Star Wars: Battlefront II

The Good
Large battlegrounds with plenty of AI walking around.

Story mode presented through the eyes of a soldier.

Galactic Conquest is a surprising addition.

The Bad
Weapons handle like ass.

Some game mechanics feel unfinished or under-explained.

Space combat doesn't quite work yet.

CIS is too overpowered.

The Bottom Line
It was recently announced that Dice was developing a new Star Wars: Battlefront game on the Frostbite engine, which was enough to make me call E3 2013 a success. I never watched the Star Wars movies, tv show or breakfast cereal, but this particular series is very dear to me.

The game is all about reenacting the famous battles from the movies, starting out with war against the CIS and extending all the way to the events of the original trilogy. You are a member of the 501st clone army and your brigade is unfortunate enough to be shipped from one battleground to the other. On these battlegrounds, you get to pick a class and will have to fulfill objectives with the help of the AI soldiers.

What I like about this setup is that you aren't some kind of superhuman, bullet-absorbing powerhouse, but rather a petty private slogging through the mud along with your equally mortal friends. If you run into enemies, then you rely on your superior skills at firing and dodging to get you through the encounter, since five or six bullets are enough to kill you. It gives a lot more epic feel to the battles, when you realize you are only a part of the war machine and actually need your fellow clones to survive the day.

Most battles revolve around capturing control points, which allow you, and your allies, to respawn at that point. If you have all control points, then you win the battle, unless the enemy can recapture a point within 20 seconds. You can, however, lose the battle if the enemy manages to drain your reinforcements pool before you get all the points (or, in some cases, before you can do the same to them).

The game also has vehicles, space-battles and co-op in it, which at least means that it has plenty of content for your average title. The space-battles can be slightly annoying, though, as the points system is very poorly set up and can lead to situations where the enemy has a completely wrecked main ship, but still wins because the AI was doing nothing to prevent them from shooting down your gunships. Flight control works for the most part, but it's very easy to overshoot when you're performing acrobatics to get an enemy in view, which is made worse by the lack of a slow-down function.

All other aspects of the gameplay work very well and are generally fun to use, even if I do think that most weapons handle like ass. Vehicles handle like you would expect from them, the control scheme is very adequate for a shooter and everything is balanced. I do however feel like the CIS is way too overpowered, since they have the droideka as an additional unit, which moves faster, has more health and can call upon a one-way shield for complete immunity. They also have an insane gunship, which pretty much excels in all fields, excluding maneuverability, making it excellent at taking down frigates, smaller ships, other gunships and, if you hold out for long enough, you'll get a repair bonus that makes it impossible for anybody to destroy the gunship.

There is also Galactic Conquest, which is a soft-strategy game in which you and a friend can fight over domination of the galaxy. It's remarkably solid for an alternate mode hidden inside a third-person shooter, though the bonuses you can purchase completely break some of the battles, such as the ridiculous reinforcements boost. There used to be online support for this game, but it has since then been dropped.

A recommendation for this title goes out to all Star Wars fans, though I doubt that will surprise anybody. If you are not a fan, then this game is still pretty good if you can forgive the lack of a proper story and just want to enjoy some hectic battlegrounds with sci-fi weapons in it. Admittedly, it is rather rough around the edges, but it's also a very varied and rich game that is certain to please most gamers.

The Good
To be honest, there wasn't much about this game that I liked. I'll preface that now, so that you can read the rest of this review with a grain of salt. I am not a big fan of online FPS games.

The graphics were quite good, though not quite top of the line, which is understandable given its target demographic of online players. A little less CPU intensive graphics would (hopefully) provide for a better game experience online. The sound, as with pretty much all Star Wars games I've played, was significantly better than average.

What I like about this game was a notion I had about it before I got it. I'd read with considerable interest that this game would include what amounts to a flight simulator mode.... essentially X-Wing or TIE Fighter! Wow! Even with that feature though, there wasn't enough about the game that intrigued me enough to get it when it first came out.

