Battlefield 1 (2016)

The characters of the individual war stories were quite amazing as they all had distinct personalities that help drove their movie worth storylines.

Furthermore, the introduction of the game mechanics and features like: planes, tanks, armour, varying types of grenades, varying type of weapons in order to complete the game was well done. As a main feature was introduced and mainly focused one by one in the war stories so that it was easily digestable.

Another positive is it showing multiple fronts of the war by different "war stories" also kept the story fresh and I found faciinating to learn about other sides that are often forgotten.

However for the negatives the amount of stealth missions I found quite annoying but I am bias against them. Additionally the final boss fight with the amoured train I found kinda rediciulous and required quite a few deaths to figure out as it was not that intuitive what to do.

Overall good fps campaign 7/10

This review is geared towards the single player campaign. First and foremost, the game is obviously very pretty and the cutscenes are very cinematic. Every War Story is its own little movie, or at least a TV movie. That’s the one disappointment I have with this game. All of these various stories are great, but there feels like there’s even more story when we finally reach the end of each level. I'd happily buy some DLC that added more War Stories. Heck, you could have a game about T.E. Lawrence alone. Even with the short stories, they did a good job in the limited time really fleshing out the characters & giving us a decent story along with imparting a history lesson of varying accuracy, which is good if it inspires those who play it to learn more about the Great War. And I know EA was worried about trench warfare being boring, but I wish they’d have a few more levels with the Harlem Hellfighters. The opening level they were featured in will definitely be in my list of game openings that others are judged by. In that short span of time you get a feel for the savageness of the 1st World War. The gameplay was fun, whether driving a tank, flying planes, or being a foot soldier. I did find the half-hearted attempt at stealth to be less than spectacular. I really hope to see these war games go back in time more than into the future. Maybe more WWI games or a Civil War game.

I almost never buy a game for the multiplayer potential, but I know that’s a big part of the Battlefield appeal. I played a little online. I died a lot, of course, but I found a lot of fun playing as the medic, working on the frontline saving lives more than getting kills and Battlefield still rewards those who aren't going for high kill counts. The battles sometimes felt like they were a Sherman tank away of being a WWII battle, but that’s just the balance of gameplay fun vs. historical accuracy.

9/10

Full Disclosure: I'll never finish the campaign because I mostly just play Battlefield for the multiplayer. The series is also one of my favourite multiplayer shooters, so I already enjoy how they feel and play: this is not a game that will change your mind on the series if you hate it.

So with that said, the little I did play of the campaign was pretty impressive. Split into different individual stories, there's real emotional depth here -- something I didn't expect from the series... ever. I came to the series late, but it's easily the most memorable in recent years, unless it completely tanks at some point.

The multiplayer... is still Battlefield, only with an emphasis on older weapons and trench warfare, which I dig. I'm a big fan of the maps, except for when you get spawn raped in that one desert one. That's a Battlefield problem in general but it can be frustrating. Outside of that, there's a good amount of variety here, with indoor combat and outdoor, running up hills, running in buildings, jumping into holes to avoid getting shot.

There aren't a lot of different modes to play, but outside of some of the regular ones, there's Operations, which does its best to include story while taking an hour to play. It's fun but I'm not into game modes that take that long, so I don't usually play it. Once in a while though, it's entertaining. Then there is War Pigeons, which just has you grabbing the pigeon and writing a note. If you sit still, it writes quicker. These games can be really intense and it's a welcome addition.

There are some UI issues that make no sense whatsoever, and I've run into an issue where the game crashes, but not to the point of being unplayable.

So basically, it's more of what fans like, set in a time period that we don't see much of in media.