Series of shooters Battlefield there are more than 10 years and during that time managed to become an icon of video games, each of which is awaited by millions of fans around the world. Surprisingly, the basic game mechanics, gathering all the new parts, has remained unchanged since the very first part. The developers from the Studio DICE repeatedly managed to “rebuild” the game so that she began to sparkle with new colors, and gamers to holes zastrevali fresh trailers in anticipation of the release. With a new numbered part happened a very interesting thing: after moving (for the first time in the series, by the way!) in the setting of the First world war, many began to think that the game will go from fast and furious battles in trench warfare with unwieldy tanks and large bias in the direction of realism. Others were waiting for “just the same as before, but in the entourage of the First world war.” That happened in the end, we’ll investigate it right now.
The Battlefield series has always been focused primarily on multiplayer battles, and the storyline never really faded into the background, acting as a training before the real battle. In the first games campaign at all was a battle on the maps from multiplayer, accompanied by a short text briefing and… everything. No doubt, DICE repeatedly tried to bring in a series of single-player mode, which would work as the Appendix of multiplayer, but as a complete story. And once developers is even possible. I’m talking about the game 2008 Battlefield: Bad Company, which in the first place was not large-scale fighting and not global conflicts, and the story of four soldiers that scoring on the orders of command, they go to the winds in pursuit of gold, in order to live comfortably until retirement. All this was interrupted by the excellent panels that reveal the characters. And the story as a whole was more like a military Comedy than a serious Thriller. You may ask why I give so much time to the game 8 years ago? Yes, because DICE, in my humble opinion, nothing better in terms of story component did not do to Bad Company and could not do after until I got the Battlefield 1. In the new part, the authors advocate the same approach: not in terms of “score on the orders and have fun”, and in using war as the backdrop, which will be played on the personal stories of individuals.
The French village. Mill. Dawn. Spoil the picture only the Germans, entrenched in one of the courtyards
Scene mode 1 Battlefield fraught with a lot of surprises do not wait! And although it does not possess unexpected twists and a powerful twist, I will try to do without spoilers, so you can experience all of history from beginning to end. It is history, as one large campaign no. There are five short unrelated with each other war stories, taking place in different time periods in different parts of the theater of operations. Each of the stories is directed and staged like a very expensive Hollywood film about the war. For example, the banal, it would seem that the story about the crew of the tank, which breaks its through hordes of enemies, for a short hour and a half which you will take on the passage, give a few dramatic moments and a couple of flashbacks, loss of brothers and betrayal. And absolutely stunning episode about the delivery of dispatches to headquarters, when the control is switched to carrier pigeon, and you wonderful music to fly over the battlefield, maneuvering in the wind. This whole campaign, I have caused persistent Association with the movie “Fury” with brad pitt in the lead role. And the transition from gameplay to the scenes are very well done and logical. We are going to visit in the shoes of a military pilot, Australian warriors and even meet Lawrence of Arabia. In General, you will not be bored.
In General, everything that relates to setting, Battlefield 1 full order. Moreover, the game in multiplayer, generates some unreal number of spectacular moments (the multiplayer will be discussed later), so she is familiar things manages to furnish nice and tasteful. For example, during the first run the game will not show you the main menu, it is under the authentic soundtrack and beautiful video holds straight on the battlefield in the skin of one of the soldiers, trying to survive the onslaught of the enemy. The enemy has a numerical advantage and sooner or later the soldiers will die under the barrage of fire and a hail of explosions, after which the camera momentarily fly over the battlefield, and the screen displays the name of the hero and the years of his life. After that you will be thrown into the body of another soldier to control the gun, then, after the same outcome, you can shoot from the tank, to see with his own eyes a gas attack, and so it will continue until, until the denouement (which I, for obvious reasons, won’t tell you). Each transition from person to person is accompanied by an internal monologue about the burdens and deprivations of war. The entire episode lasts for minutes 5-10, but looks very atmospheric, etched in my memory and, I think, is one of the best games of the prologues in games on military subjects. But enough about the story, after all Battlefield is primarily a multiplayer game, so let’s get to the multiplayer.
Ally tries to grab a point, the enemy produces a gas attack, and you shrink back against the wall, trying not to die. Standard situation in multiplayer mode
For a start I want to mention redesigned Battlelog (tools to control the character, search and join game servers, connection with friends and view statistics). Now it’s even better integrated into the game, and on a separate tab to see my stats on other games in the series. In General, Battlelog has become a single center for Battlefield 4, Battlefield 1, and will soon support also Battlefield: Hardline, which is very convenient.
