Star Wars: Battlefront II

The Good
This is, in my honest opinion, the greatest Star Wars game ever made. You play as infantry depending on faction and era such as the Republic Clone Troopers or the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS for short) during the Clone Wars era, or the Rebels or the Empire during the Galactic Civil War era. Each faction has infantry classes that are available to play as with two classes that you need to earn points for to play as to play them during instant action games. If you earn enough points performing actions, such as capturing command posts in conquest games or killing enough enemy infantry units, you are able to unlock the ability to play as a hero or villain depending on map and faction you selected. When playing as heroes or villains, you have a timer indicated by the time meter that looks like a lit up lightsaber below the available abilities for the hero or villain. The time meter depletes over time while using the hero or villain. You can gain more time to play as the hero or villain by killing enemy units to play as the hero or villain longer. If you take damage while playing as the hero or villain, you lose time on the time meter. If your time meter depletes completely, the hero or villain is defeated and you have to wait to play as the hero or villain after a while until you are given the chance to play as the hero or villain again. When playing instant action games, you have the option to enable heroes or villains during gameplay, and if heroes are enabled, you have the option to reduce the wait timer to play as heroes or villains, even having the option to have heroes and villains set to always to infinitely respawn as the heroes and villains. This game also has a campaign mode "Rise of the Empire", which sees you playing as the 501st clone troopers during the Clone Wars era playing missions with objectives that will lead to, as the title says, the rise of the Empire such as executing Order 66 on the Jedi temple on Coruscant that will end the Old Republic and the 501st clone troopers becoming Stormtroopers working for Emperor Palpatine's Empire. You then play as the Empire waging war against the Rebels. That is all I will say about the campaign as to let you discover what happens during the campaign. Now, there are more game modes for instant action such as conquest, which sees you capturing command posts from the enemy for your faction. Command posts under your control will allow you to respawn at them if you are defeated. You can change what class type you can play as for different strategies to defeat your opponent. When playing conquest games, you have a certain amount of infantry units available. If you manage to capture all command posts and none are captured by the enemy during the timer after you capture them all, or if you deplete your enemies infantry units to zero, you win the game. There is one flag capture the flag, where you fight over one flag to bring to the enemies goal point to score points. If you reach the maximum score against the enemy, you win the game. There is also two flag capture the flag, similar to one flag capture the flag, but you capture the enemies flag to bring to your goal point while defending your own goal point. There is also hunt, where you play as different indigenous species depending on maps and some maps as one of the factions such as the Rebels against Wampas, where you kill enemies to score points. If you reach the max score during hunt mode, you win. Then there is assault, a game mode that take place in space in space battles, where you sabotage the enemies capitol ships and defeat enemies in star fighters. Playing space combat dog fighting in ships feels very epic with tight controls that Pandemic Studios was able to pull off. If you are able to land certain ships in a enemy hanger, you can spawn infantry units within the enemy hanger and even respawn from the ship if you are defeated. If you reach the max score during space battle assault, you win the game. Then there is one of the best game modes in instant action to play, and that game mode is hero assault mode. Hero assault mode is a game mode where you can play as any hero or villain, with every hero or villain at your disposal to play as. Hero assault mode uses the same scoring system as space battle assault, but this time, to score points, you defeat your enemies to score one point each. Heroes and villains have health bars instead of time meters. Like space battle assault, if you reach the max score limit, you win the game. To play hero assault mode with both eras of the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War, you have to select all modes in the instant action screen, highlight the option assault that says "heroes and villains clash sabers and exchange fire in the ultimate duel of the fates" and select it, then select all eras. It will automatically select hero assault on Mos Eisley, Tatooine to then select launch. Then there is Galactic Conquest, a game mode that plays like a form of the board game Risk which has you playing a faction to conquer all planets on the planet chart to win. That is all of the different game modes you can play in this game. Now comes the graphics. The graphics is definitely not current gen graphics, but they are still very good looking for the original Xbox, and looks way better than the PlayStation 2 version does. Unlike the PlayStation 2 version, the original Xbox version has widescreen support to play in widescreen. The PlayStation 2 version can only play in full screen. This widescreen format for the original Xbox is very useful if playing on a old CRT TV with widescreen support if it has one, which I do have a CRT TV with widescreen support to take advantage of the widescreen format for this game. For the AI of the original Xbox port, if playing instant action games aside for hero assault mode, if heroes and villains are enabled, the AI controlled enemy can use heroes and villains to fight against you as you can use heroes and villains to fight against the AI. Compare that to the PlayStation 2 port, there is a glitch for the PlayStation 2 port that resulted in the AI being unable to use heroes and villains outside of hero assault mode and campaign missions. Even the Windows PC version has this glitch, as well on an unmodified installed copy. There is one more good thing about this game to mention. This 2005 original Pandemic Studios masterpiece is way better than Electronic Art's Star Wars Battlefront 2 from 2017 due to the beta having horrendous randomized loot boxes that if allowed to be released with the full game on day one, it would have been rendered a pay to win game in a $60 game. I never bought EA Games Star Wars Battlefront games, and I never will as this is the superior game to EA's Battlefront games. This port can have up to four players simultaneously with four controllers on the original Xbox. The PlayStation 2 version can only have two players playing at a time. That is all there is to say that is good about this game.

The Bad
Now comes the bad. Really, there is not much bad for me to say about this game. The only thing that can be bad is the official GameSpy servers being shut down and is no longer able to connect to the online multiplayer servers to play online on the original Xbox. The same goes for the PlayStation 2 port and the Windows PC port as GameSpy was shut down years ago. The only way to play this game online is to buy a digital Windows PC copy from Steam and GOG to play on the new online servers that the Walt Disney Company was able to have restored. I did bought the GOG version of this game as all GOG games sold on GOG's website is DRM free and contains no DRM of any kind. That is all that I can think of for what could be a negative for this game.

The Bottom Line
Star Wars Battlefront 2 by Pandemic Studios from 2005 is still one of, if not the greatest Star Wars video game of all time. There is so much replay value and ways to play in the galaxy far, far, away to defeat your opponents. All of the game modes and different classes to play as as well as heroes and villains really add up to this classic Star Wars game. I have all of the ports of this game from the original 2005 Windows PC version plus my DRM free GOG copy to the PlayStation 2 version and the original Xbox version and played them countless times. The only port I do not have is the PlayStation Portable version, but I still do enjoy this game for what is worth. The original Xbox version does have the edge to the PlayStation 2 version as the AI can use heroes and villains in instant action game modes outside of hero assault mode and having improved graphics and makes this port the definitive console port of the game. If you are a Star Wars fan and have an original Xbox, I can't recommend this game enough. I give this game a full five out of five stars. Highly recommended.

The Good
Practically everything was great. The graphics are great, the storyline is great and the places you go to are even better. I just so love the idea of the space battles. And we get to play as Jedi now! How cool is that? Even though you can only do four lightsaber moves with them (minus lightsaber throw) It's still great to play as the Jedi, and Sith of course.

The Bad
A real disappointment is the amount of planets they took away, like Bespin and Rhen Var. Another thing is how small the space battles are. They should be as broad as the movies. Another con is the Jedi character voices. They don't sound a thing like the movie voices. The only exceptions are Jango Fett, Boba Fett and Greivous.

The Bottom Line
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (in "Rise of the Empire" mode) is about a clone legion known as the 501st. It features planets such as Tatooine, Geonosis and Kashyyyk. The game also space battles. My advice is Buy It NOW!!!!!

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.