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 fun, Star Wars-themed war game.

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.

PlayStation 2 · by Big John WV (26954) · 2008

[ 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.