We’re very late in the day in putting together our Battlefield 4 review, but with all of the initial glitches, bugs and crashes that have happened since the launch of the game at the end of 2013, we wanted to give EA Games enough time to patch in some fixes and updates before we gave it our final score. In all fairness, things are a hell of a lot better after the last couple of updates, but it’s been pretty hard going while they finally got their act together, and things aren’t quite up to speed still.
Arguably the most frustrating in general has been the difficulties with online multiplayer action, with gamers getting crashed out of battles, but equally the random disappearance of your saved campaign progress after updates, leaving you with no option but to start it all from scratch again, is pretty pretty annoying too. A lot of these issues have been taken care of now, as we haven’t experienced any kick-outs in a while. However, data loss is still a problem, so if you’ve got the game and still haven’t completed the campaign or if you’re about to invest, expect it to be a very long struggle to make it to the end of the campaign.
Random anomalies that we’ve seen recently include sound issues where you can’t hear any of the fighting or Live-chat in online multiplayer, although the most annoying factor in all of the this is the sheer number of updates the game needs to cope with everything. When you get in raring to go with a full-force battle session and find that you’ve got to wait fifteen minutes for the update to download it can be a real killjoy.
All of that aside, Battlefield 4 is an epic game to play once you get up to speed with your reaction time and battle tactics. There’s definitely a learning curve for newcomers to the series, but it’s well worth sticking with it as your kill count starts to creep upwards. While Call of Duty: Ghosts had it’s good points and much fewer bugs, if we had to call it on game vs. game we have to give it to Battlefield 4.
Campaign storyline
In all fairness, the campaign mode in general, let alone the campaign storyline isn’t exactly high up on the agenda of a lot of gamers when it comes to first person shooters, and in Battlefield 4‘s you’re not going to find too much of a mindset change. That’s not to say it isn’t a fun blast, it’s just not the epic, Oscar-worthy story that it could or should be.
It takes place in the not so distant future of 2020 as tension continues to fray between Russia and the US and China bubbles on the edge of war. You play Sergeant Daniel Recker, along with the rest of the Tombstone squadron, going deep into hostile territory in a recon mission for Russisn intelligence on the situation in China. When the intel turns out to be confirmation that General Chang is about to stage a coup to overthrow the Chinese government and pledge the volatile country’s allegiance to the Russian course, it’s up to you to get back out into the field to prevent the duration from becoming insurmountable.
That all leads to a fair few cool missions that range from the opening intel gathering escape from Azerbaijan, to VIP evacuations in a very impressive looking Shanghai and tense investigations of a slowly sinking gun ship out in the Pacific Ocean. There are a lot of great features in the campaign with tank attacks coming out of nowhere, swimming underwater and helicopter crashes a-go-go, which all make up for a fairly standard overall storyline.
Campaign storyline review: 3.5/5
Gameplay
The gameplay is easily the best feature of the game, whether you’re playing online multiplayer or wading your way through the campaign. There’s a very solid feel to everything from firing a gun to moving around the environments, which makes it a very realistic experience. It’s added to by some amazing finishing touches like shooting out windows to get a better aim on an enemy or the range of shots you can make thanks to the graphical detail in the game.
It’s not all positives though, but the negatives don’t really add up to all that much of a bad situation. The first little blip is that artificial intelligence of enemy vehicles, like tanks, in the game can come across as being very formulaic, so you don’t end up buying in to them being controlled by real soldiers.
The part that vehicles play online can make a bit of a mockery of the gameplay too as you quietly crouch to try to get a good few shots off only for your concentration to be punctured by a helicopter being piloted by some numpty from Nantucket trying to blitz out the enemy. It’s a fair strategy from Norman Nantucket, but it does make the game feel more training exercise with kids than all out warfare.
Online multi-player is what Battlefield 4 does best though with a whole lot of options and ways to smash up the opposition. As well as delivering impressive team death-match experiences, and other smaller scale battle options there’s the massive scale and might of the Conquest game mode. It’s a colossal concept and though it’s not necessarily a new one, as it returns from previous games in the series, it’s definitely the most impressive incarnation on next gen and PC.
Gameplay review: 4.3/5
Graphics
Visually, BF4 is genuinely as close to perfection as we’ve ever seen in a first person shooter. The lighting and colours are amazing, when combined with the blinding detail on the next gen and PC versions of the game. There’s inevitably a lot less graphical splendor in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, but when played on the more advanced systems it’ll hit you hard how incredibly detailed everything looks.
We fully expect the graphics in later releases on next gen consoles, like Destiny and Titanfall, to exceed what EA’s latest blaster has achieved vidually, but as things stand right now, it doesn’t get any better looking than this. A particular triumph on the PS4, Xbox ONE and Microsoft Windows versions is the facial features in both cut scenes and in game dialogue. This has often been a bit of a sticking point in the past – you’ve only got to take a look at Call of Duty: Black Ops II campaign face rendering to see how far off it can be – but with Battlefield 4 there’s real life character in the animation and rendering of facial features, which makes for an improved cinematic experience in cut scenes.
The other graphical feature of brilliant proportions to be aware of is our new favourite topic of draw distance, which is the level of graphical detail and rendering on objects in the far ground. With the long range of some weapons and the sniper action, it makes it a lot easier to get a clean shot away if you can see things more clearly when they’re far away.
Graphics review: 4.5/5
Battlefield 4 may have had it’s teething problems in the first couple of months since its release, but it’s starting to really make some strides now that we’re free to enjoy it without the worry of bugs ruining our gameplay. If you’re a FPS fan and you’re craving a fat slab of solidity in your gaming experience it doesn’t get much more real or thrilling than this. The DLC like the China Rising pack will continue to add longevity to the game too, so if you’re looking for a long term addition to your gaming, BF4 will keep you trigger finger itchy for a while to come.
Battlefield 4 overall review: 3.7/5
In all fairness, if it wasn’t for the recent loss of data again our score would have been much higher, but until they fix it, things are far from being right with Battlefield 4.
