Battlefield Hardline Beta Hands-on (PC)

Playing Battlefield Hardline is like starring in the classic 1990s action flick Heat. You know, the one with the epic shoot-out scene. Now everyone can pretend they are Val Kilmer from the movie.

Battlefield Hardline has been developed by Visceral games, the studio responsible for the fantastic Dead Space series and it’s a cops and robbers game. There’s not a soldier in sight although you get to turn city locations into warzones.

I’ve taken part in drive by shootings with one of my team blasting away at the criminals from the passenger seat. I’ve destroyed armoured SUVs and cars using a mini gun in a helicopter. I’ve provided covering fire as my team of criminals legged it down a road littered with burnt out cars with bags packed full of dollar bills. The game is so much fun.

The unrelenting action is ably supported by the destructible environment which influences the way you fight. There’s nothing like the sight and earth shuddering noise of a collapsing crane to persuade you to find another route to your target. Not to mentioned the ridiculous amount of tangled metal that sprawls across the road forcing you to duck and manoeuvre around it.

At times I would hunker down and listen to the awesome gunfire sounds as they echoed down the streets. For me, this really added to the atmosphere. Although with the pace of the game, staying still did often get me killed. Or blown up. One time a helicopter landed on my head, which was impressive since I was sitting on top of a humongous crane.

The current beta features two types of matches over two maps; Heist and Blood Money. In Heist the criminals have to steal and money and cops have to stop them. With Blood Money it’s all about collecting as much cash as possible and taking it to your vault. The first team to stash $5 million wins and you can steal from each other. Both scenarios require you to work as a team, drop med kits, ammo and provide covering fire. And for most of the time in my matches people worked well together.

Hardline has other nice features too. I really liked the short respawn times and I have a tendency to die a lot especially when trying to fly the helicopter. You can also pick your spawn point to put you inside a vehicle even if it is moving or you could ride pillion on your colleagues streetbike. Everything is designed to get your straight back into the action and the count down timer sounds like the clock from the 24 TV show.

There’s 10 different weapons and 9 vehicles to play with including the streetbike and attack helicopter. Both personal and vehicular loadouts can be changed either in-game or via the Hardline website, once you’ve unlocked upgrades through earning XP. The website also contains a ton of personal stats, awards, community missions and map-based leaderboards showing the physical location of the best players around the world. Don’t worry, you can keep your location private if you want.

I really like Battlefield Hardline. It’s fast paced, easy to pick up and it didn’t crash or lag on me once. Although there are only two levels in this closed beta, they are both packed with different routes to discover and coupled the destruction offer enough variety to keep you interested.

You can sign up to the closed beta here.

Battlefield Hardline is released on the 23rd Oct 2014 for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.