Quick Look: Battlefield 1

@ronniebarzel:

jokes aside if you're actually interested then check out the WW1 series on the Hardcore History podcast. I thought I knew the basics until I listened to that. Probably one of my favourite podcasts of all time. Epic and brutal as hell.

Watching this makes me think of the developer who said he begged to make this game for years before he was able to; I wonder if this is what he imagined, a Battlefield game with a mud filter.

What if it put you in the shoes of a German soldier, you save a bunch of men and become a war hero, only to find out you've been playing as Adolf Hitler? That would not only be interesting but a historical happening that is often overlooked by history. In fact, there are many incredible real tales of heroism in WW1, why not add them into the game?

Why can't we capture soldiers or drag wounded soldiers to safety? Where is there even an ounce of humanity in this game? It's a glorified arcade shooter that completely destroys any lessons to be learned from such a monumental human conflict.

It's as if they think less money will be made if there are a missions where you don't just shoot everything till it stops shooting at you.

If you want to add unrealistic weapons and situations into the game why not make it more mythic and esoteric like a Souls game? Why not add the very real complications of war like Shellshock, hallucinations and delusion? In this way, you can compensate for the unrealistic things by having a more mythical approach to the war. Alternatively the game could've went full tilt into the realism and made an engaging realistic experience or at the very least show how vicious and deadly the war was.

How great would it be if you put all that armor on and the first shot pierces and kills you? It would be ironic and historically true instead of feeding a Michael Bay-themed EXPLOSIONS!!!!!! mission.

This is such a huge disappointment and waste of talent, I hope someday the war is done right in an interactive setting.

@meierthered: Yeah I agree, what was shown of the single player looked pretty bad. It might've just been the missions he picked, the "take this Italian church while wearing prototype power armour from fallout" looked like a walking turret mission. And the way the story was being told seemed kind of distracting.

The intro mission didn't look too bad until it got to the part with the bayonet that made you run insane speeds but you could still turn on a dime.

@7x_: Why did you pretty much copy and paste your comment from part one of Vinny's Battlefield 1 stream?

As a Zeppelin Fan, I'm especially intruiged to see games with Zeppelins on it.

And out of all things, this game reminds me of Air Power the most and I loved that game back in the day. Though I never really enjoyed BF since I've focused on other time consuming FPS games at the time. Maybe I'm still getting it though once every add-on is released.

Good Quick Look.

@7x_: i have no idea where you got this from, but adolf hitler was not a "war hero". the only reports i know of that maintain he did anything heroic in WWI were fabricated during the time when he was already in power. but please share your source if you've read otherwise

@ronniebarzel: You're not the only one, especially when there was a shot of everyone climbing over the trench.

I Red Boxed this game yesterday. Glad I didn't waste $60 on it. None of the weapons are fun, the menus feel sluggish and unresponsive at times, there aren't enough vehicles in the larger maps, and spawning/dying immediately was an issue for the first time in a BF for me.

@7x_: Personally, I think it's super weird that you want to play a more realistic version of WWI - I think the only thing about this game that makes it enjoyable for me is the level of fantasy-like abstraction that keeps me from thinking about the horrors of the actual war the entire time I'm playing. But hey - to each their own.

You might enjoy Verdun: http://www.verdungame.com/

Looks alright but man I'm gonna wait till it's super cheap with premium. Kind of hate how it splits the player-base by maps and gear just like the previous few games.

So instead of taking their liberties with historical accuracy for the sake of a fun game they should just base it on nazi propaganda? And that's supposed to be more realistic?

"Simulation" isn't a new genre by any means, and is pretty much one of the more mainstream fringe genres in gaming now. That being said, realistic war simulation is great because it encourages teamwork and critical thinking and you get punished for making mistakes and are able (even if only by a fraction) to have more respect for those who fought. Insurgency is a great example.

Anywho I said they should either maintain realism or embrace the unrealisticness a la Dark Souls or Spec Ops, justifying unrealistic weapons and situations with shellshock, hallucinations and false memories would not only be a sufficient plot device but make the story worth more than just being "Generic BF Campaign #13".

I've played a couple of chapters of the campaign now and it's really good. It looks fantastic as well. I was just in the dogfight over London and it looks breathtaking. Battlefield campaigns are usually boring as shit, but this one is rad. Haven't felt like jumping into multiplayer yet, because I just got steamrolled during the beta, but I'll eventually give it a go.

