A little more of everything.

There are two questions that must be asked of Star Wars Battlefront II: first, is it a good game on its own terms. Second, does it make any significant improvements on the original title? The answer to the first question is an unreserved yes. The second is a bit more complicated...

The gameplay of SWBF2 is very, very simple. You take control of a member of the rebel alliance, imperial stormtroopers, republic commandos, or droid seperatists. Then you battle with the appropriate enemy. The battles take place, for the most part, on large colorful levels pulled straight out of the movies. You get to fight on Hoth, Dagobah...heck, if it was in one of the six movies, its in this game. One of the best things about this title is that it pretty much works every single environment from the movies into the game. There are a few missing levels, such as Bespin, but I wasn't disappointment. Some levels are cramped and chaotic (such as the spacecraft captured at the beginning of Episode IV by Darth Vader) while others are roomy (such as the icy expanse of Hoth.) Boards like Mos Eisley and Corscant are fairly plain affairs, while Mustafar's lava pits and Dagobah's swamps are full of eye-catching details.

If the designers hit a home-run with level design, they also scored big points with their use of sounds. The blaster sounds, explosions, radio-chatter, and music are all pulled directly from the movies and add a great deal to the overall feel of the game.

Unlike other shooter titles out there, this is strictly an arcade-style shootemup. Enemy kills pile up fast and furious, and you often find yourself dying with little warning from an unnoticed grenade or distant sniper. Fortunately, death simply means respawning at one of your friendly command points. Capturing and holding these command points, where you can also rearm and heal, are the central strategic focus of the battles. Each faction has a few standard categories of soldiers, from the all-purpose grunt to the heavy-weapons expert, sniper, and engineer. In addition, you also have a "leader" unit (which I never got into using very much) and a unit that is unique to each faction. For example, the rebels field wookies, while the Empire has its Dark Troopers. Despite all of the options, I found myself sticking with the grunt and the sniper more than anything else.

The weapons in the game feel strangely underpowered. Depending on where you hit your enemy, it may take quite a few shots for a kill. This is strange when you think about the way blasters work in the movies, but you get used to it. The only one-shot kill weapons are explosives and the sniper rifle (if you manage a head-shot). There are so many ammo-packs lying around that conserving ammunition isn't much of a concern outside of the inconvenient loading process which can, and often does, result in you getting shot to pieces.

Its not all a foot-battle, however. There are also a decent variety of vehicles to choose from. I found the vehicles from the prequels to be fairly dull. They all have the typical primary fire lasers and secondary-fire rocket launches. The droid vehicles on Genosis, however, were quite interesting to watch and use. As vehicles go, there is simply no competition for the Imperial AT-AT's, which lumber across Hoth dishing out the pain.

During some battles, you have the opportunity to take command of a "hero" unit, such as Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Han Solo, etc. These units have different characteristics, with most wielding light-sabers while a few have blaster weapons. All can soak up a lot of damage and you get to stick around longer for every enemy you kill. My favorite hero by far was Yoda, whose wild somersaulting attacks can cut through stormtroopers like crazy. General Grevious was also fun to use with his windmilling array of lightsabers. Slower units, like the Emperor and (surprisingly) Darth Vader were less fun and harder to make an impact with. The blaster heros, such as the Fetts and Solo were the least interesting, although they can be quite effective when used properly.

The worst part of the game, in my opinion, are the space battles. Trying to package this into the game was an interesting concept, but it failed. Space battles, unlike their land-based counterparts, are long and fairly dull. You spend all of your time trying knock bits and pieces off enemy capital ships, and the controls are fairly clunky. I skip these battles whenever possible.

The game modes are also fairly basic. There is a single-player "story" campain where you follow a particular storm-trooper legion through its bloody history, rewriting the movies by the end. These mission are fun and quick, but it is a bit strange to be outnumbered so badly by the pitiful rebellion in spots. The "instant action" option is great if you just want to jump into a free-for-all. Galactic Conquest is an attempt to create a more strategy-based component, but it falls far short of its goal. Instead, it simply provides a logical progression to your typical battles, allowing you to amass credits and purchase cool bonuses and units. Finally, there is the multiplayer option, which is probably what most people are going to gravitate towards. Multiplayer games are all very familiar capture-the-flag, conquest modes and work fine.

So, on its own this is a fast-paced, fun shooter. It often tries to be a few too many things at once (ie, space sim and strategy game) but it keeps the core shooting-gallery parts in good working order. As a sequel to the first SWBF, however, it falls a little short of a complete overhaul. Instead of changing things drastically, it is a much smaller step forward both in graphics and gameplay. Most of the levels are straight from the old game with a few graphic tweaks to reflect more powerful systems. The addition of hero units is a big, big plus while the addition of space battles was not so great. The nature of vehicle combat remained essentially unchanged from the previous title. If you loved the first title, then this is a good buy. If you found the first one repetitive and unsatisfying, then this isn't going to change your mind. Rather than Battlefront II, they should have probably called this Battlefront 1.5 and called it a day. Some nice upgrades, but not a big leap forward.