Initial thoughts?

vehicles need to take less damage mainly the regular cars, they arent armoured vehicles anyone inside would be shredded by a assault rifle mag.

i kind of find it weird that everyone has a parachute, ropes to climb down make more sense for the setting.

was kind of looking forward to having some civies running around random cars speeding by ect.

I think heist would play better if it was more like rush mode being pushed back until the crooks escape.

everything else plays pretty much just like battlefield weapons feel good and weighty

It is so Battlefield it hurts. In a bad way. I mean, I wasn't really interested to begin with, but I suppose I had lingering hopes it might at least play like that first heist in Payday 1. Instead it's just TDM with a cops vs robbers skin. Meh.

EDIT: Also yes, you're right. Heist should be more like Rush, except each stage in the map would be each stage of the heist. Like, initially you break in to the bank, then stage 2 would be stealing the money, stage 3 trying to escape. But even still, having loads of people respawning constantly and just running in to a grinding mill is nothing like a robbery scenario, more like... a battlefield.

That E3 video spoiled virtually all of my excitement for this game. One of the GB crew said it's Michael Bay's Heat, which is spot-on. Watching everyone ziplining around was painful, and this "epic" crap they're going for with the collapsing buildings and explosions all over the place has completely run its course. Maybe some other people are still impressed by that contrived, flashy shit, but I'm not. This is a concept that has a chance to be good, but looks like it's headed more towards stupid/ridiculous. I think RB6 is going to succeed where this fails, and I'll probably wait for that instead.

@notnert427: I'm totally into flashy shit, but it has no place in any scenario less serious than a full-blown military invasion.

I thought it looked really bad. To be fair, I haven't played much Battlefield.

How much of it have you played.

Payday or this? Hardline I've played a few rounds. It's one map and one gamemode, there's not a lot of depth.

Hardline. I was under the impression that the gameplay was going for the train level in UT 2004, kind of thing. Like, a set of objectives while team deathmatch was going on.

Is there more than 1 game type in the final product? This comes off as something that can be accomplished in a $15 DLC pack.

60 euro/dollar DLC with probrably extra premium stuff on that, and plays exactly like BF3/4 (Never played 4 but i'm betting it's the same as 3).

So yeah, it's modern battlefield.

Where's my Battlefield 2 HD?

It is the bastard child of Need for Speed:Rivals and Battlefield 4.

Haven't played that level so I can't say, but basically there are two trucks with money in them, and you shoot dudes who go near the money trucks.

EDIT: Just realised there is totally a second game mode, so I should quantify I have only played Blood Money, not Heist yet. Sorry I didn't realise.

EDIT 2: Actually I've played both. They were so similar I couldn't even tell the difference.

I'm not in the beta sadly, missed the free key window due to the PSN being overwhelmed, but the game was just on IGN's liveshow, and I found the Blood Money mode to look like amazing fun. I'm always up for more Battlefield, and Hardline looks like it'll deliver that with flair.

Looked like decent fun - got my email for beta access on the PC so will give it a whirl. Finding as I get older though this sort of game - such as Titanfall earlier in the year - crash and burn for me much quicker than they used to though.

Never played battlefield online and have no idea wtf is going on lol. Best part was randomly hopping in vehicles and crashing into to stuff, didn't seem like anything was destructible though which i thought was battelfields thing?

It felt like a fancy mod to me.

It's fun but i'd rather pay $30 for this as an expansion pack for BF4.

Game doesn't put a good enough case forward for removing the large scale of mainline games like Bad Company did successfully. New modes seem kinda cool but are not executed well enough. Grappling hook and zipline are not crazy enough for me, don't give you enough freedom.

This as a $60 game is a little ridiculous. I'm going to mirror Jeff's statement that 10 years ago, this would have been a mod made by a team of talented individuals.

First impression; it's fun to play Battlefield but the concept of the heist feels overshadowed by the chaotic nature of Battlefield's sense of open warfare. I never felt like I was taking part in or stopping a heist. As others have said, it feels like an expansion that did not need it's own release.

Also, the time it took me to climb up the construction lift, my team won the match.

But overall it's fun more because Battlefield is fun than this concept working.

Seems alright, but I keep getting killed from far away and I'm lucky if I get one kill per game. Seems like a game you have to play a lot to unlock skills/mods before you can actually be any good at it.

