Live Magazine Christmas 2016 ISSUE Live Magazine December 2016 Issue | Page 157

as you pick your way through the
crumbling buildings littered with the
corpses of fallen comrades. The
attention to detail is commendable
and the atmosphere is bolstered
by the almost photorealistic quality
of the graphics, with DICE squeezing every drop of potential out of
the Frostbite engine to make for
the most realistic depiction of large
scale warfare to date. You’ll often
notice little incidental touches that
the game won’t draw your eye to
but help to serve to flesh out the
world.
The sound design is similarly accomplished, making for even more
immersive battles with dynamic
explosion and gunfire effects
that’ll almost cause you to instinctively duck for cover, particularly
with a decent sound system or set
of headphones hooked up.
But, as surprisingly decent as the
single player portion has turned

out, the real meat and potatoes
of any Battlefield game is its multiplayer, and I’m glad to announce
that Battlefield 1 is pretty much
free of the many netcode and myriad of other issues that plagued
the launch of 4. Throughout my
time with the online component
I’ve not encountered any connection issues or loss of progression
glitches and, without exception,
every match I’ve jumped into has
been smooth and lag free.
The biggest addition to multiplayer
is the aforementioned “Operations” mode and, boy, is it a doozy.
Each team attempts to capture a
sector by simultaneously holding
two points, forcing the other team
to retreat to another sector of the
map; it’s a complex and exhausting battle of attrition as each side
push against each other, making
that eventual victory all the more
satisfying. The tide of war can turn
on a dime and it feels like you’re

actually waging a concerted battle,
added all the more weight due to
the history that comes attached to
the maps.
War Pigeons is the other new mode
and it plays out almost exactly as it
sounds – you hunt down pigeons.
Each much would descend into
chaotic hilarity and makes for a
nice change from the more traditional gameplay modes. At launch
players also get access to the tried
and true Conquest, Rush, Domination and Team Deathmatch modes
but it’s the newest additions that
make for the most fun this time
around.
The maps are well designed, for
the most part, although spawn
points can feel a little off at times,
sending you face down in the dirt
seconds after hitting the battleground. There are nine maps at the
moment, with a tenth to be added
via free DLC in December: Fao