Battlefield 4 - PlayStation 4

I've been a fan and player of the Battlefield series since 1942. I took the console jump with the XBLA 1943, and this series has been my primary FPS of choice since Bad Company 2. If you are like me in this, or perhaps you are a gamer looking for something besides Call of Duty, I really have no idea why you won't love Battlefield 4. DISCLAIMER: Please be careful with the reviews that give this game a single star due to the server issues. EA has patched most of the problems away, and if you go on major forums like GameFAQs for this game you'll see most gamers are playing this just fine. Onto the meat... If you've never played Battlefield before and picked up this one, be prepared for a nerve-racking adrenaline rush. There are several game modes: 32 vs 32 Conquest (think King of the Hill on a massive scale; it's my favorite game mode), Rush, TDM, Domination (Smaller version of Conquest essentially), Obliteration, and more. The guns in this game play very realistically, so expect recoil, and a slew of vehicles like tanks, AA trucks, various boats, jets, and helicopters all with varying types within each category are on the battlefield depending on the game mode you desire. Whether you're an infantry-buff like me or love the feel of transporting your 'squad' (teams are divided into several squads of 5 for you to spawn in and interact with) across the game's sprawling, beautiful maps, there' something for everyone interested in this FPS-war game by DICE. Your heart will be pounding as tank shells whizz by while flying in a helicopter or you watch the skyscraper you were just at the top of crumble as you parachute down to an enemy-infested area. One of the most crucial keys to recognize is there are four classes to utilize: Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon. Without going into too many details, each class carries a specific type of gun selection -- for instance Engineers use Carbines and smaller PDWs while a Support primarily uses LMGs -- as well as an ability like health packs and repairing tools. The overall idea is to use your abilities with your teammates in conjunction with a game mode's objective to blast your way to victory. That's right, folks: winning is just as important if not more than KDR. On top of this, the environment is destructible in almost every way, so think twice before camping lazily in that little warehouse in the corner of the map! With the basics out of the way, let me touch on the improvements many veterans may be interested in hearing about. First and foremost, the destruction... My goodness, the destruction! One thing I was immensely sad about in BF3 was the lack of destruction compared to Bad Company 2. While still not quite back to the ability of leveling everything and anything as in BC2, DICE has fortunately returned just how much you can destroy in this fourth installment. Massive structures won't be able to be damaged externally, but now you won't be disappointed with certain towers and buildings not being blown apart though they look like they should be. Engineers, you'll have a field day. Another major improvement is in the attachments for the guns (which, speaking of guns, are right on the money as they were IMO in BF3). As DICE has seen their game grow and have added in various perks and attachment options to compete with the options given in other FPS's, what would end up happening was regardless of the options gamers often ended up putting on the standard Suppressor/Silencer + Grip combo whenever possible. However, it seems DICE has really dived in deep here by having both a true pro and con with every attachment (This was done in BF3 though half-baked as mentioned before). Want to reduce your recoil on the first shot of your trigger an general muzzle climb? Well throw on an Angled Grip and a Muzzle Brake, but don't expect the MB to help out your gun's accuracy. Want to run in guns a-blazing without revealing yourself on the mini-map? A Tactical Laser light and a Suppressor will do the job, but you may end up having quite a bit of recoil. I think you get the idea; BF4 gives more meaning to attachments in a way that makes you analyze your guns more closely while appreciating your kit choices noticeably more. A definite change to the series is a feature called Battlepacks. Those who played Mass Effect 3's multiplayer will recall these from EA putting them in there, too. Essentially as you level up and rank up your weapons you will unlock these. These are 'treasure chests' that give you free camo colors, attachments, etc., once you open them. The items you get are randomized, and as you get higher in overall rank and complete advanced assignments you will unlock Silver and Gold Battlepacks which contain rarer items/attachments. To my knowledge you can't buy these with money in any way, so they are a nice incentive to keep on playing. One of the larger changes is the introduction of Commander slots in the massive Conquest mode. One player of each team fills this slot and has a bird's eye view of the map at all times. They have an array of abilities to use to assist the actual players on the ground, such as UAVs to reveal enemies, supply drops, cruise missiles, and more. A good Commander can change the tides of battle, constantly revealing enemies and alerting individual squads to a part of the map where a crucial engagement or objective is occurring. So important is this role that you have to be ranked level 10 or higher to play it, and if a Commander is doing a lackluster job their team can boot him out of the slot. What's neat is if you have a tablet, you can go on the BF4 Commander app and join a game for the sole purpose of playing Commander. You don't even have to have the game on at home; play this wherever you have a good connection. Multitaskers and RTS fans will really enjoy this. Other than these improvements, the game just overall feels more smooth and tight than before However, I'd guess that 1080p and 60fps would do that, as well as just the overall nuts and bolts of improved audio and different alerts/noises. This game looks so much better on PS4 than it did on my Xbox 360, and it's insane how the game keeps up its smoothness when in those 32 vs 32 matches. As usual, DICE has really killed it with the maps, and if you're a fan of Rush you'll really like the sequences that completely change some maps as Attackers destroy the consecutive A and B points. Paracel Storm is crazy! What I highly recommend you to NOT do is buy this game for Single Player. This is a Multiplayer game to the point that it surprises me DICE doesn't just do away with SP. It' s not that the campaign is horrible, just don't expect the level of plot and character development you could find in a shooter like Killzone instead (not to mention its lack of longevity). I'm serious, though; if you don't play Multiplayer you are wasting $60. TL;DR - this game is even more epic than its predecessors with better attachments, destruction, and added features compared to past installments. The game looks amazing as expected, but PC players migrating to console may not be quite as swept away.