How do you guys feel about the supposedly much improved vehicle physics for cars and such? Youtubers like LevelCap and JackFrags say it's a huge improvement, and in their videos, it very much looks like that's the case.

Like can you flip cars again, A Team-style, like in BF:BC 1?

I haven't flipped a car yet, I did get a police car stuck on top of another car once though. I don't know if its all that hot, I really wish there was a proper handbrake so you could throw the cars around corners more, you just have to fudge it by braking manually.

I also want to redact my earlier statement, Blood Money is kinda fun. Not what I was expecting or hoping for a-la Payday, but actually can get pretty tense and have huge swings and close calls when a squad knows what the shit they are doing. As always, if you have competent friends to play with this will benefit from it.

I am waiting to see what other modes come with the game, but I don't care for the beta modes. The game itself isn't bad, but some of the changes like how weapons are unlocked don't do it for me.

I'm actually having a lot of fun with this which is bizarre because I couldn't stand 3 or 4, they just bored me to death! (and let's face it, 4 was just broken) I will say however that this could totally be achieved via DLC pack. This is not in any way a new game, and its a pretty poor effort on EA's part to push out something in time to make Battlefield a yearly thing like Activision do with CoD. If I can get hold of this game for about £25 on a CD Key site (as I did with Titanfall) then I'm totally down with buying it for the MP. I won't pay full price for a rehash, which this bloody obviously is.

Superficial musings on beta stuff that will inevitably change:

The M16 is OP as hell. No point using anything else aside trying out the unlocks

The physics for the bikes suck major ballage. Not sure how they're going to introduce being knocked off/crashing but they need to. Going 60mph into a wall and still being alive is ridiculous.

Anyone need a code for the PS4 beta?

I'm still enjoying BF4...there's 0 reason for me to get a smaller version of BF4. By the time Hardline is out I will be too busy with other games and probably still BF4 online. If anything, Call of Duty looks more interesting.

I'm having a lot of fun with Heist. Zipping between the 5 or so skyscrapers is a blast. I do wish they would limit parachutes somehow, because right now you can jump or fall of buildings and zip lines with no consequences. I love that there's mostly just cars and bikes, but the handling sucks.

Eh, to me it just seems like smaller BF4 with small variations on one flag CTF. I've only played 2 matches of each game type, but I got pretty bored without the huge scale of a Battlefield game.

Initial thoughts are that this should have been an expansion pack for Battlefield 4, sold for $25-30.

@spyder335: well i think there willl be more modes/maps

I liked the map, and the fact that they finally fucking removed the Supression that was in bf3/bf4 (made those games less competitive then COD because Supression added random deviation to your accuracy..RANDOM).

However, right now it's too similar to BF4, and I played a lot of BF4 (and dealt with plenty of shit bugs), so won't be buying until it's ~$15

As a big Battlefield and Deadspace fan, this game really doesn't interest me.

I'm not apposed to a cops and robbers themed battlefield game but this just looks like BF4 with a police skin. Which is awkward.

It's fun, but at the sametime I'm not impress by it. It feels way too much like a reskin of BF4.

I really enjoyed it. As someone who loved the Obliteration game mode in BF4 but could never find enough people to play a solid game with I think it's kind of great. Also the biggest problem with BF4 (3, 2.. all of them) in my opinion was missing all your transport options and being stuck in the middle of nowhere while things were going on half a kilometre away. The smaller maps meant I was never more then a minute away from doing something, and the amount of smaller vehicles blowing up and being replaced quickly never meant I was stuck at the base for long. It would need to be on par with the amount of content in BF4 for me to buy it tho, I wonder how many different cities you could do before it gets boring.

Yep. These are my thoughts. Captured some gameplay along with my thoughts in a video if anyone is interested. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRm4XlcyluU

Probably pick it up if it gets cheap enough, but as its on origin that probably won't be for a couple years. Origin!

It is a crying shame that this is what the Dead Space 2 team is working on. After Battlefield 4 and all the shit that surrounded it, they really should have given the franchise a break. Kind of a waste in my opinion. Also the claim that the game runs at 60fps on PS4 is complete bullshit.

