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Here is my next video review. In this video, I give you a quick overview of Battlefield Hardline, go over the rating and content, and let you know if I think it is good for your gamer.
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Transcript:
Hello, my name is Eric Rogers from parentinggamers.com and this is Parenting Gamers Review of Battlefield Hardline. In this video, I am going to give you a quick overview of the game, go over the rating and content, and let you know if I think it is good for your gamer.
So the first question is, what is Battlefield Hardline?
The Battlefield franchise is a direct competitor to Call of Duty. Previous versions of the game have had a similar military setting. However, Hardline takes a different approach. In it, the player plays a detective on the Miami police force trying to take down a drug cartel.
Battlefield Hardline is a tactical, first-person shooter, or FPS. A first-person shooter is a game where the player experiences the action in the first-person perspective, as if he was actually in the game, as you can see in this clip here.
A tactical FPS is one that tries to simulate realistic combat. Unlike more fantastical games, the player is not able to withstand a lot of damage and the guns are made to resemble their real-world counterparts as closely as possible. So, instead of running around shooting lasers or plasma cannons, the player shoots pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles.
The gameplay in Hardline differs from previous versions of Battlefield and Call of Duty because of the setting. Since the player plays a detective, he is able to arrest enemies instead of killing them every time.
This clip will give you an idea of what the gameplay is like.
The next question is, what about the content?
As with Call of Duty, you can think of Battlefield games as the big-budget, R rated movies of the video game industry. The content of Hardline is what you would expect in an R rated cop movie.
A quick warning. I am about to show you a few clips to explain the rating Battlefield Hardline received. These clips are graphic and do contain some strong language.
Battlefield Hardline is rated M, which is the equivalent of an R movie rating. The rating includes these 4 descriptors:
“Strong Language” and “Intense Violence”
“Blood and Gore”
and “Use of Drugs”, which you would expect in a game about a detective going after a drug cartel
The multiplayer component is the one other thing I want to mention. In it, the player joins a game based on a particular game type. These types include things like “Heist”, where one team is criminals trying to steal something and the other is cops trying to stop them, and “Rescue”, where the cops are trying to rescue hostages held by the criminals..
The thing to understand about multiplayer is, it includes a voice chat function that allows the players to talk to each other. This helps players coordinate as a team but can also lead to abuse. Games like Battlefield Hardline are very competitive and some people take them very seriously. Your gamer could experience abuse from other players if they feel like he is not playing as well as he should or doing what he should. So keep that in mind if you want to allow your gamer to play online.
So what’s the verdict? Is Battlefield Hardline something you should allow your gamer to play?
My recommendation is to avoid Hardline until your gamer is older, at least in high school. The M rating carries with it a “17 and up” qualifier. Most stores won’t even sell an M rated game to anyone under the age of 17. So I would say, use that as your gage. If you wouldn’t allow your gamer to watch an R rated movie, you probably shouldn’t allow them to play Battlefield Hardline.
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