Star Wars: Battlefront II

"Insert pun involving the Force being strong with this game here."

Good: Playable Jedi, Space battles, great sound and graphics, online multiplayer, single player has more depth.

Bad: Gameplay is a little simplistic, sometimes unfair, space maps are much the same

When the first Star Wars Battlefront was released, as a seasoned fan of the Star Wars universe, I rejoiced. It allowed you to play as 4 different armies each with its own classes and abilities in the major battlefields of the Star Wars galaxy.
You could shoot, fly, drive tanks, use mounted guns, command soldiers, go split-screen with a friend or go on a massive 16 person online multiplayer. It was great, but it had some major flaws such as not being able to play as a Jedi, the flight was somewhat restricted on a battlefield, there were no space battles, no playable battlefields from episode 3 (as this hadn't been released) and the single player was short and shallow.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 corrects every one of these mistakes making for the most enjoyable and authentic Star Wars experience yet.

You can now play as Jedi and even other heroes from the saga such as Obi-Wan, Anakin, Darth Vader, Jango Fett, Yoda and Han Solo. They all have their own unique abilities, attacks, and the Jedi have force powers! It's delightfully evil to lurch through the Death Star as Emperor Palpatine and fry rebels with force lightning. One slight annoyance however is that these special characters have a life bar that can be replenished only by defeating enemies. If you're near the end of a battle and can't find soldiers to kill then your life bar will deplete and your hero is forced to retire or basically give up; hardly the sort of thing one would expect from hardened warriors like Obi-Wan and Darth Vader. There are also a number of new units for each team, such as the Republic's 'Clone Commander' who carries a powerful chain-gun and Rebel's 'Bothan Spy' who can become invisible and sneak behind enemy lines.

Space Battles. Woah momma, this is undoubtedly one of the best new features. You get to fly a variety of ships and destroy the enemy fleet by fighting their ships, destroying vital parts of their attack cruiser such as the bridge or communications array and can even land in their hangar with a group of soldiers and bomb their engines from the inside. The space levels are all pretty similar in structure and so you may get a bit bored of them, but online play is where these levels really shine - other devious players will try everything to infiltrate your ship's vital systems!

The story mode is far better than the original as it is much longer and certain objectives are to be completed in each mission rather than simply just capture command posts. Conditions need to be met to allow a hero to arrive on the battlefield or be granted reinforcements. One thing you will notice about the game in comparison with the last is that it is harder and it's not uncommon to suffer several defeats on certain levels. Now this can be frustrating at first but you should view this as an opportunity to find different ways of completing your objectives; there is a lot of fun in trying different strategies and some will work better than others. However, the game can often be unfair towards you and have you running around desperately trying to capture command posts because of your unhelpful comrades, when you should be having fun.

The maps are nicely designed and there has been a lot of improvement in detail of the units and visual effects (such as explosions and weather) on each battlefield. The maps are also more interactive; you can destroy bridge controls, effectively causing the structure to collapse and sending enemies to the bottom of a chasm - or how about luring some enemies into the Death Star's trash compactor? There are other such devices that can be used strategically like this.

There are 'hunts' which can be done on certain planets where one team hunts down the planets native species - this allows you to play as or against tusken raiders, jawas, geonosians, ewoks, gungans and more. The only problem with these is that they are distinctively one-sided and sometimes it is practically impossible to win when on a certain team. The Gungans are about as useless as you'd expect and the ewoks are, oddly enough, tough and powerful opponents. Full marks for tying in with the films then…

The score is as ever, epic, and certain heroes will have a sort of theme tune which comes on when you play as them. General Grievous lurches around to the Trade Federation tune and Darth Maul's is 'duel of the fates' from episode 1. The game has a ton of replay value as you can still go splitscreen with a friend and online multiplayer is an experience to remember. There are also loads of planets, space battles and modes to choose from on Instant Action mode.

All in all, though it has its problems, this is one heck of a shooter - as a Star Wars experience it's unmatched as of yet. So is it the best Star Wars game so far? Yes. That's about the size of it.
Flawed, but great fun.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/08

Game Release: Star Wars: Battlefront II (US, 11/01/05)