BF4 Beta Review a dissapointing sequel

If you've been through enough betas to know what a beta looks like and feels like then you're in my boat. If not listen closely, while anything beta represents unpolished work this is essentially the final product, you know minus a few tweaks, patches, and balances changes. That being said having spent nearly an entire day with the beta I'm sorely disappointed with it, what made the battlefield series great is gone. EA has taken what hardcore battlefield fans loved and turned it into something I wouldn't even wipe my ass with. As with the last beta the product feels highly unpolished.

There are problems with spawning, bugs that cause you to glitch through buildings, and graphical errors when certain sequences of actions are strung together. This was to be expected. I felt it fair to give you guys who want to demo the game a heads up.

The biggest issues driver and graphics optimization. It runs great for me but this is one of the largest problems whether its with Nvidia or with the game itself lots of people have been having graphical infidelity and lag. The graphics look really spectacular on Ultra, but I think that's the only improvement from BF3->BF4.

Shooting mechanics have been dumb down from 3 going into 4. Bullet drop has been reduced and sniper shots from nearly 2 football fields away barely drop. The recoil mechanic familiarized heavily by gameplay in BFBC2 and earlier games is almost completely gone. Recoil is so easily manageable that its laughable. The destruction mechanic that made BFBC2 a success has been watered down to the point of no return. Granted my entire day was spent only a single stage (Siege of Shanghai) but the amount of destructibility has been drastically reduced even from 3 going into 4. (The sides of many skyscrapers are indestructible; I even rammed a helo into one of the buildings, not even a scratch.

I think the highlight of my stage exploration was riding an elevator which I do admit was a rather fun new mechanic. Setting that aside the combat has turned more into CoD style play and I often find myself running and gunning instead of planning any sort of offensive or defensive. (It gets the job done and its a lot less strain on the brain. Sadly its because of this that Battlefield is dying.) The return to non-linear game play in multiplayer was too little too late. The ability to fire back at other from the water is also a nice edition, but barely noticeable and very conditional (to the presence of deep water).

I do not own this image or the game. I am merely borrowing this for demonstrative purposes.

I think this is going to be the last time I spend money on a Battlefield game. I'm sorry guys but EA put the nail in the coffin with this one. Their recent history with games signals a time to move on and look to other developers for games that are truly entertaining. I will still do a full review of the single-player as well as the multiplayer upon release, However, do not hold your breath guys, this is not looking like a keeper.