Star Wars: Battlefront II

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
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
As the title suggests, Star Wars Battlefront II allows players to relive their favorite Star Wars battles on the front lines as a member of the infantries that set the backdrop of these masterpiece films.

The objective, like in the first game, is to invade various command posts on a map and to completely destroy the opposing force. Players choose which command post they wish to deploy from and can choose from a variety of infantry classes. The basics units are well rounded, the engineer classes can repair useful objects and heal others, the commanders can deploy recon droids to scout the area, and there are other classes as well with their own unique skills.

Several improvements have been made to the original formula as well. Heroes and Villains from the Star Wars universe can be controlled for brief periods of time (Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Yoda, and many others) to level the playing field. Vehicles can be used on the battle and there are even space battles where the goal is to do as much damage to the enemy fleet as possible (each side gains points for destroying parts of the enemy ship and destroying enemy fighters. The first team to get 180 points is declared the winner).

A new game mode gives Battlefront a story mode (of sorts) for the first. Players play flash backs from the war journal of the 501st legion (The Emperor's personal task force) from Clone Wars (Set during episodes 2-3) and the Galactic Civil War (Set during episodes 4-6). In this mode, players not only take command posts but are charged with defending key grounds and retrieving important items. By completing these objectives, players become more familiar to the games other modes like capture the flag and defending their ground.

The highlight of the game is the online play. The PS2 version features 24 players simultaneously and offers all the game modes in the single player mode (Capture the flag, Conquest, and Galactic Conquest).

The Bad
Unlike the previous Battlefront game, players have no command options or control over their units. This can result in your troops being scattered all over the map and leaving key terrain unprotected from capture, resulting in many casualties fast.

While auto target helps to keep enemies visible, it often times will result in a bit of frustration because other enemies will attack and player's fire will not be directed towards the enemies in front of them but the target who ran off to shoot at someone else, leading to deaths that players don't deserve.

It is often at the critical stages in a battle where a game becomes frustrating. When it comes down to the player being the only person on the map with 11 other enemies left, the game automatically ends with the player loosing, even if they have not been killed or if all the command posts have been captured, resulting in many angry words being directed to said player's television set.

While the game does have a story mode it leaves a lot to be desired. The only cut scenes shown are filtered over images of gameplay with an unidentified Clone Veteran narrating the tale. Even the ending videos of the Galactic Conquest mode look and feel cheaply made and do not make a good reward for the player's dedication to completing the game.

The Bottom Line
Star Wars Battlefront II is an online game and is best suited for LAN parties or playing against millions of strangers, as indicated by the leader boards at the end of each battle along with a statistics tracker for each player profile. However, playing online is not the only way to enjoy Battlefront II and for those who don't have online will find themselves playing Battlefront II as much as online players would. The brief story mode helps to keep players intrigued with the game and Galactic Conquest will unleash the inner Genghis Khan in anybody. Star Wars Battlefront II offers something for almost everyone and those who buy it will not be disappointed with their purchase.