Star Wars Battlefront 2: Review

Sunday, November 6th, 2005

Even with a few bugs, Battlefront 2 is insanely fun and addictive - a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

The Good: Ridiculous amount of content which will keep you playing for hours on end. New space combat battles are killer. Playable heroes and villains.

The Bad: Buggy sound gets annoying. A.I. is just plain stupid at times.

I had planned to review F.E.A.R. and Call of Duty 2 before Battlefront 2, but I’ve had so much fun playing it, I just couldn’t hold out. Battlefront 2 is the ultimate Star Wars game. If you enjoyed the first one, chances are you’ll love the sequel.

For those that aren’t familiar with the series - Star Was Battlefront is exactly what it’s name implies. You are one amongst massive battles that you’ve seen in the Star Wars movies. You can play as any of the four factions (Rebels, Empire, Republic and CIS), re-enacting the epic battles on various planets and for the first time, in space. All the vehicles and weapons are also present, including some that only made brief appearances in the movies.

One of the features they’re really pushing in Battlefront 2 is the space combat. Obviously, it was the first thing I tried and initially I was a little disappointed. It didn’t seem as frantic and big as I remember from the movies - but then I discovered you can control the amount of AI that are on screen. Once I doubled that to 32 players per team, the experience greatly improved! The assault mode in space is the most fun. There is a main ship for each team and from it, fighters and carriers can launch. The objective is to take out the enemy ship. At first, I started firing away at the bridge and various antennas, but there was a deflector shield up. So I thought to myself - “What would Luke Skywalker do?” He’d destroy it from the inside - that’s what! After loading up a carrier with clone troopers, I made my way to the enemy hangar bay. Once in, I ran into the control room which branched off to separate rooms where I could take out things like the deflector shield, auto turrets and engines. After having shut most of the ship’s main functions down, I hopped back in the carrier and proceeded to take the ship down. Amazing!

Another prominent new feature is the addition of heroes and villains. Once you reach a certain level of excellency, you are rewarded by being able to play as a hero or villain - depending on the faction you’re playing as, of course. Some reviews I’ve read have stated that playing as a hero isn’t as fun as you’d expect, but I beg to differ. Playing as Darth Maul and doing those awesome windmill-kicks with the double-edged lightsaber is some damn cool shit! There’s even a Heroes vs Villains mode which totally took me by surprise. With it, you can witness some impossible battles or put arch enemies head-to-head and see who prevails.

With all this goodness, there has to be some down sides. And unfortunately, Battlefront 2 seems to have plenty. The Battlefront 2 website boasts “smarter” enemy and allied A.I. - really? Cause I witnessed a ton of standing around, looking at walls, back-facing the battle, stand in one spot while I shoot you in the face type stuff that I normally don’t see in other games of the same genre. I can live with that, though. Given that the enemies you’re fighting are droids or clones, they’re not the quickest bunnies in the forest anyway. And I don’t know how fun it would be if there were 64 dudes on screen all hidden behind things and trying to out-flank each other. But there is one bug I can’t let go - and that’s the glitchy audio. I’m not sure if it’s incompatibility with my sound card or purely the game’s fault. There are frequent repeating sound effects and some blown-out, wicked loud ones which are obviously not supposed to be that way. Hopefully this is addressed when a patch is released.

Even with those bugs, Battlefront 2 is insanely fun and addictive - a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

Oh, I almost forgot to complain about the packaging. Some might think I’ve bought two copies of the game by the photo to the right. Actually, the ‘box’ to the left is a cardboard sleeve that goes over the plastic, DVD style case - which I love, by the way. So stoked that most publishers seem to be jumping on board. What is the point of that? It contains the exact same front and back as the plastic case. What a waste! The plastic case was even shrink-wrapped. I really have no idea what they’re thinking. I know some DVDs have been like this for a while - and that drove me nuts too. I just don’t see the point in double-packaging.