Star Wars: Battlefront

"The Star Wars universe, as seen by idiot-savant A.I. characters."

In 1977, George Lucas and 20th Century Fox teamed up to release a film about intergalactic conflict, Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. For its creators, it would mark the beginning of an incredibly influential and profitable franchise; for millions of people around the world, it began a frenzied following that maintains its fervor to this day. Since the original movie saw release, 5 sequels and prequels have followed suit, and in what can only be described as a logical extension of the brand, more than 2 dozen videogames have also been created bearing the Star Wars name.

Star Wars: Battlefront is one of the LucasArts videogame iterations of the Star Wars universe. In the game, you are given the opportunity to actually ‘live the battles' that have been cemented in the heads of Star Wars junkies for so many years. While the premise of being able to actually take part in one of the many large-scale battles showcased in the pictures is certainly enough to hook fans of the franchise, is the game fun enough on its own to entice others to join in?

Visuals:

The game's interface is very stylized, which fits in well with the futuristic Star Wars motif. All menus in the game do their job with minimal distraction, and all pertinent options are easily accessible. Once you get in-game, your HUD displays all important information in a clear, graphically concise manner. All the vital stats you need to keep track of are represented in an easy-to-understand manner.

In-game graphics are of a very high quality. The worlds from the movies are extremely well recreated, with everything remaining as true to the source material as possible. All of the levels look gorgeous, and with a total of sixteen maps included with the game, there is plenty of variety in the scenery. The character and vehicle animations are also very well done. Each race looks and performs smoothly, and the sight of an infantry battle being fought while large and small vehicles crowd the battlefield is truly a sight to behold. The game also makes use of some highly overstated rag-doll physics for corpses.

The game also features an occasional clip ripped directly from the movies. While these certainly won't bring anyone to buy the game (whether Star Wars fan or not), they do help retell a bit of the back story for each mission to those who might not have seen them or remember them.

The visual quality of the game will make Star Wars fans jump for joy, and should also prove to be a strong point to those who are not similar with the series.

Score: 10/10

Sound:

Since LucasArts is the company that invented the Dolby Digital sound format, one would expect the audio quality to be top-of-the-line for Battlefront. These expectations are proven true, as the sound effects and music truly help to simulate the feeling of involvement in a Star Wars battle.

The sound effects are masterfully orchestrated, with each weapon and vehicle making the Star Wars-appropriate noise associated with it. The cacophony of battle surrounding the player does an excellent job of improving the feel of immersion. The constant sounds of explosions and weapons fire erupting around you give each skirmish a suitably frenzied feel.

Star Wars' music has long been renowned for its quality, and Battlefront draws from films' vast library to great effect. Music that you would have heard in the movies plays during the same battle that you're experiencing in the videogame, which will give any Star Wars fan the chills. Those not familiar with the material should also come away duly impressed with the quality of the experience.

Voiceover acting comes in short spurts, with an unseen character for each force simply providing an announcement when an important event occurs in the battle. You'll also occasionally hear a character say something during the battle, such as a warning to move out of the path of an oncoming explosion. These simple voiceovers are done well, and help you get into the feel of the battle without becoming a distraction.

The audio quality in Battlefronts meshes well with the visual quality, recreating the Star Wars worlds in such a way that even those who have never seen the movies can appreciate their distinct expression.

Score: 10/10

Gameplay:

Battlefront is the epitome of a team-based shooter on consoles. You, as a nameless grunt fighting for one of the Star Wars universe's factions, will fight against hundreds of other nameless grunts on a gigantic battlefield, trying to lead your side to victory. This premise is certainly not all that original, but in the context of this game it works well. Of course, other factors conspire to harm the gameplay, which ultimately makes the game experience hit-or-miss.

Controls are mapped in a fashion extremely similar to those of the XBox hit Halo, which has seemingly become the industry standard. You'll move yourself and your sights with the left and right analog sticks, respectively. The R1 button serves as your ‘fire' button, while the L1 button utilizes your secondary weapon (such as a grenades and the like). The R2 and L2 buttons are used to cycle through each class of weapons. The X button jumps, circle toggles your character between standing, sitting, and going prone, triangle serves to trigger actions (such as entering and exiting vehicles), and square reloads your weapon. The D-pad issues a few simple orders to the friendly soldiers in your vicinity. The start button pauses the game, and the select button cycles through map modes.

The controls are very well done, which is to be expected from any game that clones Halo's control layout. Everything handles very smoothly, and all the buttons are remappable to suit the desires of individual players. Vehicle controls are roughly the same as those for infantry, and are similarly solid. Once you've played for a bit and get a good feel for the way each vehicle moves, you'll be able to maneuver around the landscapes with enough precision to be a threat. Some of the vehicles are a bit tough to control, though, and take more time to learn than others – a suitable setup, since the tougher vehicles are usually ones that you would imagine to be more difficult to fly in the Star Wars films.

