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Hey everyone I'm Jeff Bakalar and today we're talking about Battlefield Hardline, it's the latest installment in the first person shooter series from [UNKNOWN] games and EA.
Now Hardline moves the action away from the battle field and brings it to the streets.
It's a campaign that plays more like a cable TV cop drama, but it's a claim multi-player mode remains intact.
To get another opinion of Battlefield Hardline I'm joined by the host and producer from GameSpot, Mister Chris Watters.
Thanks for joining me, Sir.
My pleasure Jeff, how's it going buddy?
It's going real well.
I've been told by our friends here at CBS Interactive that you are a Battlefield veteran, is that true?
And if it is true, what do you think about the newest entry Battlefield Hardline?
Yeah.
It's true I've played probably more hours than I'd care to admit on the Battlefield series of the years.
The hard line is a, is a fun one.
It's interesting because it's, it's a real big scion, it's a split off the series because the single player campaign is a cop drama.
And the multiplayer is, it feels kinda familiar, but you're, you're cops and robbers.
You're not soldiers.
And even in.
Previous sort of, dalliances away from the main military thrust of battlefield.
It was always military, now it's [UNKNOWN] civilian.
Yeah, it's weird and not only is it not really on a battlefield anymore.
It's also very stealthy.
Right?
There's parts of battlefield that aren't shootery at all, I'm sitting down to play a first person shooter and I'm kind of first person sneaking.
You totally are yeah cuz you're in the main campaign, you're you play a cop and you're, like, on the straight and narrow.
So you don't just wanna go around popping dudes heads off, although though you totally can.
But the game really encourages you to sneak.
To like wait until dudes are alone then flash the badge.
Then they'll put their hands up.
You can arrest them.
You get bonus points and, you don't trigger any alarms.
People don't start shooting at you.
And yeah.
I mean even from like a basic gameplay mechanic, they, they have the vision cones which is like.
A very stealth game thing to do.
Right I never understand how anyone can like put that into a map vision cones but we won't split hairs there.
So a part of the game is you flash you badge and you can sort of juggle 3 criminals at once.
As long as you keep your, your gun trained on their face they won't go for their gun.
It always makes me feel like the rookie cop who's freaking out, like comes up to the seasoned bad guy,and be like freeze, dont, not,nobody move, like I'm arresting all of you.
Like, it's has this kind of desperate feel to it, which is is kind of neat that they captured it.
I mean.
It's also pretty silly in some ways.
That you're with your partner and sometimes your partner will just be walking by.
And the guys don't detect her when she's running.
And they're only gonna be detected by you, but you know the, the sort of, these, these weird stealth flaws aside, it, its kind of refreshing.
What did you think of the sort of like, overall, like.
Cop drama, like the characters and the pace.
Did the story, like, interest you?
It did a, it more so than any other Battlefield game I've played before.
Probably any shooter, whether it be Call of Duty or anything like that.
It, it felt like it was just enough for me to care and to not skip ahead all the cut-scenes and just be like all right.
This will do.
This wouldn't do if I were watching The Shield or, or you know a show on FX or something like that.
But this is just enough and I mean, it's funny [CROSSTALK]
That's a quote for you.
Yeah.
Just enough for me to care.
Hey Battlefield Heartline, just enough story!
[LAUGH]
They got Benito Martinez from The Shield and he was in Sons of Anarchy too.
He's in the game.
So that made me suspend my disbelief a little more.
Like I cared just what was, about just what was going on in the game in terms of the cop drama.
It feels a little cheesy, some of the stuff is you know really low hanging fruit, but it, it was like a just enough.
And I think the presentation also pushes it a little bit towards that just enough state, you know, the way it's like.
Episode by episode and you get a previously on, and a, whatever you started up and a next on whenever you quit the campaign.
And when you finish an episode it has this like totally Netflixesque like next episode coming up in 20 seconds.
So it's just really primes you to have that kind of.
TV watching mentality which I think, you know, sort of subverts kind of what expectations you're gonna have coming into a Battlefield campaign.