@7x_: I don't know why you're so convinced realism and fantasy are mutually exclusive. Even still, Battlefield 1's portrayal is hyperbolic if not realistic. Also, your glitches GIF comes off disengenuously; of course there's weird glitches: it's a video game made by humans.

@7x_: I actually thought they did pretty well with the campaign. It certainly didn't cover everything, but I think they deserve some credit for telling stories that weren't just jingoistic nonsense. I mean, yes, you have radar and regenerating health and take bullets like a tank, but you're doing that in the context of a soldier looking for his brother in a bombed out valley. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that kind of personal story of grief in wartime is new to the Battlefield genre, I'm pretty sure.

Also, yeah, I'll agree with the guy below that your gif really doesn't make it seem like your arguments are genuine.

This game annoys me so much, they had a chance to do something amazing and different... no they ended up making just another bland Battlefield game with a WW1 skin... though tbh it doesn't even speak WW1 to me artistically either.

I just hate it so much because it just stands for how boring DICE have become and the whole Premium thing needs to die, people say EA force them... no they don't, DICE opt in, Respawn didn't opt in... DICE chose WW1, EA didn't and DICE chose to do a boring game again, it's worse than COD now.

Has any one played Red Orchestra 2? That game plays more like WW1 than this and it's based on WW2, this game could be set in the future and you wouldn't notice.

I'm sick of Frostbite as well, all the games look the same and they have the same bad animations where it looks like everything is over animating.

Just finished the Gallipoli episode, and there was a nice writeup at the end about how the war shaped the Ottomans and influenced the founding of the Republic of Turkey. But the game itself has no qualms about having you go around single-handedly murdering dozens of them to create a distraction and save one of your guys. And I didn't get a "look what war is making me do" vibe, they just take for granted that one fresh-faced Aussie is worth a hundred Turks. So I guess it's a mixed bag.

Looks more interesting than BF4 for sure. I just miss being able to find a plane, commandeering it, and bringing it in the air yourself. It being a spawnpoint on the map feels very battlefront-y.

They also need to step up the packages animations. You shouldn't have to be staring at a black screen for 5 seconds before it responds. You should be able to quickly cash in your packages during the queue, no matter if you have 1 or 10 of them to open. Every package taking 15 seconds is too long.

Also, maybe i didn't hear it, but doesn't the 'match found' prompt have an audio indication? I imagine quite a few people are queueing while being alt tabbed. having a good audio queue is vital.

All in all, not as interesting as it could be if they strayed a bit further from the usual battlefields, but still more interesting to me than if they went with the same modern warfare / near future theme.

@7x_:The game you are looking for is not a Battlefield game. All Battlefield games have a similar basic through-line as being arcade-y shooters with large maps with vehicle combat. Yes, WW1 was largely fought much differently than what is seen in the game, but they are not going for realism, and they never pretended to. The reality of hundreds of soldiers getting gunned down by machine gun fire in a single charge, or killed by artillery before even seeing an enemy, does not make for fun gameplay. Some may find it interesting, hell I would too, but it would certainly never sell well as a mainstream game, for as "mainstream" you say simulation games are getting. As a long time Battlefield player since 1942 came out, I find it refreshing to go back to an era where NVR/Thermal scopes and heat seeking missiles didn't exist, and tanks were little more than mobile steel-walled rooms with guns sticking out of the sides.

Watched all the GB coverage on this game and I'm pretty sure it's not for me. Guess I'm more of a Titanfall guy.

"Usually I just run for the tank"

No, Vinny, no. Don't be that guy. Come on.

Yeah it's not that realistic, there's Jamie Foxx on the cover.

The amount of bitter people with totally unrealistic expectations for what this could have - or "should" have - been is astounding.

It's Battlefield. It's to WW1 what the first game was to WW2, and what 3 & 4 are to actual modern warfare.

I myself am a soldier, an amateur historian, and have even served as a Great War re-enactor. I care about the impact and the narrative of this period of time. Nothing about this title disappoints me in the least.

This game is an achievement when seen for what it is... not what it isn't.

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast series about WW1 is a great listen

Reminds me a lot of the first Battlefront.

I get why people who aren't into BF would feel that way, but myself and all my BF friends have been buying the Premium Pass since BF3 and we all agree it has been consistently a fantastic value if you're an avid player.

Not to mention a lot of outlets don't really cover it, like say CD Projekt Red, but DICE is amazing at supporting their games long after they come out. Even before BF4's rocky start DICE has an incredible history at supporting their games both for free and in the paid content.

