Ah, Battlefield. This franchise has long been one of those that people either love to the point of daily online play and tea-bagging, or one of those that people think is a part of the Call of Duty series and then say “Well what’s the difference?” when told otherwise. Now, we all saw the trailer when this came out, didn’t we? I certainly did, and I’d be lying if I said the prospect of a World War I game didn’t excite me a little.
I mean, once a month we get a war-based first-person shooter thrown at us which looks and feels just like the last fucking one, but a WWI game? Me dunna fink so, m8!
Now I’m no historian, believe me, and the closest thing we have to one here at E14 is Brad, and he’s off with the sniffles, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I speculate on this stuff and just take it as canon out of respect to me. We good? Excellent! Now let us begin!
Right, well I’m no stranger to the Battlefield games and I have to say that I’m somewhat of a fan. However, it has not been until now that I have said “I love the new Battlefield game”. And that’s no understatement! I absolutely adore this game!
The campaign was truly remarkable as far as both story and gameplay are concerned, and the graphics are (bar none) the best I have seen to date. There are five campaign stories where you play as five different countries: British, American, Italian, Australian, and Turkish. Each one is just as brilliant as the last and I have to say, bloody emotional. You get invested in each and every character (all of whom are three-dimensional) and each of their stories touch your heart. The maps truly are a spectacle and the amount of detail is…well, you’ll have to see it to believe me because I can’t put it into words.
Multiplayer? Pah! Fuggeddabowdit! Truly phenomenal! There’s one mode called Operations and it’s a team vs team based play mode that cane take up to an hour to complete, and it’s for 64 players! That’s right! All-out carnage! And you think that’s just a load of blokes running around on foot shooting at each other? No, mate, think again. That also includes, fighter planes, bombers, artillery, tanks, horses, landships, field cannons, and infantry! Then throw in some mounted machineguns, bayonet charges and gas attacks and you’ll get just a fraction of the mayhem that ensues! I shit you not, sir!
This truly is a remarkable (and I must say, impressive) game that keeps the heart pounding. Your eyes will dart across the screen constantly to try and keep up with what is going on. The weapons are all true to history, as are the conflicts and geography. Another thing worth mentioning, is the score (that’s the game music, not how many points I got), that really gets the blood pumping.
My only real complaints about this game is that I wish there were just a couple more campaign stories, as there are only an average of 3 missions per story (there were five in all, remember), so I felt a little…not underwhelmed, that would be a very wrong word to use, just…I dunno, like I’d had my starter and my main, but where’s my dessert, fool? Also, as this was an EA game, I was expecting some of their old tricks to pop up, yet whenever the going got tough and I tried to call in my Titan, it just wasn’t having any of it; which was a real shame.
Now, if I can be serious for a minute (I know, this is a side you don’t normally see from me), I feel this needs to be said. This game was made to be as accurate as possible, and though we can never, ever, ever have a single clue of what it was like to be in that conflict, this game truly forces you to respect it more.
When you have to charge over the walls, bayonets rushing in, bullets flying over your head, taking cover from gunfire, hearing the screams around you and you crawl through the mud with explosions penetrating your ear drums, I mean, yeah, it’s great fun, but then you remember “Shit, people actually did this” and you will feel your heart stop for a second.
When I was playing this, I’m not ashamed to say that I felt I had a constant lump in my throat and I even welled up a few times. As much of a good time this game is, it’s a real lesson in both history and humanity. The sheer bravery of those men, as well as the families who worried for them every day at home, is just beyond comprehension, and I salute EA and DICE for making this memorable tribute to those men, and not just from one side of the conflict. As it mentions in the game: “Behind every gun was a human life”. Top respect to the developers, seriously.
So yeah, if you like FPS games but also like your history, then you get a pretty nifty treat. If you’re in it strictly for the campaign (I know not all of you like PVP and that’s fair enough), then you might wanna wait for the price to drop a bit before shedding out on a few hours of gameplay. However, if you’re an online gamer (like myself), then, mate, you cannot go wrong with this (dare I say it? Fuck it, I’m gonna say it) absolute masterpiece! If this doesn’t get game of the year, Ill eat a bowl of Brussel sprouts (and I fucking hate sprouts!).
Aaron's Spoiler-Free Verdict - 9.5/10 – Lest we forget.
AJ Waters is a pulp fiction writer from Kent in England, who specialises in horror and flash fiction. With a novella in the works, AJ Waters is an up & comer in the British pulp scene.
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