Battlefield 4 - Xbox 360 Review

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Edit:

There is a patch coming out soon for Consoles that may address the freezing issues. The fun factor of this game when playing with friends rates this a 5/5 in my book, but the technical issues are such a turn-off that I literally turn off my Xbox the first time it locks up and don't bother going back.

If they can fix that, it take this game from merely "Good" to GREAT!

First things first, a compliment and the one thing I have absolutely no complaints about: The sound engine is INCREDIBLE!

The meat of the Crap Sandwich

There are lots and lots of problems. Capital 'L' LOTS. These issues are anecdotal, and vary be user experience but there is an EA support page that has vetted issues across multiple scenarios, again, and anecdotal but every one of my friends are having issues in some fashion. Playing last night (11/15/13) we were all booted from various servers at various points of time (loading in, playing, checking the score, changing maps)

This game is obviously half-cooked on current gen consoles, and according to the support thread PC players are not exempt. There have been server patches but no client patch on 360/PS3 yet.

The dirty truth:

-Random Freezing: During map cycles, during "Levelution" events, during server join, during round changes, during, "just standing there". This is absolutely freaking unacceptable in a retail release. This is some entry level QA stuff right here. They knew about this and let it release anyway. Shame on them.

-No party feature: I have to get a little teenager-y here but, Seriously! WHAT THE HELL? Dice has always missed the mark on this in their BF games on console, but this is just too much. In 2013, when every top tier release since 2006 has had a party system that isn't bass-ackwards, I simply can't understand the thinking behind this.

They also pulled Platoon's from Battlelog. DOUBLE WHAT THE HELL

-Graphical step back: If you need proof to see that the 360/PS3 are at the end of their run for pushing the graphical envelope in newer games, look no further. Halo 4, this ain't. When you've played every map a handful of times, you'll stop noticing or caring. There's stuff to blow up.

-No pre-game customization: I hate Battlelog, you shouldn't be forcing me to use my computer or tablet to organize stuff when I'm playing the damn game. During battle is not the time to force people to mess with their loadouts. This is, frankly, just stupid.

-Loadout Screen: The loadout screen is garbage. Pure garbage. I'm not unintelligent, I can navigate it, I can make it work. Somebody is in love with their UI design, and somebody has forgotten that you design this stuff for the players benefit, not your ego.

-LET ME EDIT MY CLASSES BETWEEN ROUNDS. Christ almighty how is this a hard concept?

-The UI: The UI sucks. It's a mess of menus and menus and more menus. Open up a menu? LOOK MORE MENUS! Say the work menu enough and you'll start to question your sanity.

-Battlelog: SeriouslyEA, DICE? NOBODY LIKES BATTLELOG. If you like Battlelog, great. I hate you. For realsies, guise, I'm super-cereal, I won't play this game on the PC where it arguably is superior on all fronts because of how bad Battlelog is. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND BACKING A FAILED HORSE LIKE THIS. Quit floggin this dead animal.

The Battlelog App sucks, reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally bad. I've queried all my friends, and so far between the Ipad 3, Nexus 7, 7.2, an overclocked HP Touchpad, and some random Samsung thingy, the Battlelog app is Crap. It's a cr(app)

The Good stuff:

When this game works, and you aren't fighting against the design to actually get in a match a play it with friends, it's a blast. They've stepped back some of the design changes that were brought about in Battlefield 3, and changed the all-around feel of it, to more Bad Company 2, than Battlefield 3.

There are still flashlights that can blind in dark corridors, red-dot lasers that act as a "SHOOT HERE" target beacon, and some weirdness on the sniping front that could use some tweaking. When the game is working the way it should, it's a 5/5.

Thanks for making 5-man fire teams a thing, and thanks for bringing back Commander

Miscellaneous: I am constantly baffled by the design decisions they've made starting with BF3.

We should just start calling it Bafflefield.

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I started playing Battlefield with Bad Company 2. I loved it and pre-ordered BF3. I've enjoyed BF3 so much that I also preordered BF4. This is where my preordering days will come to a stop. I was expecting a gaming experience at least on par with BF3, but sadly this is a huge step down.

