PC Games: Star Wars Battlefront. Live the battles of Star Wars!

Quick Facts:
Star Wars: Battlefront – for Windows. About $40 at the time of this writing, single or multiplayer via internet. Released by Lucasarts in 2004, rated Teen. Shooter Genre.

Full Review:

The first person shooter has evolved quite a bit over the years, with online multiplayer shooters becoming more and more popular. Counter-Strike, a mod for 1997’s Half Life, is still one of the most popular games today, despite its age. Battlefield 1942 added the next level in online games, allowing players to drive vehicles, as well as battle on a truly epic scale. Star Wars: Battlefront continues what Battlefield 1942 has started. In fact, some may say it has copied it – and changed the WWII items to Star Wars ones, and this would be a pretty fair assessment of Star Wars: Battlefront.

Gameplay is simple: You choose a side, and try to keep control of various points across a map. How you do this is up to you. You can be a grunt on the front lines, and charge into the area to hold it. Or you can take to the skies in a fighter ship, giving ground support and keeping the skies clear of enemies, or perhaps you want to be a Jetpack trooper, using your mobility to flank your enemies and get to hard to reach spots for strategical advantage. How you play is up to you. You can even choose between first and third person view.

For those familiar with first person shooters, you will be able to pick up Battlefront very easily. Your standard “WASD” control set, with left button primary first, right button secondary fire is in full swing here. There aren’t a lot of complex keys to learn, most classes have a use or switch weapon button, and that’s about it.

The devil, as they say, is in the details. Old school Star Wars fans can play as the Rebellion or Empire, and for the newer fan, there are Clones and Droids as well. The maps cover all the popular battlefields in Star Wars lore, from Tatooine to Naboo, and all of the popular weapons and vehicles: including the mighty AT-AT, are here for you to control. The single player game includes a couple of campaign modes, Galactic Conquest mode, as well as Instant Action.

Online, you can join up to 49 other human players and 32 computer controller players per team in a no holds barred shoot fest. In fact, the game was primarily touted as a multiplayer game. This is where things get confusing, because Star Wars: Battlefront really does excel as a fun single player experience. Multiplayer is where the games weaknesses really come out.

The primary weakness is the simply pathetic multiplayer server interface. In this day and age, this is completely inexcusable. Refreshing the server list takes far too long, there is no “favorite” server options, and if the server you choose is full, you need to reload the list. Once you actually get into a game, the game is plagued by lag issues and team balance issues. Simply having a low ping and joining the already winning team is a problem all too common, and given the difficulty of simply getting into a server, this proves to be very frustrating. The game has the potential for fun, but Lucas Arts really needs to improve the server interface if it has any hope of being a popular online shooter.

As an aside, if you have a few friends, and have one of them set up a server, and just a few of you join to play either cooperatively or against each other, a lot of fun can be had.

Single player is definitely a fun, if not slightly repetitive experience. The main flaw in the single player game is the AI, which is relatively weak – even on the “Hard” level. Jedi Heroes wander to the borders of the map, and soldiers will all gather underneath the point they are supposed to attack, not realizing they need to find a ramp. And of course, compared to “real” opponents, AI targets tend to be relatively predictable and immobile, standing still while you blast them in the head with a laser rifle.

The graphics, story, sound, and atmosphere are all definitely Star Wars. One of the best looking Star Wars games ever, you will feel like you are part of these great battles. The sound is incredibly immersive and complete, and movie clips from the actual films are included as cut scenes as you fight some of the most famous battles in the Star Wars Universe. When you are on Naboo, you’ll see Gungans. On Endor, ewoks.

Another side flaw is visibility. On certain maps, such as those with trees, the White of the Clones/Imperial troopers stands out like a firefly at night compared to the green and brown of the rebels and wookies. While the wisdom of stark white armor has been debated often by Star Wars geeks, in practice it proves to be a huge disadvantage – and makes those maps nearly unplayable in a multiplayer setting.

Graphics: 5 out of 5

You’ll need a decent powered machine to enjoy all the graphics, but the game really does look fantastic. The laser blasts, vehicles, and troops running around with no slow down will immerse you in the battles.

Sound: 5 out of 5

Laser blasts, AT-AT footprints, and screams of Tie Fighters will surround you at all points on the battlefield. Crank it up.

Control: 4 out of 5

The control is good and responsive, not incredible. Some of the selection buttons are a tad counter-intuitive, but all in all, the control is easy to learn.

Gameplay: 3 out of 5

The single player game is fun, though it can get repetitive. The bad AI is what really makes the difference here, as most of the battles turn into a slaughter fest for the human player, and you have to hope that your AI buddies can kill SOMEONE. The Multiplayer aspect is plagued by many, many problems.

What I liked:

Incredibly immersive, you’ll feel like you are part of the battles.

Variety of weapons and vehicles.

What I didn't like:

Terrible AI.

A game that was supposed to be a multiplayer smash turns of highly lacking in that regard.

Overall:

Star Wars: Battlefront is a fantastic single player game with the potential to be a good multiplayer game, but it needs some improvement. For any Star Wars fan, you really can’t go wrong with it – Just don’t expect it to be the Battlefield Star Wars that you had hoped for. Some improvements needs to be made for that to happen.

Mr_D