Battlefield 1

[retroed]

I've been playing a bit of the campaign, and it is so much better than I was expecting it to be. It is called War Stories and is split into five separate parts following different characters and scenarios. I've only done the first one after the prologue so far, Through Mud and Blood where you and your squad are pushing forward in a British Mk V tank, and it was really good. It is quite poignant in places, and has great use of music. It looks bloody fantastic, too. 

 

Not tried the multiplayer yet, which says something of the single player as it's normally the thing I go for first in a FPS. 

 

If you leave it on the War Stories menu long enough, a lovely piece of music with a female vocalist starts playing and it is quite beautiful. 

[retroed]

I can't get rid of the quote above. No idea why.

 

 

I've done two more of the stories, and enjoyed them as well. The second one is air-based flying a plane dogfighting which I'm not a massive fan of but it was quite good in the campaign. The cutscenes are really well done, there's a film grain effect that a lot of games seem to use now but here it works to a brilliant effect. Two more stories left, then I'll be on multiplayer. 

[DANGERMAN]

3 hours ago, retroed said:

I can't get rid of the quote above. No idea why.

 

 

I've done two more of the stories, and enjoyed them as well. The second one is air-based flying a plane dogfighting which I'm not a massive fan of but it was quite good in the campaign. The cutscenes are really well done, there's a film grain effect that a lot of games seem to use now but here it works to a brilliant effect. Two more stories left, then I'll be on multiplayer. 

 

Because you're not 2013, 2014, 2016 King of Mods like me, so I've fixed it for you 

[spatular]

^ i like how you got rid of the quote but left the bit about not being able to get rid of the quote to make Ed look crazy.

[DANGERMAN]

It's that sort of modding that makes me a 3 time winner tbf

[retroed]

I paid under 35 quid and had it two days before launch. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Got my copy through the post yesterday and managed to squeeze in almost 3 hours before the bloody DDoS attack

 

Was really impressed with the introductory Campaign mission and the way the set everything up, just threw you in at the deep-end with a bit of text on screen saying 'you won't survive' or words to that effect and you had to hold the German advance in a French battlefield as one of the few US Platoons, everything looked incredibly pretty, the particle effects, explosions and destructibility are all authentic, as is the gritty nature in which you gun down the German troopers. I loved it that when you die it says the name of the soldier and then 1889-1918 or something beneath, helps add weight and a lot of realism to proceedings, also hits home what a horrific war it was and how many lost their lives.

 

After this was finished though I ditched the Campaign and headed straight for the meat in the Battlefield sandwich, which is the Multiplayer. Took me a while to get into as it always seems to, everything's bewildering, everything's coming at you from all angles, you're dying all over the shop and I'd completely forgotten the controls from the Beta so had to get reacquainted with this as well, it's just not that fun at first but slowly and surely I got into it and found my rhythm as a Medic and I'm incredibly impressed with it.

First of all I want to say that the Beta map is definitely the worst out of all the ones I've played, the map variation and quality is just absolutely astounding, I've never known anything quite like it, one minute you'll be in the close-quarters city map like Amiens running through tight quaint French streets and the next you'll be running up mountains in the Alps travelling down tunnels to attack people who are operating anti-tank guns. I haven't seen some of them yet either, probably only seen about 4/5 of the 9 on offer and they've all been excellent, I really don't know why they chose Sinai Desert to showcase the game to people, there are so many maps that would've done such a better job.

 

The historical weight to fighting in all this places, with these period pieces of weaponry just adds so much depth, grandeur and authenticity to proceedings that modern/future warfare games just can't provide, you get the sense that you're fighting in these battlefields that real people fought and died in and it's an incredibly powerful thing.

 

So yeah, so far so good, I'm incredibly impressed by it, and I've found it much easier to get into than past Battlefield games that I just couldn't quite click with.

[Duck]

Battlefield will always have a special place in my heart because of Bad Company 2  but after 3 and 4 my love of the series had floundered quite a lot. They weren't bad games but I thought series wasn't really doing what I wanted.

 

I've put 10 hours in 1 over the weekend so it's early days but I'm pretty certain this is the best one since BC2. 

 

One of the main problems I had with 3/4 was there were waaaaay too much guns/attachments etc to chose from. In BF1 each class has 16 primary weapons and a bunch are variants with different scopes. I guess it due to era and them not having many different guns/tools anyway. But the simplicity of it is much better, I don't need 35/40 guns and 4 million different attachments.

 

Another problem I had with 3 but mainly 4 was the destruction. The levelution stuff was cool for the spectacle but it often made the level less fun. The shanghai tower falling was cool but fighting and jumping off the top of it was the most fun in the map. And the level that flooded the whole area. That level was fun before that, now I have to swim every where. 