First you need to choose for your character emblem and special tokens, some of which you can earn in the game, and part razblokirovka during in-game events (for example, for participation in the beta testing of the game were given a special badge). Yourself tokens with logo perform only an aesthetic function and allow you to show how cool you are and committed to the game, because they are shown to the enemy after the murder, along with other information like class and your “personal account”, someone who many times was able to shoot. More detailed settings, like the selection of guns and their modifications are made already in the course of the battle, I’ve some game in a row is disheartening. At a time when your whole team rushes into battle, you study the characteristics of guns and special gadgets, tuning each of them. I’m not saying that the function of customization of fighter should be removed from the menu class, not at all, this menu allows you to go to change characteristics of men, adapting them to the situation. It would be logical to duplicate this function in the main menu to configure the required presets in a peaceful setting for each class separately.
Since we are talking about classes and weapons and talk about them separately. Let’s start with the latter: despite the fears of fans of the series that trunks will become much more slow and not rapid-fire, it was not so scary. Yes, gone Bazooka, javelin and other “pleasures” of modern military conflicts. But we’ve got at the moment, the First world war: the era of the clumsy “triangular” tanks, armored mobile fortresses and cavalry. So the right way of dealing with the equipment will be stationary guns, grenades and dynamite. There are still anti-tank gun, but with it alone you can knock out except that a light tank, and then only on the condition that he stubbornly refuses you to notice. The weapon itself is still divided into several classes: long-range sniper rifles, pistols, machine guns, hand guns, pump action shotguns and melee weapons, plus specialized gadgets for each class. The trunks themselves did not felt slow, which makes the dynamics of battle to fall. Some players complain that from a historical point of view it’s not all that realistic, but it seems to me that it is not necessary to complain about. In the end, Battlefield is an arcade action movie about the war, not a simulator of picking trench sapper shovel. But what is really upsetting is the fact that customization of the guns as such, no. You can change the skin of weapons, choose one of the two or three types of sights. After a variety of options in Battlefield 4 is looking with some bewilderment.
If not for the smoke from the explosion in the distance and not a gun in his hand, the landscape would have looked quite peaceful
Speaking of classes, it should be noted that here, too, everything is standard for the series, but not without innovation. In addition to the usual medic, assault, support hero (aka technician), scout (read: sniper), pilot and tanker, it added a new class: trooper (the last three can be activated only in the case if you during the revival will choose the appropriate type of equipment). Each class has its own set of weapons and special items: medic throws all kits, sniper mark the enemies and shoot them at long range and so on. If you list all possible combinations and performance characteristics of all skills of all classes, not enough for a few pages. The selection is huge and everyone will find something to their liking. I am glad that the experience of last year’s Star Wars: Battlefront (and for its creation, too, are DICE guys) went to the developers benefit and from there to Battlefield 1 moved the elite classes. From time to time on the map there is a special set of uniforms, dressed in which can be a real death machine, showering enemies with a flamethrower, a machine gun or throwing batches of grenades.
In the house across the street the enemy is. You can bypass it on the right lane, and you can throw grenades from under the bridge or to take up a sniper and try to clean from a distance
Special mention are card. Artists and designers DICE tried their best, creating a dozen different other locations like the single-player campaign and multiplayer. They all turned out to be very thoughtful, layered, and give each person to find himself on the field of battle something for everyone: from melee to aiming at enemies from a distance, from the tank to the airplane flight bomber. Each card is quite extensive and allows you to come up with dozens of tactical maneuvers. For example, in one of the city maps, my team took the building on the opposite ends of the street and did not let the enemy control point. Being in a similar situation on the other side of the fence, we threw those grenades at home, smoked the enemy. In other words, any action in the game has its counter. Balance though and needs some work (in particular, some of the guns cause too much damage), for such a big project is at very good level.
It’s time to talk about the game modes: currently there are six, but DICE promises to add a new one in the upcoming additions. Here, too, is not without innovations. In “Capture” mode you need to hold control points and accumulate points (in contrast to the previous part of the series in which the team score was lost), Supremacy (the same, but without military equipment), “team Deathmatch”, or simply to say, ordinary deathmatch, and “Assault” mode, where one team has to blow up the wire, thereby pushing the front line towards the enemy, and the enemy, accordingly, need not let you do that. One of the new regimes is the regime of “War doves”, in which the maps in a random place appear those same pigeons, and the teams need the pigeon to capture and hold some time to write a dispatch to the staff. After that, the position of the enemy will be inflicted artillery strike. Wins the one who first will release the three doves. Another new game mode are “Military operations”. They even separate in the main menu. In fact, the “Military operations” represent a hybrid of “Assault” and “Capture” with reference to historical events. How it works: before the mission, you give help, than an event is important from a historical point of view. Then the attacking team is given a fixed number of “lives” and task — to take two point on each of the front line. The defender’s task, accordingly, is not to give them to do.