Let's switch let's switch gears to online play.
Battlefield's eh, it hasn't done so well online, the last couple of times.
That's, I guess that's an understatement.
But.
It's been a little rocky at launch for some of the Battlefield games in recent memory, that's for sure.
But, I think.
I mean, I've been travelling this week, but from all Twitter indications, Reddit indications.
Hardline's multiplayer has launched smoothly for the first week.
We'll see what happens this weekend when, you know?
Everyone who was working or at school, gets to like just settle in and play a bunch, but so far it's looking good.
Yeah, that's be a true test of whether or not they can handle it.
But man, isn't it weird that we're just satisfied it works.
[LAUGH] It works!
It works!
Congratulations!
You pass what, what about anything new in the multiplayer modes?
Is there anything that's really grabbed your attention?
Again
Well, yeah, so like the thing about Battlefield Multiplayer is, well, or especially in hardline is, like, the core stuff that I've always really loved about Battlefield is still there.
You know, the way that you can play different classes of soldier, and you've got different stuff you can do besides just.
Shooting dudes faster than they can shoot you.
You can heal or revive your teammates.
You can repair your cars.
You can put down spawn beacons.
You can you know, do all this different stuff that, that helps you contribute to the fight without making you actually have to fight.
So there's, it's like a field day in diverse.
Kind of action scene.
And I really like that.
For sure, well I'm a guy who you know, I, I got pretty good at call of duty on line, but whenever I try my hand at battlefield I just get my face punched in.
It's just not a pleasurable experience.
To know that I could somehow help the cause in a different capacity.
Maybe by, you know.
I mean, I think that for me, you know, I've never, you know, I've, I love playing games, but I'm not like an ace twitch shooter guy.
Like, I love playing shooters and, you know, there are kids that will light me up all day every day.
But like, one of the new modes for hard line, which I think is a really neat twist on past hard line mode, or Battlefield modes is called hot wire.
And in this, you basically, there are five cars on the map.
You have to hijack the car and drive it at speed around the map in order to gain points for holding that car.
So, it's like [UNKNOWN], which was like grab this space, defend this one space, but it's more kinetic, it's more dynamic.
So, there's no like.
Well, I cleared the enemies on this zone.
Now I'm just going to like wait here until more show up.
People don't really do that.
They like to run around and so getting in a car.
And then like, you can get in a van and then like your buddy joins.
And he opens the side sliding door, and he's waiting there to blast someone.
The guy in the front seat is using the blowtorch to like, repair your broken windshield and then you have dudes hanging out the back shooting grenades at anyone who is following you.
It's really fun!
[LAUGH] Why, what is with the blowtorch repairing the windshield?
[LAUGH]
Or a flat tire?
It's a blowtorch!
It solves everything!
It's science!
[INAUDIBLE].
Don't, you're gonna melt the tire more, don't blow torch it, they did that in Far Cry four also.
That was ridiculous.
I don't understand that.
Yeah, I mean.
What'd you want?
You want like some, some wrenches?
Like a little **** gun, like I don't know.
I want- [CROSSTALK] tool belt, or like some sort of AAA guy.
You know, I don't know.
I, I, my expectations are being underacheived with this whole blow torch thing.
I don't know.
Fair enough, but you can kill people with a blow torch, so that's kind of fun.
Yeah, I've seen some videos of that, that's pretty impressive stuff.
Chris Waters, thank you so much for joining me.
Really appreciate getting your take on battlefield hardline.
Where can people follow you on Twitter?
I'm on Twitter @ctwatters with two Ts, so that's C-T-W-A-T-T-E-R-S.
Thanks for having me, Jeff!
All right, there you have it.
There's my take, there's Chris's take.
Make sure you read the review.
There's our coverage on.
On CNET, and then read the review on GameSpot.
Go follow Chris.
Follow me @jeffbakalar, let me know what you thought of the game.
That's gonna do it for me.
Thank you so much for watching.
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