Taking down a gang
In the next scene, Khai and Nick find the leader. He’s surrounded by a bunch of guards. Nick has to pull out his scanner and quickly capture the faces of the gang members, hoping to identify in stealth who they are. The scanner only works if you can capture the face of the thug. Once you’ve done that and identified him, it can track him and his movements. That comes in handy as the criminals start moving into a building, behind walls. You can still see their outlines. The scanner tells you what a criminal is wanted for, how big a reward you get if you capture the suspect, and whether he’s a high-value target or not. It’s really fun to use as you listen to the chatter of the bad guys. It’s mature-rated, so there are a lot of foul words.
When I went down to move in, I came upon two guards. They saw me at the same time, and I flashed my badge. As I did so, I pointed my gun straight at one of them. An icon in the shape of a meter appeared over his head. It starts out clear, and slowly turns red. As I moved my gun on top of his face, the meter went back down. But then the other guy made his move as I didn’t keep my gun on him. He attacked me and clobbered me. I started the scene over, and this time, I moved the gun back and forth, making both of them stand down so that I could cuff them.
I scanned for the main bad guy and found him on a second level. I tracked him down, dialogue ensued, and then we got a lot of intel. But then more thugs showed up. When the bad guys came, it got scary because they were heavily armed. I had to deal with them one by one. The very first guy I went up to spotted me and got a shot off. I ran around the room, dodging shots, and I finally took him out. But that alerted most of the gang to my presence. I had to creep around until they stopped looking for me. They weren’t really bright in that way.
Once I was able to walk around again, I discovered that going out the front door wasn’t an option. I got killed a couple of times, and then I wised up. I kept walking past the front door, took out a couple of guards from behind, and found a side entrance. I used my scanner frequently to figure out where the bad guys were. At one point, they almost discovered me. But I sneaked past one guard as he was about to turn, and, miraculously, another passing guard didn’t notice. I took out three more guards secretly and finally escaped.
Episode 9’s stealth before the storm
EA also showed me Episode 9, dubbed “Independence Day.” This time, I was working with an accomplice to break into a heavily guarded skyscraper. Guards were everywhere. I scanned the crowd and found red silhouettes all over. I tried a couple of times to go down a side route but got discovered and quickly killed. This time, I had a lot of fancy gear. I had a silencer on my gun that I could use to take out security cameras. I had the scanner. I had a scoped weapon.
I made my way around to the back of the building, where I found a couple of guards who could be distracted. I managed to get in through the service entrance of the skyscraper. Then I had to take out a guard and drag his body into a secret place. Each time I knocked out a guard, I searched the body and got some loot. I got to the security room, surprised the guard, and then started looking at the cameras. I figured out the route to take to the elevator. I tried this a couple of times, but the guards converged on me. Finally, I knocked out one secretly, distracted another, took out a third, and then raced to the elevator. I joined Khai.
At the top, there’s a tense scene in the elevator as Khai and Nick decide to blow up a water tank. The tank will drop a ton of water on the penthouse, drenching it and compromising all of the security. When it blew up, it was glorious. That’s where I appreciated the quality of the graphics and the cinematics.
Once in the penthouse, I had to move right into a firefight with a bunch of armed guards. That was tough because I also had to find something at the same time. The assault rifle came in handy, and the enemies were tough. Glass shattered everywhere. The darkness was spooky as the guards tried to triangulate on me. I kept moving. Finally, I took them out. Our accomplice went to work on getting into a safe. Then the reinforcements arrived. I went to the weapon locker to stock up, and I grabbed some night-vision goggles.
Those goggles were useful. A wave of armored combat soldiers came into the penthouse. I stayed in a side room. I moved back and forth quickly between both doors, shooting at the illuminated figures that the night-vision goggles outlined for me. I had to empty a lot of clips into those soldiers. They shot away at the walls, which were destructible. I kept going back and forth as the soldiers were coming at me from both sides. Somehow, I survived.
Bottom line
Battlefield: Hardline is going to be intense, whether you’re in the middle of an action scene or a suspenseful stealth mission. The bad guys will outnumber you, and you’ll have to use your wits and your willingness to bend the law for your own purposes.
In the single-player campaign, you will get to experience what it’s like to be a cop and what it’s like to be a robber. I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out how that happens in the course of a narrative story. But it’s good to play both the good guys and the bad guys and see the blurry line that separates them in this crime drama.
