Battlefield 1 on Xbox One: A Review
A Year and a half after its release, I present to you:
BATTLEFIELD 1: A REVIEW
So, despite a very buggy release, and lots of bumps and glitches along the way, the Mr. and I absolutely KILLED IT on Battlefield 4 on the Xbox 360 back in the day. We’re talking leaderboard topping awesomeness. The game itself didn’t run smoothly for several months after the release, and with every new update there were new problems that would arise. That pattern of problems with updates, and even a gaggle of hackers taking down their servers all amounted to less-than-satisfied Battlefield Players. It was disappointing.
The next release was “Hardline”, which admittedly- I skipped, though my husband did play it, for all of a weekend during a “free weekend” event. He reported a lack of the “levolution” that longtime Battlefield players would come to expect, and noted that the game lacked the same enjoyable gameplay overall that the rest of the franchise provided.
Rather than take any of that as warning signs, or red flags, we’d hoped that the game developers had learned some lessons, and we could look forward to a much less dramatic release of the much anticipated Battlefield 1 on the Xbox One. We pre-ordered. We waited. It came. It was October, 2016.
Now, here’s the deal: I’m not an unreasonable person. I realize that with a big game with a huge following globally, there’s going to be some bumps in the road. We expect hiccups, and snags, and other cliché terms that imply interference-causing headaches.
That being said-
Battlefield 1 proved to be another problem child. From “black screen” loading to changing layouts to weapon tinkering- this game is equal parts fun and frustration.
Below, in no particular order, is an exhaustive list of gripes and complaints from not only myself, but compiled from our entire squad, regular players of the game.
BATTLEFIELD 1: THE PROBLEMS
A LIST COMPILED FROM THE HELLBOUND CRUSADERS
Reach out and let me know what you think belongs on the list!
-Difficulty in joining games with the in-game "party" / unresponsive to "Click Y to join". Unresponsive 'back button' join. Frequent need to completely re-start the game to resolve.
-Completely overpowered “assault” class. While numerous updates have resulted in ‘nerf’ed’ weapons, the “assault” class remains largely unscathed.
-Constant changes with weapon damage / distance stats. Each time you get used to how a weapon fires, or how many rounds it will take to put down an opponent from a given distance, there’s a new update waiting to change that for you.
-Loss of the 2nd gas grenade. Why??
-High ping players lagging servers. When players from other parts of the world join in on the local servers, they are somehow given otherworldly abilities. Single shot kills from around corners, through walls. The ability to absorb full clips of ammo while maintaining ‘100’ health. You get the idea.
-Lacking the environment destructibility (“Levolution”) that Battlefield was kind of known for. This means that more corner-campers than ever are clinging to the bones of half blown-up buildings, because- they are safe there. Gone are the days of total building collapse.
-Difficulty playing with friends. The in-game “party”, which can hold 5 players, seems like a great tool, in theory. However, anyone who regularly uses this feature can tell you that it’s a real pain in the ass to play with a group of friends. Trouble switching teams to be on the same team as your buddies and long wait times in the queue all add up to a bad time. In some cases, we’ve cycled through several maps in a lobby before a squad mate was finally able to (manually) switch teams to join us.
-Squads of 5 regardless of game type/size. Some of these game modes have as many as 32 players on one team, so what a pain in the ass to not be able to play with a more robust quantity of teammates.
-Shrinking online community, so you run into the same players repeatedly, and in some cases, that can be a tremendous annoyance.
-Support class has a “perk” slot wasted on a bayonet perk. None of the Support class weapons can equip a bayonet. So technically, this class has one less perk to choose from than the other classes because of this wasted option.
-Switching lobbies can be agony because of slow quitting times. It takes WAY too long to get back to the main menu after backing out of a game.
Do you have your own grievances that I haven't listed?