I played a lot of Battlefield Hardline over the past week. I flipped off an attack chopper while leaning out of the passenger window of a redlined sports car that was on fire. I stole money, and I chased bank robbers. I had fun—just not always a Battlefield type of fun.

Hardline isn t DICE s Battlefield. Its developer, Visceral, earned renown for its Dead Space horror series. The differences appear in plain view: BF4 is epic combat set on a grand scale of aircraft, vehicular, and foot varieties on expansive maps. Hardline has that too, but it also has bullet-ridden Ferraris corkscrew-jumping off overpasses into armored trucks. Soldiers trade their armor for police vests, bandana masks, and cool shades that always stay on. Oil fields and Chinese villages become downtown Los Angeles.

The beta was a morsel-sized cross-section of Hardline s fast-paced design. I sampled the new Heist and Hotwire modes, and their respective mechanics—bank robbery and shooty street racing—smoothly facilitated the cops-on-criminals theme. The classic Conquest mode anchored everything with its reliable control point hotspots. Only three maps were available, but they definitely staged bombastic urban warfare. I particularly enjoyed Conquest s Dust Bowl: a sandy, sleepy layover town with a seedy centerpiece motel.

As for what the community thinks, opinions are understandably mixed. I ve read afterglow praise from veterans looking for a different approach to familiar gameplay, and I ve seen rants damning it all as a $60/ 40 Call of Duty cash-in. Hardline won t shake that conflict of reputation for a long time. It ll struggle to distinguish itself from its core brethren while not distancing too much from what fundamentally defines a Battlefield game: guns, vehicles, objectives, large maps, and lots of explosions.

The good news is Hardline isn t simply a Michael Bay-ified version of Payday 2. It s a Battlefield with its feet kicked up onto a desk. Only in Battlefield moments occur regularly, but they ll be even more over the top this time. Sure, I ll ride the thrill of shooting a helicopter out of the sky with an AK like I always have, but the helicopter might boast a police-approved pink zebra-stripe chassis. Or I might use the Force to reload. Those aspects are undeniably Hardline, but my hope for its success stems from enjoying a thematically divergent Battlefield still connected with its roots.

During the beta, I focused on gathering impressions on three important topics most relevant to the Battlefield series. Here's what I came away with:

Netcode

-Shooting enemies generally feels correct, and bullets register where directed. Less so when taking damage; determining where I took hits from was sometimes difficult.

-Odd deaths sporadically; I d sometimes flop over after seemingly taking one or two shots at full health.

-Sniping felt awkward at extreme ranges, missing targets perfectly lined up while standing still. (Apparently, it s a bug and totally not because I suck.)

-Driving sometimes oscillated between buttery smooth handling and jerky jumps forward especially during uphill climbs.

Balance

-Time To Kill (TTK) for most weapons is significantly shorter, so engagements are quick and staccato. This is probably one of the more visible differences between Hardline and BF4.

-Predictably, SMGs and shotguns reign supreme in close quarters, but some weapons, like the P90 or K10 SMGs, are noticeably easier to control over others with minimal recoil.

-Assault rifles, available for the Operator medic class, feel far too potent at all ranges. The M16A3 is particularly deadly with near-laser precision. (Note: a recent patch has already adjusted it.)

-Broadly, classes feel unique from each other. The weapons and equipment available for the Operator, Mechanic, Enforcer, and Professional are diverse enough that each bring good utility into a match.

-The Enforcer excels at enemy suppression and close-up combat. A popular kit combo is gas grenades, gas mask, and shotgun for area denial.

-Great momentum retention with the ability to take small amounts of health and ammo directly from Operatives and Enforcers, respectively.

-Hotwire mode falters considerably when players camp rooftops and street corners with C4 placed on streets; cars have no choice but to cross these chokepoints and get blown up.

-Similarly, Hotwire suffers from players having the ability to store special weapons in the trunks of their cars. It feels a little silly seeing RPGs pulled out of parked sedans, and it goes against the mode s ideal of high-speed chases.

Maps

-Map size is overall smaller, leading to shorter intervals before running into action.

-Dust Bowl functions well as a mid-size Conquest map, but its control point placement tended to funnel both teams into the central motel objective for attack/defend scenarios.

-Larger Conquest maps need constant flux on all objectives; such nonlinearity on where to attack or defend next lies at the heart of Battlefield games.

-Heist s Bank Job map is so small, it runs the risk of becoming known for meat-grindy, lightning-fast rounds. Good criminal teams can swoop in and bolt away with all the cash necessary for a win in less than five minutes. Conversely, skilled police squads can lock down most access points to the vault and guarantee a loss for the criminals.

