Star Wars Battlefront (2015)

I'm still conflicted on this one. On one hand, it's insanely gorgeous. At the time, this was one of the best looking video games ever made. And it's an unshakingly faithful recreation of quite possibly the most beloved universe in popular fiction. Everything about it, visually and aesthetically. look the part to a tee. I could (and did) literally just wander around the maps looking at things and listening to the music to soak in the experience of being on Hoth, Tatooine and Endor like never before.

But the thing is that at the end of the day, this is a video game, not a Star Wars model viewer. And when it comes to the actual game, there just isn't that much here. As someone who generally finds multiplayer shooters repetitive and dull, I had a hard time finding reasons to return to this game after the initial excitement had worn off. Living out my Star Wars fantasies of being part of epic battle from the movies was great until got sniped from across the map 10 times in a row. That's where the illusion broke and I realized I was just playing a Battlefield game with a new coat of paint. And with the exception of a VR X-Wing level (which is actually really really cool and almost worth the price of admission if you have a VR headset), there isn't even a single player campaign to speak of, which really sucks. So in the end, as an encapsulation of the entire EA Star Wars era, this is a good attempt but ultimately leaves me wanting more.

If you're a Star Wars fan, chances are nothing will stop you from playing this game. There is some fun to be had in Battlefront, but the fun is very limited. The most impressive thing about Battlefront are the graphics (Endor's map says hello). If you come into Battlefront with the competitive mindset, you're going to be let down. Instead, come into the game knowing it's a very casual game, meant to jump in and just have fun.

There are some unlocks, like extra weapons, figurines and cards. Cards can be equipped and be used as secondary weapons and can be used as many times as you like, within the cool-down time limit. The gunplay is very easy to get the hang of, thanks to the no recoil style gameplay. Some of the problems that plague this game, from my experience really hurt the overall fun factor for me. Multiple times as you're spawning in, you'll get spawned near a group of enemies or vehicles. You'll constantly also receive "Critical Kill Assists Counts As 100", a lot. The flight controls are very wonky, to say the least. Going from piloting jets in Battlefield to flying in Battlefront, felt horrendous and not the least bit fun.

In closing, Battlefront has some great fun behind it, but the fun gets old, as the gameplay becomes stale, thanks to hardly any depth to it and the low map count, the base game includes.

Battlefront came bundled with my PS4 as a digital download, and was a fairly fun start to PS4 gaming for me.

The first thing I have to mention is that it is easy to play with friends and stay with them if you move across game types. This seems like something so basic that I shouldn't have to comment on it, but there are still games that make playing with friends a pain (I'm looking at you, GTA V).

The graphics and sounds are top notch, and having come from the Xbox 360, I was initially impressed. The sound effects are particularly great. The sounds of the blasters and grenades have a level of detail that you rarely experience in a game. I usually played using a pair of headphones through the PS4 controller, so the quality was much better than through my TV.

The gameplay itself is fun since it has a variety of game modes including the ability to fly around in X-wings and such, and play as heroes.

I eventually retired the game for several reasons. First, it is essential to level up in order to get access to more weapons and loadouts. Although this gave me incentives to play so I could get more weapons, it also meant that people who were higher level (which was fairly easy considering I really started playing a few months after release) were killing me pretty easily. But that's true for any game where you don't get the game on release day and play it regularly after that. However, without playing on bonus weekends, the leveling process was very slow, and I hate grinding in games these days.

On top of the slow leveling process is that some game modes offer very low experience points for your time played compared to others. This is painful if you have to play a certain game mode in order to get trophies if you wanted to get platinum.

Overall, this game can be pretty fun if you're looking for a Star Wars themed first person shooter and are willing to put in a long grind to experience all the game has to offer.

EA/DICE seem like they'd be the perfect choice to give the rights of Battlefront to, but it seems I was mistaken. Star Wars: Battlefront strays away from the Battlefield: Star Wars edition formula that made the original titles so darn great. With lackluster balancing and boring gameplay, EA's Star Wars: Battlefront game is simply a mere shadow of the LucasArts classics, which is kind of mind boggling, considering that DICE make the Battlefield games.

The main problem with the game is that it seems like DICE were trying harder to make a game that was more like Call of Duty: Star Wars edition than Battlefield: Star Wars edition, which is never what Battlefront was meant to be. Its a damn shame, and I hate to say it, but I wouldn't recommend the game, not for sixty dollars, heck even thirty dollars. With games like Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, or even games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Star Wars: Battlefront will disappoint you as far as replay value and content overall. If I were to predict the games lifespan, I'd have to say that it will likely come and go, and you'll probably see it in a bargain bin by March of 2016. What a let down.

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Guys...Battlefront depresses me. Not exactly because it's bad. Quite the contrary in fact. But When you place this new Battlefront up against the original two released in the last decade, it's a prime example of how much our gaming culture and what we expect from our games has devolved. And I'm not even talking just about price, although a $50 Season Pass is inexcusable on it's own.

I'm taking how we now sit in the year 2015, and there people singing praises of a game that, with this amount of content, would have been seen as a huge step backwards in quality a decade ago. And as I played Battlefront I couldn't help but feel incredibly underwhelmed, not because of what was there...but because of what wasn't there.

