By Sam Coles:
I swear with each rebooted game franchise the industry is
purposely trying to mess with my archiving system because now I have two games
in my collection called Star Wars Battlefront II. Does it live up to the
original Battlefront II that came out in 2005 on the PS2 and Xbox, yes and no
as it has some questionable design when it comes to the progression in
multiplayer.
Unlike the 2015 release of Star Wars Battlefront this game
has a singleplayer story campaign; it takes place in between Return of the Jedi
and The Force Awakens. You play as an elite Stormtrooper who is a part of the
legendary Inferno Squad, who are sent in to mop up on Endor during the siege of
the Death Star II, but it all goes wrong and the Empire is defeated. They have
a contingency plan called Operation Scorch where they attack planets with a
satellite weapon where they assert their presence in the galaxy; however Iden
the character you play as starts to see what the empire truly is after
attacking her home planet and defects to the rebellion. This is a painfully predictable
twist which I saw from a mile off because during the lead up to this game’s
release I thought we would have had a good story from the empire’s point of
view, but no we get the clichéd switching side nonsense. The story is well
performed with some memorable set pieces the stand out being the Battle of
Jakku, but it’s also extremely short as I managed to finish it in 4 hours. This
is where the multiplayer comes into play which has a few problems with
progression.
The multiplayer a step in the right direction compared to
the 2015 release, as there are more features and maps but there are fewer modes
because I remember there being more modes in last game. The maps are all
different and unique with varied combat scenarios which have dynamic weather systems
where it can be night time one round and dusk the next.
The modes that stand out the most are Galactic Assault and
Starfighter Assault, Galactic Assault are huge battles that take place on the
ground taking you through different scenarios. Each scenario is fun and
interesting from the Battle of Hoth where you have to escort two AT-AT walkers
to destroy the rebels shield generators, to the Clone Wars era battling it out
on the streets of Naboo.
The Starfighter Assault mode are space battles which
are a lot of fun with unique ships from the Star Wars universe with the iconic
noise of the Tie Fighters to the X-Wings unfolding ready for battle. The
objectives in this mode are generally defend your capital ships or thinning
down enemy reinforcements, it controls well and dogfights can get really
tense.
Now we get to the class and progression system and this is
my biggest problem with Battlefront II, if you don’t know EA got a lot of heat
about the progression due to the loot box system breaking the game. The loot
boxes have game changing rewards which people can pay real money for which
results in unfair advantages. It is painfully slow to level up in this game,
I’m only level 11 and I’ve been playing the game’s multiplayer for over 14
hours, fortunately they have fixed the issue of unlocking hero characters by
making them cheaper with the in game currency, so it no longer takes 40 hours
to unlock Darth Vader. However that is not the point it should have been easier
to unlock characters and not a slow process, every time I feel like I’m getting
somewhere in this game’s multiplayer it throws up a wall in front me with the
progression
.
The presentation is fantastic; it is to be expected with a
game made by DICE as they are the minds behind the Battlefield series. There is
a lot of detail in this game and they surpass CGI cities that were produced
back in 1999 in Star Wars Episode 1, the city of Theed on Naboo looks fantastic
with leaves blowing across the floor, to citizens fleeing in terror. All the
iconic battles and planets have been recreated beautifully; you can really tell
that this game was made by fans of Star Wars because there is a lot of care put
into the graphics. All of this detail with a smooth 60 frames per second on
console is absolutely mind boggling.
Star Wars Battlefront II is a hard game to judge because
underneath all the shady business practises and slow progression is a genuinely
good game, with a good but predictable campaign and multiplayer with developed
gameplay. However the business practises with the loot boxes, the pay to win
elements and slow class progression ultimately pulls it down, until they remove
these completely I can’t recommend it entirely.
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