With the recentlyforced announcement of Battlefield Hardline due to it being leaked, and the high expectations of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which do you think will be better? We take a look at what we know.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare This year’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the first to go through a three-year development cycle, and developer Sledgehammer Games has put next-gen at the forefront with a new engine, better visuals and futuristic in-game tech.
You play Private Mitchell, who is voiced by Troy Baker (you’ll know Baker as The Joker in Batman Arkham Origins and Booker De Witt from BioShock Infinite) and only speaks during cutscenes and not during gameplay – a conscious decision by Sledgehammer to let you embody the character.
It also sounds like the mass of messy variety in the other CoD campaigns (e.g. flying a jet in one instance to being back on foot, or piloting a submarine) where you’re flitting between different characters has been trimmed back to really focus on Mitchell, and it looks like he’ll be the only playable protagonist.
Mitchell is a U.S. Marine and friends with Will Irons, the son of Jonathan Irons. Irons senior (played by Kevin Spacey) is the CEO of Atlas Corporation. Atlas is regarded as the world’s largest private military corporation, and cleans up the mess after cataclysmic events. Elder Irons offers Mitchell an opportunity to join the company and the wealth of toys it has in its armoury – including that EXO suit.
Future tech is the game’s primary focus. The EXO suit gives your character incredible strength, and as you progress through the campaign you earn points to upgrade the suit. You’ll be able to dash towards cover, perform super-jumps, traverse the battlefield via zip-lines, wear magnetic gloves to climb buildings, turn invisible with cloaking tech and also hover in the air.
Beyond the suit the weapons in your hands have been given the future treatment, with some of them being energy based rather than relying on ammunition. Grenades can change their purpose and ability, and can be set to go bang as well as set to ‘threat detection’ – locating bad dudes in the area via your visor – while they’re still in your hand.
That hover bike you saw in the trailer is joined by a hover Mega Tank, and they share the same tech, in this case plates underneath the vehicles that tilt in all directions.
The game is being built on a new engine to provide more realistic details, with the Game Informer piece describing being able to see a character’s eye dilating. Sledgehammer are making the game with next-gen consoles in mind, though Xbox 360 owners haven’t been forgotten about, as an undisclosed studio is handling that version.
We’re left with plenty of questions, like if there’s any scope for freedom throughout the levels, and if the times you’re on a hover-bike differ in any meaningful way from the times you’re driving a Humvee or a snowmobile in Black Ops 2 and Modern Warfare 2 for example.
Plus, there’s multiplayer, the reason that people keep playing. No word yet, though Condrey says “You can probably imagine the possibilities of a lot of the stuff you saw in single-player and how it would apply online.”
If multiplayer’s not your thing and you sip through the campaign once and forget about it, there’s also going to be a co-op mode, though what form it will take also remains a mystery.
Battlefield Hardline
Battlefield Hardline is the next Battlefield game, and it appears to be a class-based cops-and-robbers experience, according to images of the purported title that were leaked from the series’ website. Internally code-named Havana and in development at Dead Space studio Visceral Games, the police and thieves-themed spin-off has been rumoured for some time.
You will play as Nick Mendoza, a young Miami detective who is caught between his own personal struggles, which are right and wrong; cop and criminal. Nick embarks on a cross country journey to seek revenge on past partners. He is surrounded by crooked cops and drugged up criminals. A voice actor in the new game is also from House of Cards, the show that Kevin Spacey is the main man in, who is voicing a lead role in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Each level is designed with an episodic structure, and the AI have been heavily improved, as well as a main factor in the Battlefield games; destruction. This compliments the most visually diverse locations and maps in the game, and blowing up swimming pools on top of hotels will probably never be as fun as it will in this game. Nick carries a scanner, which he can use to mark enemies on the map. This will help in the way you decide to take the mission; all guns blazing, stealth, or a decent opportunity to set up a sniper position on a roof. You can also use it to search for outstanding warrants on people within the mission, which will increase the overall amount of money you can use to spend on upgrades. There is a wide range of vehicles for players to use also, such as motorcycles and armoured choppers.
A logo and artwork for Battlefield Hardline were spotted lying on EA’s server today, along with a set of “BFH” icons for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. “BFH+” icons, presumably for those with Battlefield Premium, are also present.
Other fresh data included what looks like four soldier classes (Enforcer, Mechanic, Operator, Professional), references to a map (“MP_Downtown”) and parts of a welcome message for those signing up to the game’s beta. Named modes include Blood Money, Bomb Squad and Carrier Assault. Separately, Twitter account Battlefield Daily spotted a list of new in-game awards for Havana. The images include a skull, weapons, police handcuffs and a bag full of money.
The leaked trailer is definitely worth the watch, and from what it shows? It could be absolutely brilliant.
Personally, I think Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare could reignite the series, as the game is renowned for being fast paced and it’s been the same for years, and opposed to slowing the game down it looks like they intend to make it even faster. Battlefield Hardline could be great and the online modes definitely sound entertaining, but whether Visceral Studios can execute it the way DICE have with the past ones will be the decider. From the information we have now, I’m going to say Battlefield Hardline will be better.
BY HARSHVARDHAN SINGH.
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