-Destruction effects are largely disappointing in their absence. Grenades or other explosives don t chunk walls or crater streets, and quaint suburban homes must be made of magical super-steel to withstand a direct rocket blast.

-Limiting destruction makes sense from a balancing point of view—everyone needs cover to survive, hide, and flank—but all the action doesn t feel as intense as it could be without turning walls into smoking ruins. Hardline s inherently limited accessibility to explosives should be enough equilibrium against boom-spam.

Everyone has access to Heroes of the Storm except you, right? I know the feeling. Never mind though, because Australian readers now have the chance to gain access this Friday, provided they fill out the little widget below.

We're giving away a whopping 750 codes, but there's a few important things to note: this give away is for Australian and New Zealand residents only: the codes won't work anywhere else. You'll need a  Battle.net account of course, which is free, in case you don't already have one.

In case you've been living under a rock, we've had plenty of coverage on Heroes of the Storm of late. If you don't know what it is, here's a handy primer, and here's a chat with game director Dustin Browder. 

Runescape player Josh Peters posted an emotionally-intense video on YouTube last week, immediately after being swatted while streaming in front of nearly 60,000 people.

"Swatting," if you've managed to avoid the term until now, is the practice of placing a "prank" call to a police department that prompts it to deploy an armed response team to the home of whoever it is that's earned the caller's ire. The police kick down doors, wave guns, and generally terrorize everyone inside, ideally while the target is streaming. So far, nobody's been killed, but the possibility is terrifyingly obvious.

In Peters' case, he was particularly upset because his ten-year-old brother answered the door. "I see you posting my address. I had police point a gun at my little brothers because of you. They could have been shot, they could have died because you chose to swat my stream," he says in the video. "I don't give a shit about what you have against me, or what I did to you. For that, I am at a loss for words. Your gripe is with me so let it be with me and do not involve my family in any way, shape or form with this. They don't deserve that."

Peters is clearly distraught, and rightfully so: If either the kid or the cops had been any jumpier, the outcome could easily have been horrific. It's not much more than blind luck that nobody's been shot during one of these raids, and placing a ten-year-old child in that kind of danger because you're mad at someone on the internet is utterly incomprehensible.

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: Swatting is reprehensible. It'd be great if Twitch could take stronger steps to combat things like sharing addresses or other personal information in chat, although the inherently interactive nature of streaming clearly makes it tricky to control completely. Better still, I'd be thrilled to see police develop new, less gun-wavy ways to address these situations. But ultimately, and tragically, it's up to streamers to be aware of the risks, and address them proactively: Contact police before it happens and make them aware of what's going on. 

And if you're thinking about pulling this "prank" on someone? Think about this: 19-year-old Brandon Wilson was arrested on February 5 for swatting someone on the same day that Peters went through his ordeal, and according to the Chicago Tribune now faces up to five years in prison. That's a lot of life to trade for the privilege of being a jerk on the internet. So do yourself and everyone else a favor: Don't.

In the wake of the suspension of 26 professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players who were involved in match fixing, Valve has issued another statement that not only warns against such behavior, but explains why any kind of betting on matches is bad for everyone.

The statement opens with the same warning that accompanied the lengthy bans of pro CS:GO players in January and February: That players, teams, and anyone involved with professional events should never bet on matches or associate with those who do. But then it moves beyond that to explain that it's not just impropriety that's the problem, but also the mere appearance of impropriety.

"As a professional player, team manager or event production staff, it is common to have personal relationships and/or privileged information about other teams and players. Because of this, we will always assume that you have access to private CS:GO-related 'inside information' that might give you an unfair advantage when placing a bet on any CS:GO game or match," Valve wrote.

"Betting using inside information, or even the perception or suspicion thereof, carries a significant risk of damaging your personal brand, your team, your community, and may lead to exclusion from future Valve-sponsored events," it continued. "To avoid these risks, we recommend that you never bet on any CS:GO game or match. This recommendation applies both to current professional players and anyone who wishes to participate in a Valve-sponsored CS:GO event in the future."

Valve said it's important for players to consider the impact they can have on the "health and stability" of the CS:GO sport. E-sports are tremendously popular but it's still a relatively nascent business, and if the perception of widespread corruption takes hold, it could seriously impinge upon its future growth. "Performing before an audience of millions of fans, you are ambassadors for your game," it wrote. "The strength of professional Counter-Strike comes from the integrity of its players and teams."

The Video Electronics Standards Association has announced Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) 1.4a—the newest version of the popular video port specification. eDP 1.4a supersedes version 1.4, which was first introduced two years ago in February 2013.