Another innovation of the multiplayer were the so-called giants. In that case, if the team is serious enough loses, it is issued a huge machine: the armored train, ship or Zeppelin, each of which is able to dramatically turn the tide of battle and deliver a lot of trouble to opponents. It is worth saying that to incite them is not so easy, so they’ll make you sweat, and weather conditions like sand storms and fog, which reduce visibility to almost zero and forced to go to the enemy almost hand to hand.
The airship is shot down, and that’s good. But it falls directly on us, and that’s bad
This is a big game, of course, can not do without bugs. Many of them will correct immediate patches, but nevertheless they virtually replicate their counterparts in Battlefield 4. The game, though not often, but crashes or goes into an infinite load. Characters and equipment fall into texture and get stuck in them (again, not often). It’s a shame that DICE once again stepping on the same rake.
Since we are talking about the cons, I cannot fail to mention the warring sides of the conflict. Yes, I said Battlefield 1 does not claim to historical authenticity, but it is one thing to use a slightly modified models of weapons and equipment is quite another to overshadow some of the historical facts. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that “someone fought more, some less.” That war went for everyone. But the time of the First world war featured in the game, the main conflict unfolds between the “Quadruple Alliance” (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) and the “Entente” (Russian Empire, Britain, France). Other countries were only allies of one side or another. The game is missing such important members of the “Entente”, as the Russian Empire and France. And although the developers promise to add “missing countries” in future DLC, all this leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.
Localization of the Battlefield series was always at a good level, and a new part of this plan was no exception. The translation of the text is correct, the voice actors matched perfectly, and they play (especially in plot scenes) is not worse than their Western counterparts. Each nation, in addition, has its own set of replicas in the native language. The only gripe is the fact that all the English language replaced with Russian that from the localization point of view is justified, but slightly hits the atmosphere (for example, during the capture points on the map the Germans yelling in German, but the English in Russian that causes some dissonance). However, it’s all minor quibbles, and I have little to say about the localization because that get almost nothing. All performed at a very high level. Matching the voice and game sound: during the battle heard around the thousands of small audio details (especially when using good acoustics), never leaves doubt that you are on a real battlefield. And, of course, we can not say about the games music, which is made just fine. Songs not so much (including another Remix of the main theme of the series), but they are all high quality and completely fit into the game. Excess and cutting the ear simply does not.
The scenery in the game is just great, and the dynamics they look great
Game graphics, though not enough stars in the sky, but it looks very nice and beautiful. Affects the authors ‘ attention to detail: on the tracks of a tank physically correct sticky mud, and the soldier is worth to visit in this very dirt, his arms immediately get dirty. In General, all physics game developed at a high level, correctly striking the perfect balance between arcade and simulator. When shooting from long-range weapons takes into account the distance to the target, and the shells of cannons, mortars and tanks have different speed, so it is quite possible to get out from under shelling, in time learned about the plans of the enemy. Feels good and controlled almost all the equipment, with the exception of motorcycles, which are already very fast, nimble and jump a couple of meters when meeting with any hill. The game’s physics engine, among other things, provides almost complete destructible: Yes, to bulldoze a huge fortress is impossible, but to smash to smithereens the houses, barns, small estates and even multi-storey tower — always please. Though, in retrospect, the collapse of a skyscraper in one of the previous games in the series, we can hope for something like that, but in the entourage of the First world in one of the upcoming DLC. The game engine Frostbite generally keeps a stiff upper lip and perfectly calculates not only the physical but also the visual component: the wind bend thin trees, and desert sand, literally, flies you in the eye. And, of course, the play of light and shadow is just awesome. To enjoy the local mountain scenery and sunsets of things. It is a pity that this is no time, because the enemy captured the point and it’s time to go win her back.
Pros:
- Fascinating military history, performed at the same level as Hollywood films.
- Multiplayer that can last for a long time.
- Nezaezzhennaya conflict, which have not been in a video game.
- Dozens of options of uniforms for the soldiers.
- The developers promise to extend the game.
- Good connection speed to the server and quick matchmaking.
- High-quality localization and voice acting.
- Sound and music on top.
- The game is very beautiful visually.
Cons:
- The pesky bugs.
- Slight imbalance of weapons in multiplayer.
- The historical inaccuracies.
- Customization of weapons, unlike the previous parts, almost there.
- Setting uniforms still cannot be made from the main menu of the game.
- The game is designed primarily for multiplayer, so if you like solo adventure, then you may not like it.
In summary I have written above, I want to say: there is no doubt that Battlefield 1 will be written on the hard disks of your gaming systems. It is very comprehensive and well thought out game with plenty of opportunities and, for the first time in a long time — interesting single player campaign. I put the game 9 out of 10. But I want to add that if you like multiplayer shooters, but Battlefield is not familiar with, feel free to add another half a point. The game will not disappoint!
Review game Battlefield 1: best game of world
Vladimir Kuznetsov