Star Wars: Battlefront Review

Star Bores?

The original Pandemic developed Star Wars Battlefront games were much loved early online experiences on PS2 and Xbox. Nearly a decade on, will DICE pull off the same trick on the current consoles?

Gameplay:

Either way, the Battlefront name should drop the hint that you’re looking at buying into a predominantly multiplayer experience. If you don’t have PS Plus or Xbox Live, don’t bother picking up Battlefront. The offline options are extremely limited. After a brief 10 minute tutorial, there’s then the option to play ‘missions’, of which the 5 available are useful training for the different multiplayer modes and vehicles, but can be completed in under 30 minutes, and the ‘battle’ and ‘survival’ modes. Battle is a pretty poor approximation/ mash up of a couple of the hero-based multiplayer modes, whilst Survival is a wave-based horde mode. Neither are particularly fun by yourself, but local multiplayer (or online with friends only) do make them a little bit more viable.

Thankfully, the majority of the online modes offer up a robust slice of action. What I really love about Battlefront is how easy it is to pick up and play. Firing from the hip is a perfectly viable approach. The weapon set is pretty limited. Levelling is clear, and the various bonuses are easily achievable, unlockable, and don’t give too large an advantage to players who are either a) highly skilled or b) put huge swathes of time into the game. It’s the first multiplayer-heavy game I’ve played in years where I feel genuinely powerful; able to succeed rather than just surviving or being a weight on my team.

For more casual players, Battlefront seems like a Godsend. Whilst the traditional CTF and Team Deathmatch style modes still don’t really float my boat in this context, the objective based modes really shine. The addition of ‘heros’, 3 classic figures from both the Galactic Empire (Boba Fett, the Emperor, Darth Vader) and the Rebel Alliance (Luke, Leia and Han) add some much needed spice. With their own unique moves, significantly more health and being faster than your average trooper, these power-ups can turn the tide of a battle, without feeling like they are overpowering.

The three modes that appealed most to me were Fighter Squadron, Walker Assault and Supremacy. The first is a spacecraft only game, with AI fighters to make things more frenetic, where the pace of battle switches between dogfighting to protecting or destroying objectives. The addition of the Millennium Falcon and Slave 1 as extremely tough and powerful ships creates further variety, making it a genuinely fun dog-fighting game in its own right. Supremacy and Walker Assault are more traditional Battlefield-style objective-based games. Interestingly, I was expecting Supremacy to be the big, 30-40 minute game, when actually it’s a 10 minute affair as you capture and hold objectives, but includes the full suite of vehicles and walkers, whilst heroes also roam the battlefield.