Star Wars: Battlefront II

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