As a shooter game, there's really not much to be said about it. It has the genre standard game modes and weapons and classes, all with LucasArts' typical Star Wars veneer. Nothing exceptional, either good or bad.

The Bad
The disappointment upon finally getting into a spaceship. I was so eager... playing an FPS game in the vein of Jedi Knight and then running up to an X-Wing, getting in it and taking off... and finding myself flying a go-kart with wings. There was no sense of speed or power (or physics, a constant problem with the Star Wars universe... but I digress).

TIE Fighter is one of my personal favorite games of all time. I was basically hoping for that to have been transplanted here. Now, since it wasn't, maybe that's biasing my opinion of the rest of the game. But that feature was the sole reason I was even remotely interested in playing it. And discovering that it was an arcade implementation rather than a simulator implementation was definitely a let-down.

The Bottom Line
This is not the worst FPS game I've played and isn't even close to the best. When it came out and was discussed in the gaming media I was glad to see LucasArts try to expand the gameplay in the Star Wars universe with the mix of styles or genres in one game. But I was disappointed in the end result. (Same thing I'd say about the space combat in Star Wars Galaxies.)

Long story short - I played it a couple of times when I got it as a gift, haven't touched it in years, and would almost bet my left big toe that I'll never play it again. It's just not my thing.

The Good
The narrative storyline of the game is very enticing. This is the story of a contingent of clone troopers who fight and live through multiple wars and conflicts. This is one of those games where you are technically playing as both protagonist and antagonist regardless of what personal opinions you may hold, after all “Good soldiers follow orders”.

The core of the gameplay is present and faithful to what was in store in the first game. The new unit types are fun to utilize and you can easily switch for another type at the nearest command post. Even better, you get to play as notable hero type characters including Mace Windu, Master Yoda, Boba Fett and ultimately Darth Vader. Might have been nice to have additional characters such as Obi Wan Kenobi, but why make the game too easy? You also get to drive awesome vehicles ranging from speed bikes to the mammoth AT-AT walker.

New elements in the game do have merit. There are missions which have space flight, where you can pilot a fighter, bomber, scout or transport ship. This simulates what you see in the Star Wars movies perfectly and gives you a feel of Star Wars essence. Those space flight missions do take some practice to get through, but thankfully you can skip them if they become too frustrating. If you get tired of the Campaign, you have the Conquest mode for hours of intensive fun to take control of the galaxy.

The Bad
Some issues from the first Battlefront game have been resolved, such as respawning from an undesired location, but the tutorial doesn’t teach you how to use it, so you find out blindly about it. A new issue with the game is that your companion soldiers have a horrible habit of getting into your line of fire, so you end up killing them by no fault of your own. A lot of the time you're putting more effort into the combat than any of your comrades, it’s a pain to work with them. And in the campaign missions, enemies are absolutely infinite until you win, so there’s not too much breathing space.

Even being a new game, a few of the maps are pretty much reused from the previous game, such as the capital of Naboo and the Forest moon of Endor. They might have made those locations a bit more interesting. And then there’s the most force-saken mission in the campaign mode, which is Order 66 in the Jedi Temple. Why? you ask. Because the objective to protect the holobooks is notoriously difficult with Jedi cutting down those bookshelves in seconds. You’re going to be repeating this mission for quite a bit. My advice, use the Clone Engineer for effective Jedi pest control.

Finally, some of the presentation we got from the previous game was disappointingly cut out, such as the increasing scan views of planets as well as a plain looking menu screen without any of the animated battle scenes. Most importantly, you can only play as clone or stormtroopers and rebel fighters, so forget about playing the role of an OOM droid, let alone Count Dooku.

The Bottom Line
The second game of the series is a vast improvement. If the series keeps on going and getting better each time, I strongly encourage it. There are multiple ways you can play this game, and you’re bound to come up with newer and better strategies in each play through. One of the best Star Wars titles that ever came out and a warming to the hearts of every Star Wars fan, even if gaming isn’t their thing. A great game to the end.