hard Hardline does have faults but in my opinion they are minor faults in what otherwise is one heck of an enjoyable romp.

8.5 / 10

Battlefield: Hardline is out now

 

Stores Open At Midnight For Call Of Duties: Ghosts Release

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Midnight launch of Call of Duty®: GhostsCall of Duty: Ghosts

 Stores will be on duty at midnight on Monday 4th November, in preparation for the 5th November launch of Call of Duty®: Ghosts

The Xbox and PS3 game franchise that has defined a generation of gaming will be available in-store and online for just £39.97 on 5th November 2013, promising to be the most popular game of 2013. Call of Duty: Ghosts takes on an intense plot, leaving players on the side of a crippled nation fighting to survive.

 

The single player campaign will include an entirely new cast of characters in a changed world unlike anything seen in Call of Duty before. For the first time players will take on the underdog role in a battle to reclaim a fallen nation.

The multiplayer mode has been re-developed to introduce a new ‘Create-A-Soldier’ system in which players can personalise their soldier with 9,000 possible combinations and experience seven new multiplayer modes such as Cranked, Search & Rescue and Blitz.

 As well as offering the hit game at just £39.97, Asda has also stocked up on the following exclusive Call of Duty: Ghosts deals and products:

 

–       Special edition (Hardened Edition) Call of Duty: Ghosts available in limited supply in all stores for £69.00.

–       Get the new The Marshall Mathers LP2 album by Eminem, the creator of the official soundtrack to Call of Duty: Ghosts, which is also released on 5th November for just £7 on purchase of the game

–         Call of Duty: Ghosts branded Monster Energy Drinks with a new DLC code in each can- £3 for a four pack

–         Exclusive Call of Duty: Ghosts Turtle Beach gaming headsets, £69.97, to ensure you’re fully equipped for battle

–         Additional Call of Duty: Ghosts merchandise including iPhone cases, £10 and t-shirts, £8

 

Call of Duty: Ghosts will be released on Xbox 360®, PlayStation®3, Nintendo® Wii U, PC, and next-generation platforms, from 5th November.

To meet the massive demand, selected stores will be open at midnight on Monday 4th November. Call of Duty fans will get the chance to be first in the queue to experience the long awaited next installment of the biggest entertainment franchise in the world.

 

Who is the average gamer?

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snoopdoggcomputergamesWith mobile and tablet content steering younger audiences away from the traditional consoles, the face of the average gamer has changed. As the selection of game apps increases and dedicated gaming sites, such as MoneyGaming.com begin to tailor their products to the mobile platform, the stereotypical teenage gamer demographic has migrated from their TV screens to their smartphone screens.

According to a new study, the modern day gamer is actually 35-years-old, married and earning £23,000 a year. These settled, working Brits will play on consoles for around two and a half hours each day for five days a week. They will regularly play until 10.58 pm and own 18 games and two consoles, with the most popular console being the Wii followed by the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

The study asked 2,000 Brits who considered themselves to be gamers, about their lifestyles and playing habits. On average gamers will indulge their gaming interests by staying up as late as 1.12am and queuing for hours at a midnight store opening in order to get their hands on a new game once a year. There is also no gender divide, with female players spending as much time and money on games as their male equivalents.

“The image most people have of a gamer is usually a young boy, holed up for hours on end in their bedroom, only stopping the game for food, drink and toiler breaks. But these results show that the stereotype couldn’t be more wrong,” said a spokesman for Pixwoo.com, the social media network that commissioned the study.

“Not only are women just as likely to be gamers as men, but we are talking about fully grown adults who work, have a family and are in a relationship. Gaming is no longer something reserved just for children and young adults. There are so many different types of games and consoles to play them on that there is something for all ages.”

The study also revealed that gamers will work an average 32 hours each week, will have one child and will drive a Ford, Vauxhall or BMW. However, their hobby can have an effect on their relationships, with the average gamer arguing with their partner twice a week about their playing. Over one in twenty gamers questioned claim that the pastime is a constant source of rowing, while 15 per cent of those relationships have ended due to gaming.

Despite these issues, more than three quarters of gamers admitted that they don’t think they will ever grow out of loving computer games. The average gaming fan will even form friendships through their hobby. Five online friendships in the “thriving gaming community” is typically forged by the average gamer, with 29 per cent stating to have met at least one of those in person. However, a third say they are more likely to play with their real life friends in the same room, with a quarter connecting to their friends remotely.

“This snapshot into the lives of ordinary gamers disputes many myths about the pastime,” added the Pixwoo.com spokesman, “showing how integrated gaming is into our daily routine.”

 

Playstation 4 – Finally Announced

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So it’s finally going to be here – On Wednesday night at 23.15 GMT Sony officially announced the Playstation 4 which will be available “holiday season 2013”.

