Battlefield 4 is a greatest hits album of DICE's multiplayer first-person shooter legacy. It retains the defining DNA of Battlefield 1942, re-adopts Battlefield 2's brilliant Commander mode, and exaggerates the destruction of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, all while embracing the realism, class reorganization, and gorgeous graphics of Battlefield 3. Most of the time, Battlefield's unpredictable, vehicular-based competitive combat is predictably excellent. What I didn't anticipate was DICE getting in its own way.
What we've never seen before in a Battlefield game is the drastic, and often inconsistent way Battlefield 4 forces its two massive 32-player teams to adjust to evolving environmental conditions. A dam bursts, crushing everything below with metric tonnes of rubble and floods. Half a hotel disintegrates, exposing a control point and depriving snipers of a valuable perch. Large-scale destruction like this changes the fundamental layout of an area, forcing combatants to react intelligently and change their strategies and loadouts on the fly. Even after the magic and surprise is gone, teams always need to be prepared for how they'll react when a crumbled tower keeps their tanks out of enemy territory. Coming out on top because your new strategy adapts to and harnesses the new level design is even more satisfying than the XP and armory unlocks you earn along the way.
Continue reading…
No comments:
Post a Comment