If the Battlefield Hardline "official launch gameplay trailer" leaves me with just one thought, it is this: If these criminals ever decide to rob a bank in my hometown, I hope these cops don't show up to try to stop them. Seriously, just let them take the money and go. Because surely whatever they pulled out of the bank vault in this video isn't going to come even remotely close to the cost of the property damage done in the subsequent hot pursuit of justice.
Civil rights violations are obviously an issue too—I'm pretty sure that pummeling a suspect with a briefcase runs counter to both the letter and the spirit of Miranda—but when the highrise construction crane smashed into, and sliced through, multiple stories of the steel-and-glass office building, I realized that perhaps this is not really a depiction of law enforcement at its best. Which is fine: Ridiculous it may be, but aside from the absence of Joe Pesci lecturing everyone about the evils of hospitals I don't see it as fundamentally different than your average cops-and-robbers action flick. And I do like those!
Battlefield Hardline comes out on March 17.