I have only played a tiny bit of this and I am not a huge BF guy, but to me it seems as if there at least has to be a mode where once you die that is it.

There is no tension to cops and robbers scenario where everyone just respawns. To make it exciting it should have to be something smaller scale which needs a bit of planning and tactics, to my inexpert eyes this just seems like a mild variation on BF, just a reskin, new maps and a few new modes. - Not sure why anyone needs this.

They need to have the confidence to tone down the crazy in place of tighter, tactical and potentially more rewarding gameplay.

But Heat was amazing, so it's a compliment

Project Reality is still the best Battlefield mod. In fact, it is still the best version of Battlefield, full game or mod.

Maybe they'll prove me wrong by pumping it full of content, but in no way does this seems like a $60/$70 product. From what I've played, I really didn't think there was anything interesting or unique about it. Sure, they made some police vehicles, but that's pretty much all that felt unique about what's in the beta. It feels so much like Battlefield 3/4 that I don't understand how this is more than like a $15-$30 expansion pack, especially while Battlefield 4 is still so heavily riddled with issues. I definitely agree with Jeff in that it feels like a good mod, because it doesn't feel like a new product at all.

@thehumandove: Heat was amazing. Michael Bay is not. And that's the spectrum for this game in a nutshell. It could go either way.

Played a couple of rounds on PC, since they opened up the Beta there. It doesn't run all too great on my PC anymore, but it's still quite playable with 30ish to 40ish FPS with some rather bad stutters every now and then. I'd rather had played it on PS4. Despite that, I like it quite a bit, especially the somewhat improved vehicle physics. I enjoy how I can ram vehicles out of the way now, and do power-slides - though I feel the driving experience could be made somewhat more visceral with screen shakes and whatnot - especially the soundeffects, like tire screeches, could be done more forcefully.

That said, I agree that it feels somewhat redunant, especially since opposed to BF4, it doesn't go bigger and bolder in comparison to its predecessor. I love Battlefield, and more Battlefield isn't a bad thing, but honestly, I could do just fine without Hardline. I'll likely get it anyways, because at the end of the day I do enjoy Battlefield more than 95% of all other games. The question remains though, will I enjoy it more than Battlefield 4?

EA/DICE should consider launching Hardline with a lower pricetag for both the core game and premium. I don't think there is a lot of goodwill for Hardline and Battlefield right now, and unless the pricing reflects the perceived iterative nature of the game, I don't think it will do too hot in the marketplace, regardless of how fun it is.

Played another session of it tonight. Played lots of Blood Money. Love the mode. It's a wonderfully dynamic take on capture the flag. Way awesome. Love setting up the mobile command just so, that my team inevitably clears out the enemy's vault.

What I don't like? The military grade tank-like ground vehicles have no place in Hardline, in my opinion. It's retarded easy to go on crazy killstreaks, and their presence feels out of place in the setting. Fuck the bearclaw. I'd love if they'd scrap all that shit, and rather focused on making the civilian rides even more awesome - like letting the driver shoot with a pistol while driving, and maybe even lob grenades. That'd be hella rad.

Also - the Stinger is worse than ever - it twohit-killing choppers is silly. Lock-on warfare is lame, and always will be just that. There's already small arms damage on choppers, and veterans shoot down choppers with dumbfire RPGs just fine. Just keep the firepower of the heli to medium-TTK miniguns with zero splashdamage - so that aiming at infantry makes the chopper all the more vulnerable to dumbfire RPGs and small arms fire.

Overall, I think Hardline will be a great time, yet it's obviously too soon for another Battlefield game. There's inherently much more meat in the Battlefield formula than in the design template of most of its competitors, due to it being combined arms warfare - each class and vehicle having lots of depth of their own, and the interplay of all these moving parts keep it almost indefinitely dynamic and fresh. I'm still looking forward to the last two DLC expansions for BF4. So yeah - I don't feel ready to move on.

Also - I think it's about time that Battlefield introduces animations for getting in and out of vehicles, as well as the forces of inertia affecting player characters jumping out of moving vehicles. The franchise lost so much incentive for thoughtful play when it turned-off universal friendly fire - some of that thoughtfulness could return with that. Such a thing would make Jihad jeeping an artform. Do it fast enough that it is effecitve, but slow enough that jumping out of the moving vehicle doesn't get you killed. I feel like I am one of the very few players who usually brings his vehicles to a full halt, before getting out. I think that's the kind of behaviour that should be incentivized by design - by having proper animations for getting in and out of vehicles, and player characters being subject to inertia, and ragdolling all over the place (and dying), if they jump out of a moving vehicle at full speed.

