After spending a number of hours with Star Wars Battlefront (why the hell could they not add a 3 to the name…) I’m left with a feeling of, “What now?” Star Wars Battlefront is a game that oozes style, but has very little substance to back up all the pretty visuals. I have seen so many critics get stung by the nostalgia bug singing the games praises with high scores, even when complaining about some fundamental issues that would have killed any other game. I won’t wait until the end of my review to tell you that Star Wars Battlefront isn’t worth your money, especially with a $50 season pass that gives you content that should have been included with the game as standard. We’ve come a long way since Star Wars Battlefront 2, and while the graphics have improved leaps and bounds, the gameplay has made a lateral move at best.
We shouldn’t give a game a pass simply because it has the Star Wars name on it, or because they are a paid advertiser (they aren’t here). Take away the Star Wars name and settings and you would be left with a pretty weak product. Star Wars Battlefront fails because it can’t decide what it wants to be in the relation to the player community. It’s the kind of problem that pops up because of far too much focus testing. The game isn’t a serious online shooter as it doesn’t offer up anything new or better than bigger games that have come before, and it isn’t a casual shooter (there is no such thing) as it has no single-player component. But… But… Star Wars! Yeah, Star Wars, but you need to take the fanboy out of this and see the game for what it is.
Gameplay is basic and stale with not much of a marked improvement from the original Battlefront from 2004. After 11 years you’d think we would get something more than point and shoot. Breaking down the shooting mechanics, point and shoot is essentially all you get. Every weapon acts almost exactly the same within the game. Weapons all have a single mode, and while you can use the iron sights when available, you wont ever do so as shooting from the hip is just as accurate. There is also a brief lock on mechanic when you do go into zoom, so if you want to feel like a king just keep switching back and forth really quick and enemies will go down in a flash with little effort.
When starting the game you will have access to only a single weapon and no grenades or extras. Everything the game has is hidden behind a credit-wall, and while earning in-game credits is a breeze, it was a serious pain jumping into a multiplayer match with only a basic sidearm. Once you purchase the games blasters (all of which look and feel very similar) you’ll be able to switch back and forth every respawn. But even with the feature, you are going to find the well dries up pretty quickly with unlockables and not real defined class structure. Progression here is extremely lacking and its something that other games that do it get reamed for in reviews. Player skins and cards can also be unlocked so you can customize your player, but other than some grenades, weapons and such, these offer little incentive to more casual players. There are only twenty-four cards in total, but you’ll find yourself ignoring most. Every time your rank up new packs are open to you, but other than the jump pack to help maneuverability and a few weapons, you won’t be mixing and matching all that much. Also, be ready to get worked on by ranked up players with everything already unlocked early in your play sessions.
Hardened FPS players are going to have some fun hunting down new players, but I just don’t see them sticking around for very long. Likewise, casual Star Wars fans are going to be extremely put off by their innate disadvantage in the game. This is where a single-player element would come into play as it would give people something to enjoy, and hopefully let them learn the abilities and techniques that will help them in multiplayer. In Star Wars Battlefront you are going to have to learn by putting your feet to the fire, and while that’s okay, it just doesn’t work for those without hours upon hours to invest in practice. Fan service with all the pretty locals just isn’t enough to keep players involved, and I see servers running light in a matter of months. Single-player is nothing more than some training modes that you can tackle in co-op (split screen is there, so there’s that) but they fail to really engage you. The only thing they do is make you wish the game had a single-player element of some kind. It could not have been that hard to add some extended levels and missions to really justify the price tag on this one. As EA has already said more Star Wars is on the way I can only imagine that they are stiffing us now so that they can add it to another game later. Multiplayer only is fine, but then you better not charge full price as the production time isn’t as intense or involved. If Call of Duty can do it well on both fronts, than so can Battlefront.