In a live online broadcast viewed by over 16 million Sony Computer Entertainment president and group CEO Andrew House took to the stage at the Hammerstein Ballroom at Manhattan Center Studios in New York to reveal the name of Sony’s next-generation console.

The exec said Sony’s “most powerful platform ever” will allow “worlds to come alive with greater fidelity and intensity than ever before”.

House also noted that “ease of access regardless of location or device has been a priority” in the system’s development”.

“Our vision for the future is consumer centric and developer inspired,” he added, stressing that Sony is keen to enable developers to utilise “new business models that enable more flexibility including episodic and free-to-play”.

Lead PS4 system architect Mark Cerny was up on stage next. “We wanted to make sure nothing would come between the player, the platform and play,” he said. “Our main goal was to architect the system so as to support a breadth of experiences.”

Boasting 8GB of unified system memory, PS4 houses a “highly enhanced” PC GPU “containing a unified array of 18 compute units, which collectively generate 1.84 Teraflops of processing power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mixture of the two”.

It is also “centred around a powerful custom chip that contains eight x86-64 cores and a state of the art graphics processor”.

Cerny then showed off the new Dual Shock 4 which will include many new features such as enhanced rumble, a touchpad, a headphone jack and a new Share button, which will allow players to record gameplay or screenshots and share them instantly. “Our goal is to make the sharing of video on PS4 as popular as the sharing of screenshots is today,” he said. PS4 will also support cross-game chat.

Then came the games. Games of note included Killzone: Shadow Fall was first; a First Person shooter which showed the main character in an epic shoot out in what seemed to be a shopping mall only to leap on to a wire being dragged along by a helicopter matrix style shooting out both adversaries on the ground and in the copter only to land on a building where the action cut and the share button was used.

This was followed Sucker Punch’s Infamous: Second Son. The demo showed a heavily-militarised city where citizens are closely monitored. However, people have started developing superpowers and revolting against big brother. There was no sign of series protagonist Cole.

Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono appeared on stage to demo Capcom’s new engine, Panta Rhei, which is being used to develop a new IP for the PS4 called Deep Down. There was raw response though when he said he was not there to talk about the next Street-Fighter game or the eagerly awaited Tekken vs Streetfigher – Missed opportunity I thought!

Unfortunately in the whole event the actual machine was not shown which lead to speculation that there would not be a physical machine at all as the majority of the software would be accessible via cloud gaming platform Gaikai. However since the launch this has been dismissed as the console’s actual specs have been announced.

This is really exciting news I think, if games players are truly honest games have been getting stale – although there have been original ideas and the PS3 has had a terrific run, it simply needs more power open to developers. You can always tell after a while because games tend to look the same across the genre.

Every life cycle of the Playstation has brought something new – for the PS1 it was games on CDs – its amazing to think now that a measly 700mb could power a game but it was the case back then and Ridge Racer was one such favourite. With PS2 it was games on DVDs. It is arguable now that the PS2 brought DVD media into the family home. Then we had the PS3 and with it not only did Blue Ray Dual layer Discs enter the home but HD TVs and gaming. They didn’t just arrive but was there to stay because now with the right TV you could watch HD Films and play the games without forking out on the expensive players. It doing so it beat the Microsoft brand in establishing itself as the High Definition disc brand of choice. Lets not also forget about 3D gaming that really the PS3 became a reason to don the specs outside of the frankly rubbish channels and over-expensive Blue-Ray players and 3D movies available.

I for one am really excited about what is yet to come. The price of the new console has been placed £400 (cheaper than the PS3 at launch but more expensive than the PS2 was). Even without a physical machine to view, it is already on pre-order from most stockists. Have a look at the trailers and view for yourself. I think the leap in technology is not as shocking as the transition from PS1 to PS2 but if you look closely the devil is in the detail. Not only that but as every gamer knows, it takes time for the best games to surface and it is still very early days yet.

Enjoy!

 

Drive Club

Watch Dogs

Captain America – Super Soldier – Videogame Review

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When Captain America throws his mighty shield…erm…lets put a cap on that…

Another month, another super-hero movie tie-in; with a staple diet like this as a games reviewer I am starting to feel undernourished You get good games, you get great games you get crap games and then you get these. However I always try to be optimistic, Captain America is the big, big film of the summer; the one I most want to see and although trying to find a decent movie tie-in is almost as hard as trying to find a particular drop of water in the whole of the Irish Sea it does happen….occasionally. I live in faith.

