Game Review: Star Wars Battlefront II
Star Wars Battlefront, the
previous game in the series, was released on September 21, 2004 and was
met with quite a lot of critical praise. And as with any developer that
ends up with cash due to one of their games, Lucas Arts decided to make
a sequel. And good for them! Because this game is a very worthy sequel
to a great game.
The Battlefront games are class-based team
multi-player shooters ( You can play in both First Person and Third
Person modes ) and have you running around as any of those entertaining
Star Wars dudes. You could be on the empire's side and shoot people
down as an evil Storm Trooper. Or you could make odd-sounding roars and
shoot people with a crossbow as a Wookie. Whatever floats your boat
really ( No, there are no boats in this game )
Also, like the
eerily similar Battlefield series ( Hell, even the names sound alike )
victory usually depends on which team is in control of the most control
points. Controlling more than half of them slowly depletes the
reinforcement pool of the enemy. Killing enemies also depletes their
reinforcement pool, or to be more exact every time an enemy spawns, one
point is lost from it. This system works well, although it does prove
to be rather troublesome especially on elite difficulty because your
computer controlled teammates can be rather brain-dead resulting in
their death and many times in your defeat. This is not a problem on
multi-player of course.
Which brings us to the worst part of the
game, the AI. Your enemies are about as smart as...lets say a potato.
They often run around in circles or even kill themselves randomly. This
is alleviated by the fact that the game revolves around mega-huge
battles involving hundreds of troops but it's hard not to notice it.
This makes it so you can kill dozens of enemies in elite mode in one
life, which you would assume would mean victory. But because elite mode
seems to make your computer controlled teammates even stupider than
they already were and increases the damage of the enemies, you usually
lose miserably.
The game has quite a few maps, but quite 
a
few of them are space maps. And to be honest, space battles aren't that
fun at all. You know those enormous space battles that you see in the
Star Wars movies? Of course you do. These aren't a lot like those
unfortunately. To win, your team has to amass enough points. These
points are gained by killing enemies ( You can get on their mothership
thing and just kill dudes before they get on ships, or just destroy the
ships. Both of these give you 1 point ), destroying small capital ships
surounding the enemy mothership, or destroying components of the
mothership. Every single one of these tasks is tedious and boring. And
as I've said before, the AI is pretty brain-dead so it won't be hard to
go about your business unscathed. One thing that is good about these
battles is that unlike the land-battles, elite mode doesn't mean you
are likely to lose even if you kill hundreds of enemies yourself (Why
this is I do not know ).
Anyway, unlike the space battles the
land battles are pretty interesting. There are lots of cool vehicles
for you to use and the different classes provide minor, but cool
differences. The control point system is solid so no complaints there.
Also, if you get enough points you can become a Jedi ( Or Sith ) for a
limited amount of time. The limit is very lenient though, as you gain
more time by killing enemies ( Which as you might have guessed, is not
that hard as a Jedi ). Some maps have you become a non-Jedi character
such as Princess Leia, all of whom are quite dull.
The weapons
feel....bad. Some of them are nice to use such as the rocket launcher,
but others are just plain dull such as the laser rifle thing that many
classes have. You will want to get in a vehicle as soon as possible, as
those are much more fun to use.
The vehicles in the game are not
overpowered, but they are quite a lot stronger than any regular
infantry. In a multi-player match you it would take a very good player
or a few coordinated players to take down a vehicle with a decent
pilot. Luckily the respawn time for a lot of these vehicles are fairly
long which provides some nice balance.
But we haven't gotten to
the story or the campaign mode yet have we? It follows the exploits of
a division of clones who were instrumental in the rise of the Evil
Empire. It also shows the evolution of the clones from Attack of the
Clones into the Storm Troopers we all
know and love. Overall it is fairly interesting, however I feel that as
I am not a big Star Wars fan it was sort of a pearls before swine
situation where I couldn't fully appreciate it.
The campaign
mode is solid, with some pretty good missions to keep you interested
until the end. It doesn't stand out amongst the vast reserves of FPS
games the world has to offer, but its respectable nonetheless.
Also
there is a mode where you can Conquer the Galaxy ( Always a welcome
addition to any game ). It starts you off with some cash (
Or...credits? ) and with one planet and a fleet with which to kick
alien butt. Some planets offer bonuses if you capture them as well. The
objective is to eliminate the enemy power by conquering all the planets
he has. This mode is pretty fun, but the campaign was better in my
opinion.
Multi-player was good. Notice that I say was, as the
community is pretty much non-existent as of now. This dramatically
reduces the value of the game, as the multi-player was the main feature
when it was released. I will not go further on about multi-player,
because chances are you aren't going to be playing it.
Anyway, that is about all I can say about this game. It is good and not great. A good rental if you ask me.
Overall score: 3.5/5