• PRESENTATION

Now with this being the first Battlefront game in about 10 years, there are certain things one would expect it to have as well as certain standards it would naturally need to live up in terms of quality AND quantity of content. After all the original Battlefronts had anywhere from 11-19 planets, 2 different eras each with 2 factions, Galactic Conquest mode, as well as full campaign mode. And that's not taking into account any of the endless free mods that add even more factions Eras Maps and Heroes into the game. DICE's Battlefront has 4 planets, one era, and no Galactic Conquest or Campaign. And instead of a load of free mods we have a handful of new content that comes in the form of DLC that is nearly the price of an entire new game. Does this not seem like a massive downgrade to anyone else?

The biggest problem with Star Wars Battlefront is it's severe lack of content at release and it's inability to justify it's asking price, not tom mention the price of all the DLC. The fact that this game can get away with something that would be considered unforgivable were it released several years ago as a proper Battlefront sequel is utterly ridiculous. And look, I'm not going to sit here and rant about how the earlier battlefront games were perfect or weren't repetitive at all. I mean I love the old battlefronts but they were flawed as all heck. These games needed improvement. They needed to be properly innovated upon and updated for the new generation. Not only is it not an improvement, but In many ways, this new entry is a step back in many ways. For example single player has been almost completely stripped down.

• GAMEPLAY

As said before neither Galactic Conquest nor the Campaign Mode make a return. As for the rest of singleplayer, only those four planets (Hoth, Endor, Sullust, & Tatooine are given to play one with only a handful of soldiers on each side. It's feels bare bones and pales in comparison to what's been offered both in past singleplayer AND in the new multiplier modes.

Unfortunately most of the new modes feel more like filler and lack any sort of real creativity to them with only about 3 standing out. Additionally, each mode changes uses a unique map for a specific planet instead of operating on a single map per planet. Now one one hand this seems like a logical choice as certain modes only need smaller maps. But the downside, in addition to there only being 4 planets, is that none of these maps are particularly memorable and eventually most of them start to blur together and feel interchangeable anyway. Which is an accurate word to describe most of the content in here: Interchangeable.

Now I'd hate to give the impression that I think Battlefront is a bad game...although I have probably already done just that, but the truth is when you break it down to it's mechanics the game play itself, while not anything particularly unique or innovative in its own right, is actually rather good. At it's core Battlefront is a rather standard shooter but a few things are able to spice things up. The weapon selection for one, while many of them feel samey, do add a lot of variety especially considering the many possibilities for weapons within the Star Wars Universe, although you're only aloud to carry a single weapon into battle, which feels nerfed compared to similar shooters today. The star cards, while also not whole original, do add a nice bit of variety ans uniqueness to game play with the different abilities and equipment you can bring with you into battle. Appearance customization itself is very limited, though, with only a handful of options to choose from. Being able to play as aliens is cool, but even Mass Effect 3's tacked-on multiplayer did that.

However, where this game really comes to life is in the large scale multiplayer. There larger scale maps allow for 20 vs 20 battles with both land and aerial combat at play. As always the experience playing with a group of friends is or even against other players is not something to be underestimated, being tense and exciting. Although, I did feel that getting killed was a bit too easy, coupled with the fact that after every death you would be respawned in a random locations at your starting end of the battlefield could make things really frustrating a lot of the time.

• VISUALS/AUDIO

When it comes to visuals and sound...well I mean there's only so much you can say about a Star Wars game, especially one of this production values. So I'll just put it simple by saying that Battlefront both looks and sounds exactly how a Star Wars games should look and sounds. While the layout of the serious maps are mostly bland, the actually level of detail and graphical quality within the world itself is very impressive. Obviously the art direction isn't something that I can give this game credit for, considering it's all just taken straight from either the films of preexisting Star Wars lore.

Many have expressed their dislike of the game's musical score, but I don't have a problem with it. Granted it's nothing really memorable and it does sound a bit out of place next to the traditional John Williams themes, but various Star Wars games have seen many different musical styles before, and this one didn't bug me, especially since everything else int eh sound and visual department felt pretty much perfect.

• FINAL THOUGHTS

Really that's the conclusion I arrive at with Battlefront. It looks right, it sounds right, and it even feels right. But after exposing yourself to it for a period of time, you just start to get the feeling that there really isn't much to write home about here. The aesthetics are pleasing, but that's not exactly something the compliment the game for. The singleplayer is so basic it's worth questioning why it even exists, and while Multiplayer has certain key modes and elements that are a ton of fun, but the majority of it feels like fluff rather than meaningful content.

Ultimately I will say that Battlefront, while fun, is...disappointing. Considering there is actually pre-alpha footage online of a Star Wars Battlefront that was at one point in development by Free Radical, and considering how impressive that pre-alpha footage looked, I can't help but feel let down at what could have been, as opposed to what was ultimately delivered. This I can say for absolute certainty: unless at some point in the future I put an annotation here saying otherwise, Star Wars Battlefront is not worth $60, much less $110 with the season pass. There is simply not enough content here to justify the purchase price, and knowing how these things usually go, in a year less from know there will probably be a repackaging featuring all the expansions released so far, so my best recommendation would be to wait around for that.