@dezvous: When a game like Titanfall 2/CS:GO/Overwatch can do it without having to split the playerbase or cause competitive imbalance in gameplay it starts to feel fatiguing feeling like you effectively got a $60 starter pack. (I say that as someone who's played prior BFs pretty regularly). I might pick up BF1 later once the base and the premium pass combined is a much more reasonable price.

Love is a battlefield.

Hey, Vinny! That orange icon that looks like frames stacked on top of one another means your frame rate is dropping, I don't know if it's very accurate though because I see it all the time and don't really notice my frame rate suffering. There are other icons that appear as well that all mean different things.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CN2pS66UkAAxVVX.png

@falk: i noticed that too, it may be due to the fact that amongst the Allies, Serbia, France, and Russia saw an unprecedented loss of life, leaving wounds that have still not fully healed today.

That is not to say that those countries are not as resilient as their contemporaries, rather than that from the outset of the war, it was inevitable that their lands would become battlefields regardless of their predisposition towards peace (a luxury available to few superpowers and afforded by fewer).

@pax_mower: ^

Entangling alliances, nationalism, industrialization, and militarization enabled World War 1 to grow beyond the scope of any other conflict ever. Keep in mind that the heads of state of Great Britain, Russia, and Germany were in fact 1st cousins. King George V of Great Britain bore German titles (his family members did), and Kaiser Wilhem likewise English titles. During the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, it is unclear whether or not King George V opposed offering sanctuary to deposed Tsar Nicholas II. Regardless, Nicholas II and his family were murdered by revolutionaries in 1918.

World War 1 started when the Austro-Hungarian empire declared war on Serbia, after the presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assisinated in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia, a group of assassins armed by secret Serbian military group, The Black Hand.

America's entry in WWI was motivated by continued attacks on American merchant vessels, specifically the USS Lusitania by a German U-Boat. The Zimmerman Telegram, purportately intercepted by Great Britain indicated that Germany would financially back Mexico in a war to regain territory lost during the Mexican-American war. Many speculate Britain conspired to convince the US to enter the war, knowing that the US would be pivotal in supporting a victory that was well within their grasp after victory in the Middle East, however evidence of this claim has not been produced. America declared war on Germany after the Zimmerman Telegram on April 6, 1917. WWI Armstice Day is generally recognized on November 11th 1918.

A lot of this story came from and can be found from Wikipedia.org.

There is also a great interactive French Website (available in other languages) with perspectives from different characters experiencing the war. Unfortunately I can't remember it, so if you're familiar with Valiant Hearts, I believe it was linked in that game.

For those of you interested in WWI history, I encourage you to pursue further reading on the subject. Personally, my father's ancestors fled the Kingdom of Italy and Hungary arriving in the United States in 1914, settling in Pittsburgh. His parents met in Pittsburgh, moved to SoCal. He grew up in Lakewood CA, and we live in Orange County.

Much respect and admiration to all peoples affected by the course of the war.

and alex, i'll be your squaddie on PC.

Plenty of Long Looks (TM) these days.

@jedikv said:

But you get what you paid for with Battlefield DLC -- okay maybe not Hardline because that game quickly died off. Those games you mention don't come close to the amount of maps that BF4 put out and they even did some extra maps for free. I played BF4 at launch and returned to it later to find what was basically a new game. Compare this to CSGO where Valve releases one map a year and it's only a modified version of an old map. Compare this to Overwatch that has only released one map since launch and, unless there is a Blizzcon surprise, might be the only map we get this year. For me, it's totally worth it for a pass since it really is like buying a new game once all the DLC is released.

You conveniently left out that CS:GO supports user-made maps which quickly increase that number. Overwatch is aiming to be a sport so every map needs to be carefully crafted out a not just crapped out to make a quick buck (saying that i do think OW was a bit lightweight on launch).

With a paid map model, you're more often than not putting those that paid at a disadvantage as they're limited to a smaller pool of players if they need to play those maps. I know i feel that once I got premium on bf3/4. Also an unfair advantage is given in terms of XP boosts and DLC weapons. Unlike Overwatch/CS:GO/Titanfall 2 - (heck let's throw in Rocket League and DoTA2 in there too since they're doing it right), Battlefied has been geared toward monetization over balance and that sucks.

I have 3 apples, wonder how much they would have been worth back then??