Well I'm finally writing a review for this game as it's nearing the last DLC pack. I've owned this game on PS3 and PS4 and in the beginning when playing this on PS3 it was more of a 3 start rating for me. I think the game was just too powerful for my older generation hardware and that's why the experience wasn't that good. Also, there were a plethora of bugs that EA/DICE continually released patches for and it seemed as soon as they fixed something it broke again. I finally bit the bullet to get a PlayStation 4 and this game is one of the things that made me love PS4. I can't even describe the intensity of graphic detail of playing this on PS4 but it is AMAZING. Literally, as I was playing the single player campaign on my PS4, I said "Oh so this is what it was supposed to look like" outloud! Also, multi-player is even more awesome and I love the fact that I can play Conquest large which can have 64 players at one time. It's amazing to me how smoothly the game plays knowing that there are 64 people playing on the server. Whatever EA/DICE did on they're back-end...keep doing it! If only we could get other FPS franchises that are just as big in name to follow suit, it may make the world of FPS multi-player a little better. I also enjoy the fact that this game has tons of levels in the multi-player's ranking so there's always something else to earn and unlock. Of course there are the shortcut packs to unlock everything for a small fee, but I'm one of the players that likes to earn things as I go. I think if I used one of the unlocks it would be too much at one time to handle because there are so many weapons, attachments, camos, other devices, etc. it can get confusing. With this game I have learned my lesson that if they say it was really meant for the next-generation hardware they're right. Also they just released the fall patch for the game which made hit detection a ton better. Not to say it was bad before but there were situations where you can see you're aiming at someone but nothing is hitting them as you're shooting. That patch made me enjoying sniping again because it seemed I got more targets I aimed for than losing them. I haven't even dove into all of the vehicles you can use, drive, etc. If you're a Call of Duty fan , or FPS fan in general and like games where it takes a whole team effort to win...give this a try!

