Star Wars: Battlefront

aka: Star Wars: Battlefront (Classic, 2004)
Moby ID: 15220
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

For the first time in gaming history, after countless games depicting various aspects of the rich Star Wars universe (including some we never wanted to see), players have the chance to step into the boots of the average soldier in the wars that raged across the galaxy. Gameplay is based on the successful standards set by Battlefield 1942, but combat in Battlefront is even more massive and heated, vehicles are more predominant and the familiar starships are also included.

There are three different game modes to play: Historical Campaign (featuring a series of "historical" battles from the Star Wars mythos), Conquest (in which players vie for dominance of individual planets) and, of course, Instant Action. The game puts two pairs of factions at war: Republic vs Separatists and Rebel Alliance vs Galactic Empire. Each faction has four standard unit types (soldier, heavy weapons trooper, scout and pilot) plus a fifth, special unit which differs radically for each side. Famous Jedi and Sith are included as NPCs only in selected battles. Finally, the game offers almost all of the vehicles seen in the movies for players to fly, drive or hover and prevail.

Spellings

  • 星球大战:前线 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

352 People (252 developers, 100 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 49 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 87 ratings with 8 reviews)

Perfect for casual gamers

The Good
Graphically this game is very good. You really do feel like a part of the Star Wars universe in this one. Graphics help bring you into this game. This was not made easy given the grand scope of the prequels. The detail of the Star Wars movies (up to 2004) is preserved in this game with great success. You can relive epic battles from the Star Wars movies with good detail.

Sound and music is also very good in this game. This is important in any game, especially if it claims to be a Star Wars game. Sounds are authentic to the movies, such as the fellow playing Jango Fett in Episode II. His clone troopers are recreated in this game with perfect detail.

There are numerous weapons in the game, and some five classes of soldiers for each side. There are lots of vehicles too, all of which can make the difference between victory and defeat.

This game is not like Battlefield 2, which records so many of the moves you make in the game. In Battlefront I no permanent statistics are collected. This makes for a much more casual game as it does not require you to be a perfect gamer to enjoy the game.

The main campaign in this game is well done, with cutscenes taken directly from the movies to fill in the story. It is great to play alongside Mace Windu during the Battle for Geonosis, especially after seeing the jedi master leading troops in Episode II.

The Bad
Gameplay is not bad in this game but the controls are somewhat unintuitive, even for a FPS game. You cannot run and when jumping you cannot shoot. Although this does put you on par with the other characters on the battle map it hurts your ability to make precision moves.

The AI is not very good in this game. That is the case for a lot of games though.

A major weakness in this game is the air vehicles (X-Wings, TIEs, snowspeeders, etc). You find yourself making a lot of tight turns in this game, hurting your ability to set up an attack run on an enemy position. This is especially true when playing the Hoth map as you fly a snowspeeder trying to take down an AT-AT.

One odd thing in this game is that to hit your target requires excellent precision. Even an AT-AT with its enormous guns must be as precise as a little laser pistol to hit its target, otherwise the guns have little effect.

The galactic conquest mode is fairly short. This is not necessarily a problem, but more could have been included to make this mode more fun (ie more planets).

The Bottom Line
This is a good, decent and clean game. If you want to fight some of your favorite Star Wars land battles, any way you want, then this is a good game to try. Star Wars fans will not be disappointed.

Windows · by bb bb (25) · 2012

Another example of selling the license instead of the game.

The Good
Well, the graphics are very well done and there is certainly a wide array of maps, tanks, fighters, and weapons. The controls are very east to master, and each faction, Republic, Rebels, Empire, and Confederacy all have their bonuses and disadvantages. It's really fun in multi-player and the "Galactic Conquest" mode where controlling certain planets grants certain bonuses is really cool.

The Bad
First, many of the maps are incredibly unbalanced, and favor one player over another. As an example, let's take a look at the Tatooine: Dune Sea map. In this map, there are some NPC's (non-playable characters) that attack everyone and have an unlimited amount of spawns. This wouldn't be a problem, except that they spawn right next to one of the players, while the other player is perfectly safe from their attacks. Another example is one of the Yavin IV missions. One side gets heavy tanks, while the other faction gets none, putting them at a severe disadvantage in terms of firepower and endurance. The Jedi in this game are also incredibly over-powered. Look, we all know that Luke, Vader, Mace, and Dooku are powerful guys, but do you see them taking 50 blasts from tanks and troopers? And at the same time block missiles from rocket troopers? No. The problem is that these jedi are nearly invincible and they can kill any trooper in one hit. If the bumbling AI manages to get this jedi to one of your spawn points, you will just have to accept having a jedi sitting in your spawn point, slaughtering dozens of your troops and taking no damage. The controls for the tanks are ok, but the controls for the starfighters are simply terrible. The maps are too small for good starfighter combat. If you move forward for more than 10 seconds, the screen will flash that you are "leaving the battlefield" and you will have to turn around or explode.

The Bottom Line
In the end, this game is just a bot match on a few maps, some good, some terrible. Unless you have a PS2 network adapter to play on the internet, then there isn't really enough to get this game, especially at the hefty $50 price tag.

PlayStation 2 · by James Kirk (150) · 2004

A game where "single player" is a bot match against the computer

The Good
The graphics are very well done and it features video clips direct from the movies which are nice to see. It's also interesting fighting in all the different locations taken from the movies. And the areas are recreated very well.

It's nice to play as the light and dark sided teams and you have the ability to play in both 1st and 3rd person, which can be nice for fighting.

The number of different units you can play as is great. You won't get bored with playing the same unit all the time.

The rankings at the end of each mission are interesting as they track things such as top "camper" (staying in one place for long periods of time), top deadeye (headshots), and top enemy of the state (kills). You can also see the stats of all bots in the game.

The Bad
Where do I begin? First of all, the most disappointing thing about this game is the format of it for single players. This game is really a multiplayer-only game. If you choose to play single player, you are simply playing a standard multiplayer bot match against the computer rather than against other people. If you die, you just spawn back into the game.

Weapons are limited greatly based on what unit you play. You have a main weapon with very limited ammunition, a secondary weapon with unlimited ammunition (but it recharges slowly), and some form of mine/bomb weapon. You may also have a shield, health packs, etc. If you end up running out of ammo for your main weapon, unless you want the limited weapon power of the blaster weapon that has unlimited ammo, you basically have to just go get yourself killed so you can respawn with more ammo.

AI is sadly lacking in the game. If you go up onto a ledge/balcony/etc and sit there, you can take pot-shots at your enemies as they come along and no one will try to get you. There is no thought of flanking or retreating or anything. Units will often just stand there as you shoot them.

The Bottom Line
If you like Star Wars, you like Bot matches, and you can live with poor AI, this game is definitely for you. The graphics are great and the short clips from the movies are nice to watch.

On the other hand, if you want good AI and a real single player game... find something better.

Windows · by Riamus (8480) · 2004

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Trivia

Continuity

Along with "Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force", this game was released to tie in with the Star Wars DVD sets.

Online servers

The game's online servers (which were hosted on GameSpy) were shut down on 5 December 2012.

Multiplayer was restored specifically on Steam and GOG (via the Galaxy client) versions of the game on 1 May 2020 with patch 1.3.5.4.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Silverblade.

Macintosh added by Corn Popper. Xbox One added by Kennyannydenny. Xbox 360 added by Matthias Günl.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, MegaMegaMan, Zeppin, Plok.

Game added October 19, 2004. Last modified March 14, 2024.