The game boasts nine multiplayer modes that offer a good bit of fun, even if the locations you will play on are few in number. The game supports forty-player skirmishes (BF2 had 64) that will have two teams running around like crazy. These skirmishes are the bulk of the game, but they tend to get stale as there isn’t much to do other than kill the badguys. You also get capture the flag games that drop the player count to twelve, but make for serious fun if you can get a team together to play alongside. There is also the dogfight mode that takes players into the cockpit of a Star Wars fighter to due battle, but these are pretty limited in scope. It’s all in cockpit mode so you won’t be leaving to take positions of areas like you could, in say, Star Wars Battlefront 2. Still, it is a lot of fun to fly around space and over planets, even if the controls feel a little loose.
Star Wars Battlefront offers up four main areas to engage in. You can fight on Hoth, Tatooine, Endor, and Sullust and if that seems like only a few locations, you’re right. Sure, each location has a number of maps each to mix things up, but you will be left wanting more pretty quickly. We have seen and fought on these locations in a number of games over the years, but Star Wars Battlefront makes them look drop dead gorgeous. It’s the best these locales have ever looked and even put their movie counterparts to shame in many respects. The only new place is Sullust, a place that fans will remember being mentioned in the original trilogy. You will be saying, “How cool,” when you gaze upon the maps, but the gameplay will likewise have you saying, “That’s it?”
There are a number of modes that also feature vehicles that are a blast to get into, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. In the Battlefield games you would head to the nearest vehicle spawn point and jump in, or wait around until something spawned after some klutz crashed his chopper on takeoff. Star Wars Battlefront does things a little differently by making everything sort of random. The battlefield will be littered about with tokens that you can snag by running over them. These tokens are random and when you grab one you will be rewarded with some sort of powerup. Maybe you’ll earn a rocket launcher, maybe a battle droid to help the team, a turret, or even a vehicle. The random nature of these tokens is really cool even if it takes you out of the realistic nature of the way everything looks, but it makes forming strategies and planning tactics nearly impossible on a large scale, something which will really irritate serious players.
This Supremacy mode (40 players) also sees “hero” characters enter the fray much like hey did in Battlefront 2 and they offer a neat twist that can change the tide of a match. More than anything it’s really cool to just see notable characters fight alongside/against you. Seeing Boba Fett fly over you really gets you pumped up while in a big shootout. The players attention will almost always turn to these characters, so while Luke and Vader are trading lightsaber blows, each team is frantically defending each character. It’s cool enough seeing these characters, but when you get to take the reins the game really shines. Well, outside of Palpatine who has a ridiculous corkscrew attack that is just laughable. I know it’s from the newer trilogy, but come on, it’s just stupid. Also, seeing Palpatine run is beyond laugh worthy. You can run 20 on 20 matches with the Walker Assault mode that playsmuch the same, but has one team working its way to an objective defending an AT-AT. These are my favorite bits as things can get really hairy as a walker is bearing down on your team. You can also secure certain points on the map and call in air strikes from you Y-Wing bombers. It’s a lot of good fun.
Another neat mode is the Hero vs Villains mode that sees each side getting three heroes to duke it out while the rest play as random grunts. The heroes will rotate every round among the player pool so you’ll get a few chances to play as your favorite hero and learn about what they can do. There is also a Hero Hunt mode that has eight-players on a map with one of them being a Hero character. The players will then get their chance to take out the Hero player before he can wipe them all out. It’s a fun version of the last man standing game, and is always fun feeling unstoppable, even if only for a little bit. These modes are all fun, but they still have little lasting appeal without the progression that Star Wars Battlefront so desperately needs. As playing as Hero characters is random, there has to be something else to keep someone coming back and Battlefront just doesn’t have it.
I am a huge Star Wars fan and I was blown away time and time again when looking at Star Wars Battlefront in action. The problem is that I never felt that way about the way the game played. Fan service is a lovely thing, but you can’t just rest on that and expect a free pass, or maybe you can by the looks at so many reviews. Another thing to note is that you are going to have to pay $50 for the season pass, so you are paying $110 bucks to get a complete package, and that’s unacceptable. If you want this one to have some casual fun and see some pretty Star Wars locations I’d recommend you rent it from Redbox or Gamefly before you drop your hard earned money on this one. After a few days I’d wager you will get your fill of everything the game has to offer. In the end Star Wars Battle just ends up being mediocre game that rests heavily on the fan service.
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