Today's game is Battlefield 4 on Xbox One. Can you tell that I got EA Access for a month and played a bunch of EA crap for $5 lately? Battlefield 4 still looks surprisingly excellent - the Shanghai mission, at least - even though it's almost 7 years old. Too bad the gameplay is boring, but that's a problem with almost every shootybang game. Oh snap! Read more and watch gameplay here.
I used to like games like Battlefield and Call of Duty back when I was a reviewer. I liked the spectacle of it all and enjoyed the gameplay. These days, however, I can't help but notice all of the little things that annoy me. I don't like the guided tour of a battlefield approach where you walk when the game tells you and shoot when the game tells you and look where the game tells you. I also don't like enemies magically teleporting in for "epic" firefights. I don't like A.I. partners that are useless. It's all so freaking formulaic and boring now. I can't stand it.
One thing I can't complain about with Battlefield 4, though, is that the presentation is still freaking great. The game looks awesome even in 2020. They went crazy with the lighting and effects and destruction and everything looks surprisingly good still. I also dig the really clear, really loud gunfire sound effects. That stuff matters. I don't know if the rest of the game looks this good, but storming a skyscraper in Shanghai on a rainy night is stunning.
And that's it. "Cinematic" shootybang games are boring. That isn't to say I don't like FPS games, no I still like some of them fine. Halo is dynamic and gives you lots of ways to do everything and approach every firefight. And Titanfall 2 might be pretty linear, but they give you extremely interesting stuff to do. Games like Call of Duty and Battlefield that rely pretty much exclusively on the spectacle and scale for their appeal are lame.