 

I haven't seen any full level destruction stuff in BF1 but there seems alot more that can be destroyed, across the board. I was playing operations on one of the Italian maps defending our last flag in a fortress. Around the fortress were these 15ft high, 6ft wide walls which had tiny steel doors in the centre. The enemy kept attacking through theses doors so I shut them, so anyone on the other had to open them first. Haha! We've got them now boys! I thought.. there's no way DICE would let these walls be..KAAABOOOM! They blow a huge hole in the fortress wall and all start running through there instead. I panicked like fuck but it was awesome to see you could that. 

 

There wasn't much medium tactical destruction like that in the last 2 at all. 

 

The campaign was a nice surprise. I wouldn't say it worth buying the game just for it as it's really short but I think one of the main reason the other BF campaigns have been so bad is that it used a COD gameplay type template instead of a BF one. 

 

BF1's campaign is way more sandbox in Halo, MGSV, Stalker, Farcry etc kinda way but it teaches you the skills you'll need to play the MP. Support and help a tank, how to approach areas you need to cap etc. I also weirdly think this is the first BF campaign that lets you control a plane and not have it on rails. The campaign won't blow your socks off or anything but might play again on a harder difficulty. I would rather jump off a cliff than play 3 or 4's again. 

 

It looks really fucking nice too on consoles. I think it might have the most beautiful explosions I've ever seen in a game. 

 

I'll stop writing now.  It's not perfect, I think it needs some big balancing tweaks but it's been out for 3 days.. but I would recommend it if you like the older BF games. 

[retroed]

Tites this week, too!

[Duck]

Played some War Pigeon tonight. 

 

It's a 11v11 game mode on a small section of a map where the objective is catch a pigeon and send a message to your artillery. While carrying the pigeon you write out a note which takes time but it goes faster if you're standing still. After you've finished the note you release the pigeon but you have to be outside to do it. The pigeon can be shot down after it's released but it's tricky. If the pigeon is successful in getting away an artillery strike is called which can kill the other team.

 

The location of the enemy with the pigeon doesn't appear on screen all the time, it pings every so often so you're trying to roughly guess where they are till you close enough to see them. First 3 messages sent wins.

 

The type of gameplay stuff that plays out in this mode is cool and funny as fuck. People who carry the pigeon tend to run in houses or tunnels to camp so they can get the message written. They usually have back up so they get moments with the pigeon carrier and his teammate are sat in a house with 3/4 enermies trying to get in. It can be really cool and tense. 

 

On the one of the Italian maps there's a bunker in a fort which has multiple exits but the underground is quite big and abit of a maze. It's probably the safest place to write your message down there but once your message is written getting out is the problem. 

 

There's smaller square room bunkers doted around too with 1 door that are fun to try and defend as well. 

 

I don't think ever played 3 and 4 other modes, I just played rush and conquest. But the teamplay silliness of War Pigeons makes really fun. I will definitely play more. 

 

Battlefield 1 is a pretty good video game guys!  

[DisturbedSwan]

Finished the campaign off today, after people were hyping it up a lot I was left a bit disappointed with it really, the Tank and Pilot campaigns were easily my favourite of the bunch, but even they were no more than a 7/10 kind of experience really.

 

Some of the characterisation I found really jarring too, in the Pilot story the pilot you play as is a random American guy, really weird, and in the ANZAC story the 'Aussie kid' in it has an American accent, really strange. It's all standard fayre really, if you've played Far Cry then you know what to expect for the most part, you're often dumped off in front of a settlement and tasked with performing recon in the area with Binocs before going in stealthy or with guns blazing, the Lawrence of Arabia campaign reminded me of MGS5 a bit too.

 

There are variations on the above format, the tank story has a lot of tank combat (as you'd expect) and the Pilot story has a lot of flying involved, the Italian campaign has a bit where you're a walking tank almost, but they all still include the Far Cry-esque sections above, they're not bad by any means, but just serviceable really.

 

Some great moments in the Tank and Pilot story's (there's a section in No Man's Land which is incredible) but yeah the rest is rather forgettable really, certainly better than BF3 & BF4's campaigns for sure, but still nothing to get excited about, and nothing to go out of your way to play.

[DisturbedSwan]

You get a legendary weapon to use in MP when you finish it.

[Duck]

19 hours ago, Blakey said:

Finished the campaign off today, after people were hyping it up a lot I was left a bit disappointed with it really, the Tank and Pilot campaigns were easily my favourite of the bunch, but even they were no more than a 7/10 kind of experience really.

I think the 'people hyping it up' were shocked that a Battlefield game can have a decent campaign after the last 4 efforts. It's good just not Titanfall2 level good. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah that's fair enough, I get that.

[mmmark]

 

[DANGERMAN]

man, that looks more disrespectful than if they'd just carried on

[retroed]

Yeah, what the fuck was that.

[mmmark]

That was 15% of the community having a cease fire while trying to seem respectful in a disrespectful re-enactment for a game of ww1. Much like V is and Cod. But games be games.