PS4/Vita Slain: Back from Hell – $2.99 – 80% Off PS4/Vita Skullgirls 2nd Encore – $9.99 – 60% Off PS4/PS3/Vita Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty – $4.99 – 75% Off Explosions and bombast are used not to distract from a troubling narrative as much as a stale one perfunctorily paced and reminiscent of network television emptiness.PS4/PS3/Vita Metal Slug 3 – $3.74 – 75% Off While Hardline is tone deaf at times, mostly it is just deafening. At one point, it is so telegraphed that you’re going to be attacked by an alligator that I laughed so hard when it happened I failed the QTE. This is why an obviously telegraphed triple cross turns it from boilerplate cop drama halfway through to something you’d see on FOX: prison breaks, revenge heisting, a trip to Hollywood, a racist redneck cult compound. It comes from people working to make the most accessible, non-alienating kind of bombastic fiction possible. That’s why Hardline is so good at skirting specificity and modernity. Plus, much of the voice and directing talent is actually pulled from US network television shows, yielding quality voice work that says nothing. In fact, there’s a glib, Netflix-style overlay between the game’s “episodes,” down to the “Next episode will start in…” countdown pane. The whole system is a sort of confused attempt to facilitate the story, which is ripped straight from network television, the kind of one-season crime drama no one will ever remember.
BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE BIG GAME HUNTER MOD
And all it yields is more gun and gun mod unlocks, which you don’t need if you’re not killing everyone. You’re almost encouraged to make arrests rather than kill because arrests get you more points, but I also maxed out the progression tree less than halfway through. Of course, this renders the detailed and specific weapon and weapon modification system moot, save for painting my guns with garish orange and blue camouflages out of amusement. Much better to wait in a corner, toss shell casings, and lure seven guards over one at a time. Especially because playing on Visceral-recommended Veteran difficulty (the highest available at the onset), combat has a higher chance of killing you with a shotgun blast while you’re reloading. It’s nice that, despite being awake, they stay completely silent after being cuffed because Hardline is easiest played as a stealth game wherein you isolate targets, flash your badge, and make arrests without being seen. From that point, you can go up and arrest enemies, shoving them to the ground with infinite handcuffs where they will stay with little sleeping “zzz’s” overhead despite staring at you with wide open eyes. A bit later you make a rough arrest, which opens up a central mechanic: flashing your badge to freeze up to three criminals. The characters acknowledge through dialogue that sneaking across private property isn’t legal, but they’re silent on the whole knocking civilians out bit. What makes them criminals? Being in the projects while Spanish music is playing? And why are police sneaking around clubbing people in the back of the head to do silent takedowns? When the trip through the projects turns into a stealth mission, suddenly the tutorial prompt is happy to tell you to, “toss a shell casing to separate a group of criminals.” Those “criminals” are a couple of people talking in front of their house. That designation, “civilian” is an important one, though. Save for the first episode, which has Nick and his new partner Khai walking through colorful-character-filled projects, overhearing quaint bits of urban dialogue, there are few civilians in the game and you can’t interact with the one or two you come across. The structure of the game makes similar sleights of hand. It feels unnecessary and irresponsible to dredge up ’80s Miami so Hardline can bang on about the War on Drugs in an almost-non-present temporality, skirting contemporary issues. Nick’s initial partner directly references the show Miami Vice and it feels like an excusatory retreat into nostalgia to hand wave away the shallow narrative.
Nick is drug police in a present day revival of ’80s Miami that is, a sudden influx of drugs, namely cheap liquid cocaine called Hot Shot, and subsequent drug violence. Hardline stars a young, honest detective named Nick Mendoza, a Cuban immigrant who grew up in a lower income area in Miami. Before you can even press a button, every time you load the game, you’re met with loud, fast cuts of the EA and Visceral logos, then an explosion.īattlefield Hardline (PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3) Not unexpectedly, Hardline doesn’t want to interact with that discussion. Following a year characterized by increased public awareness of rampant police violence against citizens and the militarization of local law enforcement, a gun fetishist’s game riding a “cops versus criminals” tagline feels slimy.
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