The central focus of the EA booth seemed to be Battlefield 4. It was set up like a little amusement park ride. You had a line to the left that was constantly there the entire show, you had a little back area that gave you some back story and tips to the game, then there was the gaming area of 64 players, and lastly two giant stages with massive computer screens on them.
The stages and computer screens were there to showcase the “Commander” mode. In this mode you can use a computer, tablet, or other devices to watch the battlefield and give commands to your team. You can click on object, coordinate plans, and do other perks throughout a match. I didn’t get to try this myself, but the set up was nice and authentic like a real Commanders set up.
I did however play the core game. Early on we were jam packed into a room where we watched a trailer of the upcoming game, along with details of the match we were about to be thrown into. It was 32 vs 32 in a Conquest style match. In the middle of the map was an enormous skyscraper that had a key point at the top of it. We were told to either capture that point, or destroy the building.
I was amazed that this huge building was even able to be destroyed, but I jumped into the game and viewed it first hand. I walked through another building to go outside, heard the soldiers screaming, and the next thing I know this enormous building was literally falling to pieces in front of me. This really showcased the dynamics of the title.
The early trailer also showed us to utilize the enviroment to get out of certain situations. You can go underground, or into a building, and destroy a support beam to destroy the section above it. In the trailer they showcased this by having a tank fall into a crater. During the match I noticed several people doing similar things. People camping in a building? We all looked at eachother, then destroyed that section of the building.
I was luckily on the team that got the fast upper hand though. A lot of the map was eventually slanted in our favor, and we began dominating the other team. However almost none of the matches I viewed, or was a part of, finished. They went on for a good long while (I believe mine was around 20 minutes), but they kept getting cut short.
Visually the game is mind blowing. Granted its running on high end PC’s, but it should look similar on the new consoles. It still had its rough textures here and there, and it still felt like Battlefield 3, but overall it felt like a bigger improvement function wise. I’m just curious to see when air vehicles start to take over as that is what really frustrated me in Battlefield 3. I still ran into instances where I had to run long distances to find someone, and so did a few people around me, but often I was put right into battle easily. There was also some graphical glitches here and there, but overall nothing that shouldn’t be fixed by release. It’s easy to say Battlefield 4 was one of my favorite games at E3.
