Ever wonder what it felt like to be a Police Officer?  Battlefield Hardline has you covered!  Battlefield Hardline is out now from Viceral and Dice for multiple platforms including the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.  We mostly played the single-player campaign on the PlayStation 4 which features a departure from the common military-like structure of past Battlefield games.

In Battlefield Hardline you play as Nick Mendoza (voiced by Philip Anthony-Rodriguez and physical acting by Nicholas Gonzalez) a new Detective in the Miami Police Department who is partnered with Khai Minh Dao a tough female veteran cop (voiced by Kelly Ku).  As the story unfolds you learn that the Miami Police Department has its fair share of leaks and corruption and just when you start to relax is when things turn bad.

The single-player campaign is broken into 10 chapters each taking about 20-30 minutes to complete.  The developers treated the campaign much like a running TV show unfolding in episodes even including a ‘last seen on Hardline’ montage and previews of what’s to come.  Each episode or chapter contains a good mix action, suspense and surprises.

PROS:

  • So that’s what it’s like to be a cop? Yup even ‘Freeze’ people in place to put ’em under arrest!
  • Fun tech – mostly the ‘Scanner’ which will make you feel like The Terminator or RoboCop.
  • Diverse cast and environment with Khai as a bad-ass female cop.

CONS:

  • Graphics are pretty bland – nothing here to ‘wow’ you.
  • Campaign is very scripted – you’ll find little freedom outside of deciding on whether to shoot someone or arrest them.
  • Is it fun being a cop? Having Hardline as part of the ‘Battlefield’ name may confuse those looking for a military shooter type game.

Battlefield Hardline also contains five new multiplayer game modes including Hotwire, Heist, Blood Money, Crossfire and Rescue.  The development team would like you to think this is the fastest paced Battlefield game ever and that may be true although most of my deaths came from being run over by a car in multiplayer sessions.

The last Battlefield game brought us buzz words like ‘Levolution’ and the franchise has always strived to push the gaming boundaries.  Battlefield Hardline does little to take gamers where they’ve never gone before but does offer some rewards for those eager to get their hands on a polished shooter.