(15 May update) Still running smooth, the peeps with problems might have crappy internet conn. I have mine hard-wired vs wifi. Also, to the peeps that try to fly the helos--go to the test range first. Nothing worse than respawning into one and then crashing because the pilot can't fly low-level. First, to all of the trolls--go back to WOW world. Amazon shouldn't let peeps that haven't even purchased the game to submit reviews. The game is expensive=purchase price+ 49.99 to unlock all the maps. It's playable without the maps but you will be limited to which servers you will be able to enter. Second, to all who claim there are glitches and lag--not sure what you internet speed is but I haven't experienced any. There have been some questionable kills from enemies that appear to have been behind something, but it doesn't happen all of the time. Third, the campaign is short but fun and slightly challenging. Fourth, Multi-player, graphics are outstanding and detailed. Prepare to get killed a lot when starting out. Most players already have most/all of the weps+mods maxed out so you will be outgunned. Good news is that there are so many other players on your team (31) that you do have a chance. The outside maps are huge and yes, there are camper snipers that go to the edges of the map but the helos/vehicles take them out most of the time. One thing I miss is the sound of a building when the is starting to collapse. When you can hear the metal beems twisting and giving way. You can still take out buildings but not all of them :( Overall, if you have a good internet conn it is worth getting.

This is a good game. Great experience with sellers and arrived a day or two early.

Original review preserved below, but now a full year+ after this game was first released, it is finally not infuriatingly annoying to play. Not only that, but the latest map pack (Final Stand) is absolutely awesome. I am a level 130 so I have a lot of time in the game. I suffered through a lot of stupid public beta testing via EA public relations department (aka sales pushing this out before it was done). The big AAA houses all do this and this is why I would STRONGLY encourage people who were waiting it out for whatever reason to NOW buy BF4 at its one-third cost compared to launch pricing. I paid $110 including premium, but honestly the only map packs that are all that interesting are the vanilla ones and this latest pack, Final Stand. But that is just me. I LOVED BC2 but hated BF3, and now that I've ranked up in BF4 on the PS4 I can't even play the PS3 games. This game is actually why I bought a PS4 (I was a level 106 by then) and it was insanely disappointing and aggravating to play a broken game for so damn long. But a huge improvement was that when the PS4 version crashed, it didn't require rebuilding the entire file system with two reset cycles which made me feel sorry for my PS3. On the PS4, when it crashes (and it still does occasionally), it just stops the game and you have to restart it. But that is a lot less common now and BF4 is much more fun to play now. ANNNNND, DICE has announced that they are NOT done with BF4 content. With Final Stand as any guide, they are getting better and better at building huge 64 player maps for the PC/PS4/X1 peeps (my second-favorite of the DLC maps was the one before this last one, Dragon's Teeth.) Final Stand combines huge open areas with massive yet intricate CQ areas, and the snowy locations remind me of some favorite BC2 maps. ;) I actually hope a huge new wave of players and new PS4 owners are discovering BF4 so I have lots of people to play with for a long time. ;) ORIGINAL REVIEW: The game itself would be great if they ever fix it! I had zillions of crashes and freezes on PS3, and when I got the PS4 version, it is COMPLETELY unplayable due to horrible stuttering during gameplay. DO NOT BUY this or any other EA/DICE game until they improve their track record of releasing absolute CRAP and using the public as beta testers. Its been since October and the game is too frustrating to bother with. BFBC2 is a FAR better game overall, and BF3 is way more stable if you like the look of the post-BC2 BF games. BOYCOTT BF5, too unless it is PERFECT on release day!