 

From the start it is clear that Games Developer – Next Level – wanted to immediately set Captain America – Super Solider apart from the mediocrity of its counterparts; how I hear you ask? Well they…erm…‘borrowed’ some ideas from a small selection of winning franchises such as Arkham Asylum and Prince of Persia. Well, I say ‘borrowed’ but ‘stolen like sweets from a baby’ could equally be a fitting metaphor.  There is the solid and capable fighting engine, a similar mode to the Detective mode used in the Batman games and there is a fair bit of leaping and jumping around too. Chris Evans (no, not that one) provides both his voice and likeness to ‘Cap’, the game even plays in decent stereoscopic 3D but despite these credible assets Captain America is still left with just a few good things going for it.

 

The first disappointment for me was that although the game is based on the film world there is very little of the film in terms of content. Developers Next Level should be hitting themselves over the head with Captain America’s shield for this penalty kick as this is a huge missed opportunity; who wouldn’t want to be the young Steve Rogers? Heck, they could have even given you a training level based on his training as Captain America, but oddly they decided to leave this out and worse still, leave out Red Skull too –his sworn enemy – who only ever appears briefly in the whole of the game.

 

Equally disappointing is the fact that the whole game unfolds within the confines of a castle in the Bavarian mountains. Whilst on its own this is not totally a bad thing as it is a maze type complex with different routes and levels very much like Arkham Asylum, it is quite pithy and delivered with so much less finesse than its Batman counterpart. For example the game does not allow you to explore you surroundings; heck you cannot even jump over a table unless the game says so. So finding yourself stuck to predefined routes can and does get repetitive and boring.

 

Combat though is satisfying and solid.  It is not out of this world but a nice variation on the Arkham’s fight controls; as such it is easy to take on multiple enemies all at once and is all about timing of button presses to parry and deliver devastating blows. Each fight ends with smooth and sweet slow-motion finishers and you can even grab an enemy and use their weapon against more oncoming assailants. Captain America’s shield plays a big part of his fighting style too; deflecting bullets and of course you can throw it in a way similar to the way Batman throws his Batarang.

 

However, graphically the game suffers, although characters are detailed nothing really stood out at all to me at all, I think the programmers just stopped when they reached the point were it was all functional. Equally enemies and environments are blander than a Grey pot of Dulux emulsion and critically they are uninspiring. By the third boss I quickly stopped caring who was going to win as there was no sense of danger, no sense of urgency, instead, I felt like I was just going through the motions, which somewhat ironically I feel perhaps the programmers of this game were doing. Shame.

 

My Final Verdict –

Captain America has got some great ideas but far too many reasons mean it fall flat on its face. There is potential here and there are a few good button presses to be had, but there are just so many games out there which do the job better it is just not good enough.

 

It is becoming irritating to think that with so many crap movie tie-ins out there you would think that by now games developers wouldn’t even try to go down this route unless they had something solid or refreshing to bring to the table. It really is a shame because it’s doubtful there would even be a Captain America game unless there was a movie being released to cash in on. Yet the sad thing is I get the feeling that if the programmers were allowed to be a bit freer with their ideas and not rushed to meet the deadlines then this game could have been so much better.

 

Lets hope the movie is better than this.

5.6/ 10

 

How does this game compare to others in its genre?

There are a whole host of genres which Captain America could compete but unfortunately he wouldn’t stand a chance

Equal to: Marvel Super Hero Squad: Infinity Gauntlet, Green Lantern

Better than: Iron Man, Thor,

Worse than: Arkham Asylum, God of War, Castlevania – Lords of shadow, Bayonetta,

 

Killzone 3 – The Review {Gaming}

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Shoot from behind cover? Check. Enter a battlefield laden with enemies whilst your captain screams orders at you? Check. Shoot from an armoured vehicle? Check. Spectacular set pieces? Check. Guns that look like middle-age cannons? Check.

Must be another First Person Shooter…

 

You can always tell when a fantastic game is about to hit the shelves because all the other games of that genre suddenly drop their prices to entice those players who might have missed on their game playing pleasures the first time round. In the case of Killzone 3, even the mighty Black Ops has reduced its hefty price tag and that has to be saying something.

But in all fairness, in this modern day of gaming First Person Shooters (FPS) are almost two a penny. Arguably, we are sitting in a saturated market full of big guns protruding into the screens facing even bigger enemies. On the very same day that Killzone 3 was released, the equally excellent Bulletstorm also arrived – and these are just two contenders to Halo and Call of Duty’s crowns. But does it have what it takes to last until the third round?

Killzone 3 has a lot going for it. Firstly, it is exclusive to the Playstation 3 and hence, has given game players a reason to cackle in retaliation at Xbox owners. Secondly, it has a strong pedigree, Developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, it is the fourth installment of the much enjoyed Killzone series. Finally, it is technically advanced. It is the first game in the series to be presented in 3D and the first to include motion controls using the PlayStation Move. All of this means that in the ring Killzone 3 is no underdog, and the blows that it will rain down upon any opponent are going to hurt like hell.

