Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)

This game is really good. For the single player, the storyline itself is surprisingly pretty good. The characters and locations are beautiful. The gameplay however, I don't think the gameplay shines in the story mode, as it tries a bit to be a cover shooter, when that is not the gameplay style of the rest of the game. However, the story mode is still decent.

The multiplayer of the game is awesome. It is still active right now. Playing as your favorite troops and heroes in iconic and gorgeous Star Wars locations, the game does feel like you are in an epic star wars battle. It features all 3 Star Wars eras. I'm not even very good at multiplayer games like this in general, but I still really like it. There's also co-op mode for practice, which is really fun. I enjoy playing hero mode as well, there are many heroes which all play differently. They need to make a battlefront 3!

Note: This is only in regards to the single player campaign, including the free "Resurrection" campaign. Also full spoilers ahead.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is a very safe game in all aspects. Much like the greater Star Wars universe of media, it fails to do anything spectacular. It looks and sounds beautiful, with stunning set pieces and top quality voice performances. But that layer of care is on top of a layer of old, dusty Star Wars. All of the encounters are bland, all of the story beats are flat, and all of the incessant nostalgia that the franchise has become known for chokes the game to death.

Battlefront 2 takes place after the events of Return of the Jedi where you, Iden Versio, are an elite imperial soldier. At first I was pretty thrilled. Being an Imperial? That's cool. Maybe this will add some human elements to…oh…she becomes a Rebel. Well. OK then. And why does she become a Rebel? Because the empire decides to for no reason destroy her loyal to the Empire home planet. The reason given is "They need to see that we're still powerful", or something like that.

You're part of a 3-person group called "Inferno Squad", and one other member, Del, comes along with you in defiance of the Empire. The third guy, Hask, does not. He becomes a bad guy later, as you already guessed. From here you planet-hop across the Star Wars galaxy to places you know like Naboo and Jakku.

You don't just swap planets, you also swap characters. Star Wars Battlefront 2 found plenty of flimsy reasons for you to control Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Lando Calrissian. Remember them? Now you can play some boring-ass missions as them. Occasionally they'll introduce a minor character, but none of them are memorable or used particularly well. A Duros named Shriv is pretty likable, but feels underused. He's got a great performance and at least some kind of personality. I'd prefer to get to know him rather than watch a weirdly shitty rendition of Luke Skywalker trot around. And I mean it, all of the renditions of the original Star Wars cast here look off. Oh and remember Maz Kanata? She's there too for a scene. The game is drowning in unnecessary moments that seem to exist only to remind you about the movies.

Mechanically, Battlefront 2 is fine. The guns actually look and sound on-point. There's some satisfying weapons, but it's a shame that the enemy diversity ranges from "Stormtrooper" to "Stormtrooper with a bigger gun and slightly more health." There is the occasional vehicle segment, or AT-ST attack, but they can either be run past or taken out with a rocket launcher given to you. You can find stations to equip a different weapon (you can only hold one at a time) and swap out some lackluster abilities, though this is largely unnecessary. The game has a minor stealth mechanic, where you can creep on enemies and take them out silently. However I found the stealth to be too finicky to use regularly. At best you take out one enemy and then get seen and end up shooting your way out. Maybe it's intentional that way. The encounter design is stuck in 2009. I can't believe "hold this point while an NPC hacks into a console" is still a thing we see in games, but here it is. Again and again.

Do you remember the games X-Wing, TIE Fighter, or X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter? Well good. They have that in here, too. About half of the game is ship combat. I found the encounter design here more boring than the ground combat. It's just waves of enemy ships who all behave the same, and occasionally you have to shoot at something on a cruiser, like an engine port or a cannon. It felt quick and polished, but so bland. I was bored to tears halfway through all of these ship missions.

Oh, and there's bugs. The bodies of fallen enemies will randomly pop back up and then re-do their death animation. Enemies and friendly NPCs get caught on terrain. Enemies will pop up and down in cover frantically. They're so frequent and glaring that I can't believe that they haven't been fixed, even so long after the game's initial release.

Battlefront 2 isn't really worth your time unless you're a hardcore Star Wars fan. I still love the music, the visuals, the performances, and the concept of Star Wars. But this game plays it too safe in all aspects and fails to become something really special.

The narrative of the single-player campaign is fairly good for a Star Wars Extended Universe story; not the best but it had its moments. Unfortunately the gameplay just doesn't seem to lend itself very well to solo play - it doesn't feel super compelling, the challenge level is often either far too high or far too low, and it lacks a lot of the polish of exclusively single-player games in the genre.