As a huge fan of the Battlefield series, I feel that since Battlefield 3, they are going in a direction I don't like... I know that a lot of people are not going to like this review, but here we go anyway: 1 - The spawing system almost everytime puts you in a immediate death sentence place. Yes, you're going to die a lot because of this... it's so frustating. I spend most of my time in this game dying and after choosing a differente place to spawn, I'm so distant of the combat that I have to run... and run... and run... and when you finally reach the combat... die again so you can start all over again... 2 - Just like Battlefield 3, the level design is made to the coward and camper player, who hide all the time, increasing the amount of times you'll die. The maps are terrible. Seems that they can't handle 64 players... 3 - The single player campaign is design only to show the Frostbite Engine power, not to entertain you... it's just terrible. Walk, cover, shoot... repeatedly... that's it. But this is not a surprise. This game, just like COD, is made to multiplayer matches, not single player. 4 - Lagging - Unfortunately, I live in Brazil, so there are no servers located here, which highly increases th ping time, destroying my performance. In Battlefield Bad Company series I felt that even with no servers in Brazil, I could play just fine, with no problems related to the distance. I'm a good player at it, so I know what i'm talking about. 5 - Match Search system - As usual, the game is going to look matches, no matter how many tickets are still left, so prepare to load the game tons of useless times, because it happens a lot, like when you're entering a just about to end match... Can't Dice a easy rule to avoid that? Like if the match is 75% complete, the game notify you that the match is ending... that would be a huge time saver... 6 - The class options - It's takes forever to unlock weapons and improvements. Specially if you spend most of the time dying. There are so many vehicles around the match, that it makes no sense to use other class that's not the enginner or someone other with C4, so you can improve your chances of surviving. It takes forever to destroy a tank too... In Battlefield Bad Company it was easier and way more realistic. I think that in this game the tanks are made of adamantium or kryptonite. It takes away all the fun of using rockets. The choppers are a little easier to destroy. Takes only 4 rockets!!! Oh my GOD!!! That's all I can remember for now. Don't get me wrong, it is still a good and fun game, but most of the problems were carried over from Battlefield 3, which implies that Most of the game is just a big CTRL+C and CTRL+V of the last version, but with little improvements. The gameplay is definitely better than Battlefield 3 (that game sucks). But to me there's no game like Bad Company 2. It was the best one ever! I hope they do another one soon! Easy and friendly to play! I paid $39 in this game, and i'm glad I did. I would be pissed if I had payed $59. I think that's it.

Battlefield 4 would easily be a 5 star game if it weren't for all the software and networking problems. When the game works, it's glorious, especially in 1080p. But there have been a lot of hiccups with this game since it launched. Granted, I think DICE was under a lot of pressure to make the deadline for the new console launches. And this game has had problems on every system, PS4, XOne, PC, PS3, and 360. My friend says the single player campaign is a lot of fun, but I play this for the multiplayer. It's now finally coming together on the PS4. I think DICE will have all of the bugs eliminated by the end of the year. Now it would be really cool if EA decided to give us all the extra maps for free.. what a nice present that would be!! I doubt it would happen but it feels like the publisher and gamemaker have a prime opportunity to blow the competition out of the water. Speaking of which, I used to play COD, but I changed after Black Ops. BF4 is everything you hoped BF3 would be. It's amazing in 1080p on the PS4. You can practically enter any building, and take the stairs or elevator to the rooftop. There is a lot of destruction to buildings and the environment, and it is so much fun when the map changes because of a significant event, such as a dam failing, or a skyscraper collapsing, etc. (Damn helicopters and tanks!) There are all of the typical BF multiplayer games, such as Conquest and Rush, but there are new game modes such as Defuse and Air Superiority. I have yet to try Air Superiority where the whole game sounds like Top Gun with jets in the sky, but Defuse is one of my new favorites! This is a classic no re-spawn game, 6 vs 6... one team attacks in order to plant the bomb, and the other team defends and tries to defuse the bomb (if placed). Since there is no re-span the matches are tense and tight. I'm not the best BF player, but it still doesn't change the fact that this game rocks! Once they get all the bugs removed, the multiplayer game will be seamless online entertainment at your fingertips. Once you go BF4 you won't go back to COD!

I got this game a few days ago and was really scared it would not work online with the ps4 well. I have been playing on line for the past 2 days for about 6 hours one day and 4 hours the next. I did not get booted one time so just wanted to let people know it is working on line now and its working smoothly for me anyways. I get wifi from an room over from mine and it did not boot me at all really shocked from what people have been saying about it. The game is awesome i suck at it but im new to battlefield this is my first one . It looks awesome on the ps4 and the game is really fun to play even tho im bad at it right now. Tons of people playing on line at the sametime is awesome. So much going on I really want to try and help my team take over places its wicked fun. I give it five stars because its what i was looking for in a fps looks really good and online is awesome. The campaign sucks so if you are buying it for that dont buy it. There is an area for new people like me to just go and theres tons of vehicles and a shooting range an stuff to get use to what you are doing. That worked out great for me because i hated the campaign.