For those of you uninitiated to the world of Killzone, it is all about a war between two factions of humans. Enter stage left, the IS. All round good guys that will do whatever it takes and destroy whatever it takes to get the job done, and bring the war to an end. Enter stage right, the Helghast. A fascist, humanoid, army race with a passion for vengeance and hardship. They were hell-bent on overpowering the rest of the universe. That is, until the ISA decided to take them down way back in the original Killzone.

Killzone 3 picks up right where the sequel left off, with you continuing in your role as Sev, an ISA soldier with a chequered past, struggling to survive after being effectively cut off and left on the hostile Helghan home world after taking out Emperor Scolar Visari. It’s a predictable storyline you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy – or your worst movie – because like Black Ops, the spectacular set pieces and epic explosions ring ripples of movie blockbuster fantasy. And whilst you fight for survival as the protagonist, the game’s two antagonists, Orlock and Johann – played excellently by Ray Winstone and Malcolm McDowell – fight to step into the vacuum left by the deceased dictator.

As a single-player game I found Killzone 3 to be a largely exciting experience. The moral of modern day FPS is ‘don’t you dare rush in guns blazing thinking you are Rambo, if you do you will die’. This leads to understanding various cover techniques, and moving, outflanking and surprising your enemies in order to subdue them. Like Killzone and Killzone 2, your comrades scream orders at you, can revive you if you’re down and equally shout at you if they are about to die, need help or are pinned down enemy fire. This gives a sense of camaraderie which is nice to see. I also really liked the feeling of momentum in this game, that sense that you have to keep moving. And another key area which I think they got right was in the close up melee and hand to hand combat which is very satisfying.

On a technical level, this title is hugely impressive. The new environments look better and are a lot more colorful than its predecessor. The graphics are on par with the best titles of the genre, the guns, explosions and bosses just get bigger and bigger, and the levels are a lot more diverse than before. Most of the scenes, although linear, are well designed and so is the structure, breaking up standard missions with Call of Duty type breathtaking escapes and huge action set-pieces. There is always a lot happening on screen and a lot to keep your heart racing.

One thing I did like about this game is the fact you are not presented with wave after wave of enemies, and players of the previous two titles will immediately notice that the enemies are now smarter, able to cover more and react better to what you do. However, we all know the name of the game with this genre and that is basically shoot, shoot, shoot, duck and take orders – and that is it unfortunately. Like it or not, it does get repetitive after a while. I hoped that this title would have improved on Black Ops’ short completion time, however, I was wrong, it took me just over seven hours to complete which is abysmal. As for the last boss, well let’s just say it was over before it started.

I was quite concerned too by the number of cut-scenes in this game. Whilst not on the same soap opera level as say Metal Gear Solid, there is an awful lot of talking, and a fair amount of the game where action is taking place and you are left to just watch. Considering how short the game is, it would have been good to have had the hour or so movie part as actual game content.

Online play is what drives the lifespan forward after completion. Here the three modes on offer are all fun to play yet standard fare. You have the standard Death matches and more objective-driven options such as the new Operations Mode, where the highest-rated players get to see themselves in cut scenes between objectives which is all very good. I did notice though, occasional moments of slowdown in larger matches, which ruined my gaming pleasure, but will no doubt be resolved in future patches.

As previously mentioned, Killzone 3 was the first game to be completely made with both 3D and Playstation Move in mind. With regards to the Move, I am pleased report that it works beautifully well. Indeed, some would argue that this is precisely the type of game for which the Move was created for and in this aspect it is true. In play, it is very similar to the aiming mechanism seen in Resident Evil 5 and Time Crisis, manoeuvering with the controller, and aiming and firing using the trigger of the Move. You can also perform some neat actions such as twisting to reload and a stabbing motion to do the melee attack. Very nice indeed.

However, the 3D issue is another matter. Yes, stereoscopic 3D. Yes, it looks great and provides that extra level of immersion. For me, the thing I could not get tired of was using a sniper rifle. It just looks incredible. But on the other hand, I am very aware of this 3D fad and that some people sold their kidney for a decent HDTV, just so they could enjoy high definition gaming. In some ways it is just a tad too ambitious and outrageous to expect some players to go out and buy a 3D TV to experience the gaming delights here. So far for me, there has been insufficient 3D content out there to warrant buying one, but I am quite sure that for some gamers this will be the tipping factor where they will no doubt dash out and fork out over a grand to get one. But my honest advice with this is to just wait. Whilst it is good, it is really not ‘that good’.

So, the final verdict –

Killzone 3 is a contender that enters the ring punching way above its weight. The gameplay is solid, the action is intense and the Move functionality gives this game an extra edge. Though it can be repetitive for those tired of shoot-em-ups, those who enjoyed Killzone 2, Halo Reach and Call of Duty franchises will have a lot to look forward to with this title.

 

9.2/10

 

Killzone 3 is out on PS3 now