Star Wars: Battlefront

The Good
I'm not a devoted follower of Star Wars, but I am a big fan of massive war games such as Dynasty Warriors so when I first caught sight of this game, I was ecstatic and after renting it, I had to have it, even if it meant shelling out the $50 (back in the day when it was new), that is how much fun it was.

The music and sounds are incredible, authentic Star Wars music from the past along with the genuine sounds of the blasters, speeders, even the voices. The gameplay can be very addictive, with so many things that you can do, from strafing the ground with aerial vehicles to utilizing snipers, there is no end in sight on how to win the battle.

The variety of vehicles also make this game fun to play, snow speeders, AT-ATs, Droid Starfighters (the most powerful in my opinion) and the option to choose the era, either the CIS revolt or the Empire Rebellion on most of the planets keeps things fresh.

The Bad
There were a few things that bothered me, one of which is how short it can be, you can easily tear through enemy forces fast, especially with an experienced human teammate, even though there almost 10 worlds with 2 stages a piece, it's very easy to finish the game in almost a half hour.

Another thing that bothers me is just an opinion, but the lack of having the option to fight against enemies from other eras would have been fun, it would be nice to play against the Empire using the Droids. Another is a better placement of some respawn points, for example on Hoth you can respawn underneath an AT-AT, but you can easily be stepped on by it as soon as you spawn, making it very frustrating.

Sometimes the game can be a bit easy and the Ally AI can be brain-dead at times, such as getting in your line of fire or running at a shooting enemy without stopping to fire back. The single-player missions can be a bit shallow, so playing with a human friend can be much more entertaining.

The Bottom Line
Really this is a great game to play despite its little faults, but for real excitement, hook up with a buddy or relative, either fighting against each other or teaming up to see who is better (a personal best for me and my brother is 20 minutes beating the game on campaign teaming up while we fought each other that lasted up to 3 months going back and forth). Even if you're not a Star Wars fan, at least give this game a whirl, you might be pleasantly surprised about how much entertainment can be taken from this 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.

The Good
What you’re looking at is gorgeous presentation with some of John Williams’ great music scores and epic foley sound effects. The live-action cutscenes set the stage as much as the mission briefing. Every planet and battle front you go to has plenty of space, multiple routes for you to fix and flank your enemies. Many notable battles from Naboo to Hoth seem to show you what you didn’t see in the Star Wars movies.

What you can do during the battle depends a great deal on available resources, choices you make and creative moves that you execute. There are turrets for defense, kill zones to pin your foes, vehicles to spearhead enemy territory and specific troop classes you can pick to fight the battle differently. You get a decent variety and play style whether you’re an OOM battle droid, Republic Clone or Empire Stormtrooper. There’s enough content in the game to make playability last.

The Bad
You might think that, with practice and tryouts, you would be ready for this game. But when you go deep into the gameplay, there are many problems you need to withstand to play it through and through. One problem is the lack of balance between the types of soldiers. You only get two weapons, nothing else. Your abilities as a rocket trooper or sniper have very limited ammo, you need an ammo droid at all times. And the healing droids have a slow rate of healing. And speaking of slow, you’re going to find your soldier spawning at the most inconvenient spots that force you to do a marathon of jogging, wasting precious seconds to enter the battle. If you'd spawn at a command post nearer the frontline or of your choosing, that would have worked.

The controls are another matter. Mouse can be jerky and make aiming precisely a chore. Controls are not predefined well since your finger on the mouse can accidentally slide on the right mouse button and throw a grenade you didn’t mean to toss because we all take traditional modern shooter controls for granted. But the worst part of the game are the flying vehicles which seem to soar out of control and crash using the reverse mouse aim. Why couldn’t there be manual ascend, descend and accelerate buttons for user friendly movement? You’d best stick to boots on the ground.

The Bottom Line
Battlefront did some things right like capturing the Star Wars lore and atmosphere perfectly and paved the way for a fantastic battle simulation framework. Unfortunately what problems exist make it less fun to play, where you expect to fight harder. Still there is decent genuine challenge. Perhaps specialists like Kyle Katarn or RC-1138 would have fared better, but that’s wishful thinking. As long as you stick to choosing a regular rifle trooper and nothing else, you should last throughout the battle without too many losses. It’s gun toting time across the galaxy when you grab yourself a copy and get it running.