Developer: Pandemic Studios
Publisher: LucasArts
Players: 1-4 (Xbox, PS2) (32 online)
1 (PC) (64 online)
1 (PSP)
Genre: Third-person shooter
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Hours Played: over 30
Progress: Beat main campaign mode
Most sequels to games are inferior to the originals. They don’t add enough to the series to be considered as good as the one that started it all. Battlefront II is not one of these games. Star Wars Battlefront brought something entirely new to the gaming world (and the Star Wars world for that matter). Through Battlefront II, you are able to play as a regular infantryman through famous Star Wars battles like the Battle of Geonosis, and even change their outcome. For example, you can have the Empire win the Battle of Endor, even though in the movies they lost it. Battlefront was a great game, but the sequel was even better.
Battlefront II took everything that was in Battlefront and added many of the things fans wished for after the first one. Battlefront II saw rise to space battles, like being able to get in an X-Wing and go around shooting down TIE fighters. This space combat added another level to the game as epic battles could now be waged from the inside of a star fighter’s cockpit. Also added to Battlefront II was the ability to play as Jedi, Sith, and other important characters in the Star Wars universe (Chewbacca, for example). In Battlefront, when a hero was summoned, they just ran around doing their own thing. In Battlefront II, you can play as the heroes, which is perhaps the most memorable element of the game.
The gameplay of this game is awesome. The controls are solid, a mouse and keyboard work well, but personally I use a joypad for controls similar to the PS2. The sound is realistic enough, except that the voices of the bots get annoying when they just cycle through random comments. Some of it is important (gaining/losing command posts, heroes on the field), but most of it is stuff like “Super Battle Droid, take him down!” (pointless, because the CIS main infantry are Super Battle Droids and they’re extremely common). When one team has a majority of command posts, the other team’s reinforcements slowly diminish. When the enemy has one reinforcement remaining and you’re playing a bot, there is one guy on the field and you have to find him. All the while you search you are hearing “Their reinforcements are being depleted!”, which makes no sense because by this point they aren’t losing reinforcements anymore.
The only story in the game is simply to tie the missions in “Rise of the Empire” together. “Galactic Conquest” though, is a better experience in both single and multiplayer modes. One picks a team and then tactically moves their fleet to capture enemy planets. At the start, you only have the basic soldier class, but you can recruit other classes if you have the money. Once you engage an enemy, either on a planet or in space, the game switches to a regular battle as you fight for control of the planet (or destroy the enemy fleet if it’s a space battle).
Battlefield II seems that it has a sort of anti-lag set-up, where one can use their computer as a host without joining the game for faster performance. If the host joins a game though, it will be more susceptible to lag. This game could have greatly benefited from matchmaking and seeing as it came out just under a year after Halo 2, it could have easily happened.
Summary
Pros:
+ Great gameplay
+ Space battles
+ Playing as Jedi
+ Solid controls
Cons:
– Annoying voices throughout battles
– Poor story
– Republic infantry are over powered
– Bots really aren’t that bright
– Could have benefited from online matchmaking
9.0
In closing, this is a great shooter for the PC, Xbox and PS2. The only real fault is that the Republic is notably overpowered. They have more health and I think they seem to do more damage. Even with that said, this game comes highly recommend in spite of its age.