Star Wars: Battlefront II

"Bigger, better, and brilliant fun!"

Last year, a game called Star Wars Battlefront was released. It was hailed as the greatest Star Wars video game ever made, besting such games as Knights of the Old Republic and Rogue Leader. Still, some aspects of the game felt rushed, badly done or even missing. Lucasarts saw the feedback, and released this sequel a year later,

GAMEPLAY - 10/10

The gameplay in Star Wars Battlefront 2 is fantastic, rounded just to the level where you know what's going on, but are immersed in the destruction and killing all around up to your eyebrows. Grenades and missiles fly all over the place, giant monsters kill your team-mates and cloaked troops sneak up behind you and fire laser pistols at your head in the chaos surrounding the attles in this game.
Fans of the original will be pleased to know that jedi, sith and various other famous Star Wars characters are now playable in a wide range of types. There are the more traditional jedi Anakin and Obi-Wan, the neat Darths Maul, Vader and Sidious, the robotic General Grievous, the minute Yoda and old school characters such as Han Solo and Princess Leia. These characters are unlocked during battle by collecting hero points, given for killing enemy troops, capturing Command Posts (where your troops spawn), blowing up vehicles, destroying certain key objects and shooting down enemy starfighters. Also, you can fly in space with much improved flight mechanics, dogfighting with enemy craft, blowing up key enemy defences and landing in capital ships to attack from the inside. Another new feature is 'Hunt mode', which allows you to hunt an armny of indigenous creatures or hunt the original hunters as the hunted. There's nothing like seeing an Ewok blast a storm trooper, or charge around the ice planet Hoth as a yeti-style Wampa, which is another reason why this category gets such a good mark.

GRAPHICS - 8/10

To be honest, the graphics on the normal units look like they were directly imported from the old game, which is still pretty good. However, backgrounds in this game are stunning, showing off the crater city of Utapau and the volcanic terrain of Mustafar. The explosions, missiles and lasers, however, look very good, which is useful as you see a heck of a lot of them in this game.

SOUND - 9.5/10

I give this category a 9.5 because although John William's score and the sound effects are near perfect, the music has some nasty transitions between pieces. Otherwise, though, the sound in this game is very, very good.

CONTROLS - 9/10

The controls for Star Wars Vattlefront 2 are a little tough to get to grips with early on, but half an hour into the game, you'll be blowing up Acklays with the rest of us. The controls are intuitive, letting you get into the game fairly easily, but go deep, which works well for casual and hardcore gamers. Pretty good, I'd say.

OVERALL - 9.125

This game is a great one for Star Wars fans, FPS fans or basically any type of gamer, and I recommend it to all.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/05