As previously mentioned, the gameplay is very straightforward. You go around your chosen battlefield fighting off enemy forces, while attempting to gain control of ‘command posts.' These posts serve as spawn points for reinforcements. When one team has control of all command posts for 20 seconds, victory is attained. Victory can also be achieved by defeating all of your enemy's units. While it isn't terribly unique, this play style suits the overall feel of the game well, and leads to some interesting confrontations in the midst of battles.

You play controlling a nameless soldier from one of 5 classes – a sniper, heavy infantry, regular infantry, shock trooper, or pilot. Each job uses different weapons and tools, and has different strengths, and you can switch between classes when you die. The classes are balanced fairly enough to keep the playing field level for everyone, and they mesh together quite well during combat.

Alas, despite the solid underlying game components, the single-player campaign modes ultimately end up feeling a bit uninspired. The foremost problem is enemy and friendly A.I. CPU-controlled characters often do the little things right – you'll find that they listen to your squad command quickly, and both sides show good teamwork – but they also make horrible, blatant mistakes during battle. For example, A.I.-controlled soldiers will often run in droves through chokepoints, allowing only a few of their enemies to slaughter them by the dozens. You'll see these characters ignoring enemy sniper fire to stay in one spot, no matter how many of their teammates die around them. The A.I. also has soldiers focus on grabbing any nearby vehicles, only to drive them alone to sure doom in enemy-controlled areas. The game is also rife with smaller bugs, such as characters getting stuck on scenery, unable to move but firing infinitely. It should go without saying that being consistently exposed to this type of behavior acts as a huge damper on the excitement of living the battles from the Star Wars movies. For a game that plays towards many people's fantasy of becoming their hero from a movie, the problems of seeing Darth Vader running forever into a wall, swinging away his light saber at nothing in particular definitely dulls the feelings of heroism.

The offline gameplay should still appeal to players looking to take part in big, wonderfully orchestrated clashes, as it manages to get enough right to make it fun most of the time. It's still regrettable, though, that the stupid behavior orchestrated by the A.I. takes so much away from the experience.

Score: 7/10

Features/Modes:

There are two offline modes to choose from. In Galactic Conquest, you choose a race and then set out to conquer the galaxy planet-by-planet, utilizing resources from captured planets to support your campaign, while in Historic Campaign, you follow the events of the movies from the perspective of one of the factions.

Battlefront supports online play, which is detailed below. You'll also see System Link support, so you can play with 16 of your friends (and their four PS2, four TVs, four copies of Battlefront, and sixteen controllers) rather than going online. You can also play the offline modes through in 2-player co-op. Having another human being around to help you certainly helps to alleviate some of the dissatisfaction of the A.I.'s incompetence, but it in no way eliminates it, since you'll still frequently bear witness to its foolish behavior.

Online play is certainly the best way to extend the time you spend with Battlefront, but the co-op and split-screen will help for those without the capabilities to play online. The two offline modes offer a solid amount of value for your money.

Score: 8/10

Online Play:

Battlefront's gameplay is doubtlessly at its best when it is experienced online, although the online universe suffers from some severe technical limitations.

On the PS2, you can only have two human players fighting for each side if you're hosting a game off of your console. In order to play with the maximum of eight for each side, you must either run a dedicated server on your PC (utilizing special software that LucasArts has provided for download), or you must connect to one of the officially-run LucasArts games in the online lobby. Needless to say, these limitations are definitely disappointing, especially when you consider that the other two versions of the game, for PC and XBox, support up to 32 and 16 players each, respectively.

Of course, the battles themselves are much bigger than even 32 people, so to fill out the sides they are populated with the same dumb CPU-controlled bots as in the offline gameplay. If you can find a 16-player game, this doesn't cut into the fun too greatly, as the skirmishes you'll have with other human-controlled players will leave you wanting more. In four-player only games, though, it's difficult to even find the opposing two players to have such confrontations, so you're left with virtually the same gameplay as the offline modes.

Latency is fairly good for the game when on official host servers, with most of them able to withstand even a full 16-player match. Four-player games depend on the connection of the host, but with so few players involved, there's little reason for any lag to pop up.

The online portion of Battlefront was obviously a strong focus of the game's development, and this makes it all the more unsatisfactory to see how little different it is from the offline play. The limitations of the platform cost users the opportunity to experience the game without the dumb CPU-controlled characters, and this renders the online gameplay almost pointless.

Score: 4/10

Total Score:

In the end, Star Wars: Battlefront likely ended up as exactly what the designers intended: an opportunity for devout Star Wars aficionados to actually take part in the epic battles that for so many years they have enjoyed on the big screen. The A.I.'s lack of smarts and the dearth of online options aside, the game does an excellent job at recreating some of the Star Wars series' most memorable fights, which is a commendable feat. When you do factor in those A.I. woes and online restrictions, though, you see that the game will have a difficult time finding an audience outside from that rabid fan base.

Anyone with a previous predilection towards the Star Wars series would do well to give this game a try. Anyone else, though, should find a better way to spend their time.

Score: 6/10 (not an average)

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Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/06