I'd prefer if they'd delay Hardline and evolved the Battlefield formula some more. Like with animations for getting in and out of vehicles, and having the force of inertia impacting players who're getting out of moving vehicles. Reworking movement is also something that's direly necessary, pretty much for the whole FPS genre. I think they should have some kind of *movement-mesh* baked into each and every assets from the get-go - so that it's possible for the will of the player to always be translated into movement, regardless of where he wants to go. By that I mean that when the player sprints, he obviously wants to move, so it makes no sense for surmountable obstacles to slow the player down. There's a tiny rock on the ground? Just move the fuck over it. There's a god damn hip high ledge? Just vault over it without any additional imput from the player. Same with windows and whatnot. A steep hill? Just crawl up that shit on all fours. And so forth.

If I sprint, I obviously want to move. Why put any additional input requirements as barriers between my obvious will, and the execution thereof in the game. It's movement. Not a Hadouken. Figuring that shit out should be paramount for game designers and software engineers working with the first person perspective. I'm sick and tired of getting stuck on shit with my shin, and being able to organically and easily move everywhere I want to, that's the dream.

I'm a FPS lover, specifically a Battlefield lover for the past few years, but I'm not feelin the beta. I was super excited to play it as I waited for it to download. Then I fired it up, played a few rounds, then shut it off and went to bed. I played a few more matches the next day, but now have zero interest in playing any more of it.

I know it's not a finished product, but with it coming out at retail in 4 months I doubt anything can be done to help the lacking visuals. Admittedly I'm a graphics whore and this game lacks beauty on a next gen console. The menus and UI feel dated, like they're working backwards from Battlefield 4. Maybe that's something that can and will be improved upon by the time of release.

Overall unimpressed with the beta as a game, but hey, at least it has run well during my time with it! That's more than can be said for BF4! Curious to see how the final product turns out...

I've had several great nights playing with a full squad of friends, and I'm probably going to get the game day one because we'll all be playing together. That said, I do have some issue with this coming out so soon after BF4 and not doing anything particularly interesting besides having a neat aesthetic/context. I don't think the game even goes as far in the cops vs. robbers direction as it probably should, since you still have both teams running around with LMGs, RPGs, stinger missiles, and all other kinds of equipment that almost no one outside of the military would have access to. The cops vs. robbers aesthetic ends up feeling like a fairly cheap attempt at having at least one selling point for this thing.

As many others have said, it feels like something that could have (or should have) been an expansion pack for BF4, especially when you consider the Vietnam expansion for Bad Company 2 (which was mostly terrific).

I've been a fan of battlefield since bf 1942 until bfbc2. Non of the later installments have been good in my opinion so that's why i didn't care about hardline that much. But now, since the beta is available for everyone to try, i thought that there's no excuse for me not to try it out.

I played it in a two fairly long settings and i found that i'm in an agreement with the players who descripe the game as a mod. The game is fun at first but chaotic as hell especially at heist mode which is the main attraction. The map is small for 32 players and it's filled with small hallways. Now, for a regular game this might work but with Battlefield mechanics like squad spawning the map becomes too crowded while every single player is praying for a kill and here it becomes a clusterfuck.

Tripwire is another mode in the beta and it could have been so good but the driving mechanics requires no skill at all and it seems that the driver has no other options than to "drive fast" and to try not to crash... which is fairly easy.

So yeah, this game could have been a great spin off but let's be honest here EA are going in for easy cash in with this one.

It still just feels like a well-produced Battlefield 4 mod. It doesn't help that the new modes aren't great; Hotwire is too chaotic, and not in the usually enjoyable Battlefield kind of way, and I found Heist confusing and frustrating.

Really enjoying Hotwire.

I'll stick with BF3..

It's sorta fun I guess. It feels like a Battlefield game which is kind of disappointing... It just feels like randomness happening all around you. There's not really any coordination between people, which for a cops and robbers setting, you kind of need that. I think for this year I will just wait for Battlefront.