Version 1.4a includes upgrades to the Display Stream Compression (DSC) standard and segmented display panel capability, allowing for greater data rates at lower power consumption. The new standard can move bits at 8.1 GB/s per lane and can be divided into two or four screen segments, adding up to a theoretical limit of 32.4 GB/s. It can support 8K (7680 x 4320) resolution at 60 Hz, and 4K at 120 Hz with 10-bit color.

It should be noted that while eDP is part of the DisplayPort family, it and DisplayPort (which is currently on a 1.3 spec introduced in September 2014) aren't identical. Instead, eDP is designed for internal connections, such as machines with integrated graphics like tablets, smartphones, or notebook-gpu connections. eDP won't be changing the capabilities of the monitor you connect to your desktop PC, then, but the 1.4a spec will affect the capabilities of integrated displays in the future. 4K laptops and tablets, here we come.

eDP 1.4a (as well as the previous 1.4 version) also supports Adaptive Sync, also known as AMD's FreeSync technology, but it's an optional feature within the standard.

The new standard will be available to VESA-member hardware developers immediately, but as usual, it takes time for a new standard to make its way into consumer hardware. We expect to see machines built using eDP 1.4a to emerge by 2016.

Earlier today, GameInformer reported that Shadow Realms, a 4v1 action RPG in development at BioWare Austin, had been canceled. Shortly after, BioWare Austin GM Jeff Hickman confirmed the news.

"We ve made the decision to not move forward with development of Shadow Realms," wrote Hickman in a post on the official site. He went on to explain that "right now there are other projects for the team to work on within the BioWare studios for the coming year and beyond," citing Star Wars: The Old Republic as the biggest focus, followed by Dragon Age: Inquisition, the next Mass Effect game, and "other new IP."

Shadow Realms was first announced last year with a big, very silly, live action trailer campaign, and was described vaguely as having an episodic "BioWare story" when I played it at PAX Prime. 

During that "fan event" (so named despite no one in the room having played it outside of the devs), I had a pretty good time in one match as the Shadowlord, who floats around harassing the adventurers with bombs, traps, and possessed monsters. I left curious, however, as to how the episodic story would be packaged and delivered—it seemed like quite a design challenge to make a five player game with BioWare's signature decision-making and characters.

It's a problem I suspect BioWare Austin was well-suited to solve, but it isn't happening. Still, Hickman's list of other BioWare projects is nothing to sneeze at.

Peter Molyneux promised big things for Godus when he took it to Kickstarter in 2012, where he raised roughly $800,000 to support its development. And the PC version of the game is in fact available on Steam, albeit as an Early Access title. But as Rock, Paper, Shotgun reported today, the future does not look particularly bright.

Molyneux has apparently moved on to another project, which in itself isn't particularly concerning. But a January forum post by designer Konrad "FuriousMoo" Naszynski, a relatively recent addition to 22Cans, painted a rather bleak picture of the future. "To be brutally candid and realistic I simply can't see us delivering all the features promised on the kickstarter page," he wrote. "A lot of the multiplayer stuff is looking seriously shaky right now especially the persistent stuff like hubworld."

In a February 5 post Naszynski said he was "starting to feel cautiously optimistic" but noted that the primary focus is the mobile version of the game, because that's it's primary source of revenue. He does have ideas for improving the PC edition, but added that he only expects they'll be implemented if they affect the mobile version as well. "I'm betting a lot of my PC only proposals are going to be shot down and there will be things I will be told to work on that won't contribute to improving PC," he wrote.

Of course, Molyneux has a reputation for over-promising with his games, and we would be remiss if we didn't (again) note the irony of his January warning to Microsoft about the perils of overselling Windows Holographic. Yet to me this comes off as considerably worse than, say, an underwhelming Black and White or Fable; Molyneux raised a big pile of money by trading on his glory days of Populous, then released it as a free-to-play mobile game and left the PC version in the hands of someone who "was never given any indication of what Peter's vision was of Godus as an end product beyond the Kickstarter pitch." 

Molyneux built up a tremendous amount of goodwill among gamers through the 80s and 90s, but his inability to deliver on his sky-high promises saw his status wane dramatically over the past decade and a half. I think a certain degree of hope had persisted that he'd one day rediscover the old magic and give the world a game that could live up to his legacy, and some of us even thought that Godus might be it. But now it looks more likely that it will be the one that finally brings whatever relevance he had left to an end.