I only play multiplayer so my review will be based solely on that. On release day I expect server problems, and to a degree I can deal with those, I know they will get better in a few days. The problem is not with the servers, it is with the game as a whole. Half-baked would be putting it kindly. First there is the freezing. In the two hours I played last night my console froze four times, I had to reboot. Second there is no pre-game squad system. Want to play a match with friends? Too bad. You have to try to find a server that is empty enough so friends can try to join on you before the server fills up. Third, good luck finding a server. The server browser is a joke. I filter so it isn't supposed to show me full servers, but it does anyway and I have to scroll through hundreds of them to find an open server. That is once you actually get the list, it can take minutes just for it to load. So just do a quick match, right? Wrong, I got nothing but network errors when trying this.

So what about the gameplay, that has to be much better you say. Wrong again. The graphics are really poor. I know there is a new generation of consoles coming out and it SHOULD be much better on those, but those aren't out yet and you're charging full price for the current gen. The graphics should be at least on par with BF3. Enemies are very hard to see, everything seems to be washed out, textures are non-existent, there are no hit markers, the weapon customization is overly complicated and the list goes on.

So Dice and EA I'll throw you a bone and give this one star. But only because Amazon doesn't let me give you zero. I know a few of these items can be fixed with patches, but I paid full price for a complete product on day one. If companies are going to continue to go the route of shipping out incomplete software and fixing it later they should charge less day one and ramp up the cost as the game improves. You're giving users no incentive to pre order.

**Update 11/11/2013**

Returning the game. I played for about an hour tonight and it froze my console four times. I guess that is what the four in Battlefield four stands for. I give up. I want to love it, but it just hates me too much.

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And that's just the beginning: The graphics are worse than BF3, the gameplay is stilted, and the glaringly obvious fault that nobody wants to say:

1. DICE just wanted to cash in on people wanting an Xbox One launch title before the One was released. They got $100 from me. Too bad I hadn't just donated it to Wounded Warriors Project. Maybe I just need to grow up and stop gaming entirely.

2. This will affect my decision to buy an Xbox One. If the BF4 online experience is this bad, what value does Xbox Live have for me? Just another bill, like this game.

It's cruel for me to give a one star rating, it really is, considering the massive amount of development and potential this game has. But I'm not buying potential, and like any game critic will tell you: NEVER SHIP INCOMPLETE GAMES!!!

This game is such a chore to try to play, and impossible to play online with anyone on your friends list, that I'd rather just go to the office and catch up on work. Seriously.

Honest reviews on Battlefield 4 - Xbox 360

I've always been a FPS fan. I've played all the COD's, BF, Halo's etc. I really liked BF3, with a few minor complaints, but overall a favorite so I was excited for this to come out. A lot of reviewers talking about the washed out colors and lack of texture and they are completely right. Even on a gaming monitor through HDMI and on all graphics settings I feel like I'm playing a XBOX (original) game. The online matching system is a joke. The weapon customization is frustrating and hard to figure out at first. I'm halfway through the campaign and it's just ok. Usually BF games have an awesome storyline while other FPS games I buy for multiplayer, but I'm debating just stopping now. It's a bit boring.

For how much I was excited for this game, I'm really disappointing. I hope I don't get let down by COD ghosts as well.

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EA has demonstrated yet again their regard for their customers. This title (just like last year) hardly works on release. I'm 32 years old and am too proud to continue supporting a company that lies to me year after year just to get sales. I'm done with EA. They have ZERO excuse on this one. It's the same console, the same online system, and the game is almost completely the same. What excuse do they have for core features to not work?

In fact, as a customer of 10 years, I'm going to demand that Amazon refund my money on this. Maybe that will get some attention from EA.

Bugs: Impossible to play with your friends. There's not even a menu option to join as party. Joining "on top" of eachother, one at a time, results in the "command slot not available" bug.

Often impossible to join a game single player

Server browsing seems completely broken. No matter what filters you choose there are no results

No sound in helicopter (same bug in BF3)

Graphics are worse than on BF 3 as well.