Buying Battlefield 4 on the PS4 was an easy option. Mainly due to the fact that it came with the console and it was the only PS4 bundle in stock at the time. But after my encounter with the PC version I won't lie to you, I was rather dreading it.
I try to keep an unbiased view on new games even when it is just a platform switch, but, given how bad EA Games response has been to the public outcry on the PC version I couldn't help but have this sinking feeling that I was about to get a bayonet up the bagpipes.
That fear was only half founded.
Booting up BF4 for the first time I was impressed. Running at 900p it looks great and plays smoothly for the most part. With 64 players in a game with a lot of action it holds up really well considering Call of Duty: Ghosts has a few frame rate issues in the multiplayer and the levels are hardly complex on COD.
The single player campaign is a little naff with the same cliche stuff we have seen in just about every other generic FPS game not offering much in the way of thrills or shocks. The storyline is a straight cliche including the female team member and the male team member that thinks you shouldn't have a female team member (Snore fest), although it does show off some impressive facial textures and general graphical fancy. No flight in this one at all though. Overall the single player campaign ends with the same cliched ending and follows a path much traveled just with a bit of a better paint job. If you are looking for a single player game, go find another!
Sound is another great point I should mention, the sounds are just incredible with helicopters flying above, tanks either side with the occasional LAV thumping in the background and all the gun fire in the mix the game does well not to drop sounds (Unlike the PC version). Positional sound is equally as good.
This is the second thing they have implemented correctly, although when the servers load a new map you'll have no sound for like 30 seconds or so normally textures will be blurry.
So far so good.
Controls are responsive and very good when playing as infantry but it starts to show the cracks in the glossy paintwork when we enter vehicles. The air vehicle controls are simply put, daft. I play a lot of games and some of my favorite titles employ air vehicles like Arma 2, Arma 3, BF3 etc and they generally do air control really well. I admit I have to program my own keybinding for the Arma series but it is always done in a logical way.
The bindings for BF4 air vehicles is just confounded with illogical choices, as if they are simulating an RC model which makes no sense! These are not RC vehicles for a start and we need controls that are logically placed and common amongst other games! Just as an example. The (R) right stick should NOT control pitch and roll and the (L) left stick should not control thrust and yaw! It is illogical to me! I may be alone here though and it is just my opinion.
These can be changed a bit in the options menu thankfully but it doesn't have my personally ideal positioning, but everyone is in the same proverbial boat here so it is all fair game.
Ground vehicles suffer halo syndrome by default settings, it feels unnatural and finicky. But once changed so the triggers control acceleration and braking it becomes more "logical" and less confounded.
One additional control feature implemented which I should mention is the use of six axis to free look in some vehicles, this is odd at first when in an air vehicle but once you get used to it, it gives you a new element of freedom to look around whilst not release control of the aircraft. This is a really good idea.
You can also use the six axis when controlling infantry units for a free-form lean function. This wasn't to my liking but they are controlled individually so I have this off. But I tend to turn it on in the Call of Duty-like maps such as Operation Locker. Aptly named as it feels like you are face to armpit with the enemy team 90% of the time.
That previous comment brings us to the map and level design.
Which is bloody awful. I'm sorry to any fans of the franchise but it is true.
Unlike battlefield 3 which had some fairly decent map design this entry in the series seems to of had complete morons on the team. Firstly, let me explain what makes a good map.
Firstly, you need each teams bases (Obviously)
Secondly, you need a central conquest point in which you will spend a large amount of time fighting for. A defensible position that lends itself to a large engagement. A large-ish area that you need tactics for attacking as well as defending.
Thirdly, you need the surrounding conquest points that lead to the flanking captures. When the fighting is fully focused at the main engagement point each team can move around the map in small teams fighting for and capturing/defending the surrounding points.
Forth, you need areas safe from SNIPER COVER!!! This is the one that annoys me the most. Most of the maps have been designed in such a poor way that snipers can literally spend the entire game sitting in a spot with a radio beacon (A place-able spawn point) and they'll sit there for the entire game pretending to be Sgt Swagger (Watch the Shooter if you don't get the reference). And most players will sit there sniping for the entire game thinking nothing of the team. It doesn't matter to them if their team is losing. It doesn't matter to them if they lose the game as long as their kill/death ratio is higher than everyone else.
This is another major flaw in Battlefield 4, the player base.
The decent map design has gone for a burton and due to the map design every sod is a sniper.
It doesn't make for very interesting multiplayer games and more often than not you'll find yourself spawning on conquest point X and being sniped instantaneously due to the fact that you haven't been spawned in with the slightest amount of cover. Unfortunately this adds for an overly frustrating play time and it is purely down to the poor design of the map. Operation Locker has to be one of the worst oddly, not lending itself to snipers but rather at the start a sprint for the focal conquest point (C) but unfortunately there is only one way to flank round, a cliff side pathway which, you guessed it, has more snipers in it than any army should actually have. This means which ever team captures C generally wins unless they are being manned by a bunch of gerbils or guinea pigs. Again this demonstrates poor map design. There should be more than one way to flank in a map like this and at least one path which has cover from snipers. You can tell that the map design is bad when just after release they announced a throwback map pack including a map from Battlefield 2. They did this with Battlefield 3 but it was an addition to a game with good standard maps. This time it feels as if they KNOW the maps are god awful.
On a last note, the game on the PS4 suffers Crash To Dashboard issues (Ha, CTD for the consoles now!) and it has crashed a fair few times for me. It is no where near as bad as the PC version was (I'm still in therapy for that) but it's still highly questionable.
This game shows promise but at the moment I'm still struggling to find anything decent in the game that balances out the map design. I honestly can't. It's a fair game for a launch title but EA Games/Dice have done a number on their fans this time.
A quote from Hilleman from EA Games;
Battlefield 4 was very successful in both PC and consoles. From the perspective of sales and gameplay.
I'd like to argue that, it was successful in sales, gameplay wasn't included at launch. Ask the thousands of people that purchased it on PC when it was released up until about December 28th 2013.
Also another Hilleman quote;
If you were to take a look at the process behind a gen three launch and a gen four launch, it’s 80 percent different. So the next major number release for Battlefield will likely have an 80 percent process change, because time has passed. So that’s why I talk about changing for the future, not changing for mistakes we made last time.
Surely, saying "We made mistakes, we learn from these mistakes" would have been less arrogant than saying THAT!.
On Battlefield 5 release, I think I'll wait to make sure it is the polished product we expect and deserve from EA/DICE. I'll wait and watch the forums and if it looks like a firestorm of angry people I'd stay away.
Overall, a good game marred by an arrogant release, poor map design and crashing issues.