Evolve is ostensibly hide-and-seek taken to its unnatural extreme. Within that framework, though, Turtle Rock found room for some of the most creative and easy-to-learn, hard-to-master healing mechanics since Team Fortress 2. That s no coincidence, considering the tiny overlaps in how Evolve s three medics and The Medic operate.

Evolve s healing role can be played as an aggressive scout, sneaky necromancer, or first-aid grenadier. Let s briefly break down how the three (currently released) healing Hunters operate:

Val

Uses the Med Gun, a healing tether tool with a long (but limited) range that s the cousin of TF2 s Medi Gun. The starter, vanilla medic.

Lazarus

A ninja defibrillator. Lazarus can t actively heal (other than Healing Burst, the long-cooldown AOE heal that all medics have), but revives dead allies at close range.

Caira

Hurls healing grenades that heal allies or NPCs in their radius for smaller amounts of HP. She can actively heal herself with her primary weapon, unlike Val and Lazarus.

Each of these characters has interesting, weapon-specific skills to master. On paper, Val is the shallowest, simplest medic to play—you point at a beam at whoever s hurt and hold down Mouse 1. But the Med Gun doubles as a way to block and bait the monster. In most situations, the Med Gun s green beam acts as a neon sign that says You probably shouldn t attack this guy. So one of Val s specific skills becomes keeping every teammate in your line of sight so that you can juggle between targets—a tall task in Evolve s ragged, varied-elevation maps. Swapping between teammates with the Med Gun, even if they re at full health, forces the monster to recalculate who the best target is, especially if Hank s (support) shield generator is in play.

Lazarus takes a bizarre combination of patience, speed, and stealth to play well. It doesn t suit me at all, but it s certainly novel and ironic: he s a medic that has to let players die. In practice, this means that he has to keep an eye on everyone and be ready to act, but not so much that he s idling on the bench while the rest of the team fights. It s like trying to keep your eye on the road while peeking at the rear-view mirror.

Lazarus is also the only medic who can cloak, which makes him resemble TF2 s Spy—the rhythm of waiting, watching, and maneuvering into position is similar, except that your backstabbing target is a dead teammate. It s a clever twist on healing that adds a lot of uncertainty and fragility to the equation, but the payoff is great when you revive someone right under the monster s nose.

What s common to the three current healers is that they all carry weapons that deal damage passively. Val and Lazarus sniper rifles deal a tiny amount of active damage on hit, but their primary function is to paint damage-multiplying bullseyes on the monster for other Hunters to tag. Likewise, Caira s healing grenade launcher also spits napalm, a damage-over-time effect. Evolve s background reloading (all guns reload automatically when unequipped) means that medics can spend even less time with rifles in their hands and still feel like they re contributing to the fight.

Bottom line: Turtle Rock probably could ve gotten away with making the Med Gun the lone healing mechanic in Evolve, but the game benefits a lot from these asymmetrical healing mechanics.

Indie survival sim Under the Ocean looked mighty promising when it first came to light in 2012 by way of a six-minute-long pre-alpha development trailer. And things seemed to be proceeding apace when it hit Steam Early Access in April 2013. But we haven't heard much about it since then, and last week developer Paul Hart revealed why: The project is out of money and programmer Michael Reitzenstein has quit.

Hart revealed in a message posted on Steam last week that Reitzenstein's "circumstances have changed," and that he decided to leave the project over differences in opinion about its future direction. Despite the loss and "against better judgment and out of sheer stubbornness," he said he's not giving up on the game and vowed to finish it by himself if necessary, no matter how long it takes.

In the meantime, however, the game will no longer be available for sale: He requested that it be removed from Early Access, and Valve obliged. "I think this makes the most sense as I don't want to deceive people into thinking the game is one thing when it is not," Hart wrote.

"This news will obviously come as a huge blow to everyone awaiting alpha 9, as it means what we know as alpha 9 today will have to be shelved and completely rebuilt with my (limited) programming ability," he explained. "Before you descend into nasty remarks or anything of that nature, know Mike and I have been trying for the longest time to try and get this thing out, and this has been one of the hardest posts I've had to make in my life, whatever emotion you feel for this, multiply that by a year of work for a missed goal."

Anticipating the demand for refunds, Hart said that he can't currently issue them because he doesn't have the funds. He'll be able to offer refunds if and when sales of Under the Ocean resume, but gave no indication as to when that might be.

It's an unfortunate end, perhaps temporary and perhaps not, to what appeared to be a promising game, but it's better than the alternative of simply walking away from it while leaving it for people to purchase. It also highlights, yet again, the risks of Early Access: You pays your dime and you takes your chances—and every once in awhile, you get bitten in the ass.