Star Wars: Battlefront Review

Guest Review compliments of Daggerclaw

General/Summary: Score 3 out of 5

I picked this game up on release day and started off by playing the single player campaigns. First of all, there are four factions you can control in the game, the Rebels, the CIS (Trade Federation from the movie), Clone Troopers, and Imperial Troopers (classic Stormtroopers, etc.). On Naboo and Endor, NPC AI controlled Gungans and Ewoks aid in the fight, but cannot be chosen as a playable race (a little disappointing). Within each faction, there are 5 types of troops to use, some have definite advantages over others. I love using the jetpacked clone trooper with the EMP gun to blast CIS droids to bits with one shot.

Anyway, it looks like there is only one main objective in this game, like Battlefield 1942's cooperative mode, you only capture points on the map and lower the enemy's reinforcement count (tickets in BF1942) until one side or the other loses.

Some maps allow either the rebel/imperial or clone/CIS factions, but others, like Hoth only allow rebel/imperials. The gameplay for both combos is quite different. Each faction gets different kinds of vehicles and it does make a difference, not to mention things like Super Battle Droids and Droidekas (destroyers).

After playing the single player I tried Instant Action. This allows you to pick maps and queue them to play them all if you wish. I have to say there are definite favorites. Geonosis with the clone troop vehicles going toe-to-toe with the CIS walkers and others is a hoot! Having a few humans in your walker to control turrets sure adds to the experience as well. Hoth is always a great experience, especially when you can fly the snowspeeder to the AT-AT spawn point and take one (or an AT-ST). Hijacking enemy vehicles is one of the funnest things to do in the game (which makes non-vehicle maps not quite as fun).

Now that I have been through every map, though, I don't know if there is much left for the game to offer. The difference between three of the factions isn't that big (Imperials/rebels/clones), and the droids seem a bit weak without vehicles. Also, since there aren't any varied gameplay modes, the replayability decreases significantly (UT 2004 has a lot more to offer). I think I might be able to get 20+ hours out of this one.

Gameplay: Score 2 out of 5

As I said above, the goal of every map is to defeat the enemy by capturing power points and decreasing the enemy's reenforcements. The more points you own, the faster you can decrease the enemy supply. Each power point usually has an ammo droid and a medical droid to help resupply you, but the resupply is slow enough that unless your team is really losing, you may just run out and fight till you die and respawn.

The vehicles in this game are so much fun to control, and having another human copilot makes it even more so. Each vehicle usually has a primary and secondary fire, and if you get them both trained on an enemy, you can really do some damage. Some of the faster ships, like snowspeeders and X-wings are a little hard to keep in the battle zone, but using the mouse makes controlling so easy! And I finally got the experience of zipping through Endor on a speeder bike (what a rush!).

It would have been nice to play some "what if" scenarios, like clone against imperials, or imperials agains CIS, so you could pit an AT-AT against an AT-TE (Clone walker), or snowspeeders against CIS spider walkers. As it stands, there isn't as much variety as there could be. That leads me to the difference in troops. The Rebels/Imperials/Clones all have similar troops - basic soldier, sniper, rocket launcher, pilot. The rebels do get Wookie smugglers, and there are some different skins for Hoth versus Endor, but overall, there isn't much gameplay difference in the races. If you play a sniper for any faction, you are better off staying out of the fracas and pot-shotting the enemy. There was a lot of potential here for using different races like Ewoks or Tusken Raiders, but as such, they are reduced to NPC AI roles. You can also play with NPC heroes that will join the battle, but they really just cut anyone to shreds (Count Dooku was always camping near a supply point slaughtering our clone troops while Mace Windu wandered aimlessly about). Darth Vader on Hoth is devastating, and when you hear his breathing behind you, you better run!

One final note on gameplay, the AI. Some of the computer teammates are brilliant, tow-cabling AT-AT's on their own and mounting cannons to take on smaller vehicles (the fact that you can kick any AI unit out of a vehicle is a bonus). However, some units spawn and stand there until they start getting shot. This can make for a lopsided game when you have more humans on one team or another. Some maps are still hard and the AI does well, but others were done in less than 5 minutes, where I suffered only 1 death. Mediocre to say the least, this is probably a lot better on the Internet (by the way, I tried to join 15 different servers through Gamespy last night and couldn't get into any - the ones that weren't full just kept saying they were busy).

Graphics: Score 4 out of 5

The engine isn't the highest end workhorse, but that is good, considering how much is going on in some of those battles. On a slower machine, the game still runs well, although with some effects turned down. My 1.2 AMD + Windows XP with a GeForce 5200 stuttered occasionly from mass explosions. Considering I had everything on high, I witnessed some spectacular explosions and effects. The effects are dead-on movie vintage Star Wars action, and the vehicle sizes are well proportioned to the "real" things. Walking up to an AT-AT is quite breathtaking (they are huge). The textures on most are good and the laser effects are spot on (one of my favorite effects is the zoom). No complaints about the graphics here.

Sound: Score 5 out of 5

This is by far the best part of the game. Not one sound ever felt contrived or out of place. The music is the classic orchestral compositions of John Williams, and the voices of the clone troopers are exactly like the ones in Episode II. Every laser blast has a different sound, and when you hear one, if you are as big a Star Wars fan as I am, you will recall exactly when you heard that type of blast in the movies. It was quite an experience. I recommend Dolby 5.1 compatible speakers or at minimum some headphones or a subwoofer so you can really feel the battlefield through the sound.

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Note: all screenshots were submitted by Daggerclaw.

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