I realized I haven't played an honest to goodness quality FPS campaign in probably four or five years. But I didn't want anything set within a war, or the military, so replaying some CoD or BF campaign was out of the question. Then I noticed that Battlefield Hardline was on PC Game Pass (via EA Play, which is included as ya know). I don't know why I passed on this back in 2015, but reading the description and watching the little video in the Xbox app convinced me. Thoughts early on:
- For a game that released in 2015, the graphics and audio design are superb. Running at 2560x1440 with all settings ultra, it can go toe to toe with the latest Battlefield games. In fact in many ways it's better, as since it's a campaign it can focus more on intimate world design
- I don't know if this supports spatial audio, but I have a PC sound bar that does Dolby Atmos and DTS X and all, and it certainly sounds like it. Even if it doesn't, well, the sound engineering in this is still very good
- I perked up a bit when I saw Visceral Games during the opening montage. I know they've since been shut down, but I always loved their approach to game design
- I love, love, love detective and cop shows. And that's basically what the campaign is, with many actors one would expect in such a thing. And hey right away it's Travis Willingham! Your big brother in my favorite game inFAMOUS: Second Son. Of course Benito Maritinez is your cop boss. Etc. Great casting
- The action and gameplay hold up very well. In fact it's really fun and often engaging. My only criticism is that this looks to be built with Frostbyte, which is fine, but they embraced the DICE practice of constatnly trying to obfuscate the player's vision in obscenely unrealistic ways. Like, did these engine engineers ever just walk around in the real world and test their ideas? There is not a constant supply of drifting debris and particles all over the place all of the time. Running into a trashcan doesn't cause massive, impenetrable clouds of dense smoke. Etc. It's like damn, just design your action sequences better, don't confuse not allowing a person to see what they're doing with challenge
Only a few hours in but it's a solid 4/5 for me thus far.