But the online multiplayer unexpectedly got me hooked. Its not really my primary game type (I am usually more into narrative action/adventure games) but I gave it a shot because it was a free PS Plus game and I didn't have any other games in queue to play. And at least for a couple weeks, I can't seem to stop playing.

I bought this game because of the single-player campaign, but even from the announcement I had my doubts. Learning that it would star Iden Versio, some no-name commander in the Empire's forces? I found her really bland, dislikable, and morally questionable. Her "redemption arc" where she went from being a loyal servant to the Empire to a wanted traitor took place in literally a few minutes, and the whole thing felt forced and clumsy.

I did thoroughly enjoy playing the lightsabre wielding characters. Cutting down dozens of soldiers as the enigmatic Luke Skywalker, or chaotic Kylo Ren were certainly the best parts of the game. I tried a few of the multiplayer/arcade games, and they were kinda fun but I hated dying within one or two shots. I guess when it comes to actual skill, I'm below average, and it was only thanks to the generous AI that I enjoyed the campaign at all.

I did thoroughly enjoy the dogfighting though. Piloting a TIE fighter or X-Wing was a real delight, and I found that I was pretty good at shifting my perspective to tumble and turn around wily opponents. Not quite fun enough to keep me coming back though.

Here's hoping Fallen Order is the single player Star Wars game I've been craving!

When this game was released, like many, I was extremely excited for the potential it had. I wasn't excited for it to be like the first battlefront re-boot, I was excited for it to be the opposite - to show references back to the original game.

The end result is one of confusion. The gameplay feels a lot better than the first re-boot. Star cards that pop up on the map are now gone (thankfully). Heroes feel more like actual heroes, and vehicles play a bigger role. Aside from everyone not jet packing off every 5 seconds, the main noticeable difference with battlefront ll (2017) is the variety of content. The game spans all movie eras and contains key heroes from each era. The campaign is actually rather impressive and to is a welcome addition. Although it could be better in many, many ways, at least it's there. There are no ground breaking iconic 'Star Wars' moments in the campaign where you fall out of your seat (Although the introduction to certain characters make you smile with both relief and joy mainly because you're glad they're actually referenced in the game and they haven't forgotten about them).

Aside from the campaign we have arcade mode which is also a nice addition, with the most recent update showing a lot of a care and effort being put into the mode. You can play scenarios which featured in the first battlefront re-boot, and you can also play a kind of endless team deathmatch mode. Recently they added in the feature which unlocks all star cards (more on those in a second) at maximum level for you to test out your heroes and see which skill cards you like the best. The biggest down fall for me however, is the lack of online co-op. The first re-boot game allowed me to play survival mode with a friend which made for some fun pass times, this is no more in battlefront ll.

The multiplayer is what most people are going to be buying the game for, and for the most part you won't be dissapointed. The game in it's current form is undergoing severe changes. The three types of currency in play have all been made useless as the developers have decided to reduce the dependance on loot crates, which just so happened to be what most of the currency was used for. Everything is very messy at the moment. This, personally, is why I am mainly unhappy with the game. The developers first tried to grab more money by charging for loot crates, they then tried to make the loot crates temporary, and the list of changes go on. The gameplay feels solid and finished, but the infastructure supporting the game does not - which becomes more noticeable as you play it than you think.

The multiplayer modes feel well balanced and are really fun to play, the space combat, this time round outsourced to a different development company, feels familiar but 10x better at the same time. Although I do not play the space combat mode much, you can take full control of your ship now, tilting, panning, moving freely as you should have been able to in the first re-boot. The thing that I didn't like so much about multiplayer is the star cards. Star cards featured in the first re-boot but now they carry a far bigger role. Your character is now defined by these cards, perhaps I wouldn't mind so much if each class and hero had equipment slots, but using cards to give my character a grenade launched seems very..arcade and child-like. A deeper customizable system for weapons and abilities would be a far more engaging way to manage the game. Although I do not like to moan, the amount of times I have been obliterated by a hero, finding out they have maxed out 'star cards' and then continuing to roll my eyes, have been more frequent than I like. Having said that, the most fun I have had has been playing hero vs villains with my friend and watching the enemy players rag doll through the air as I force push them, at which point I should say that the heroes vs villains mode has been totally revamped with 4 V 4 heroes and no infantry. The heroes have 3 abilities they can use and finally, after all this time, finally there are force abilities that actually push the players away from you. You can choke players, freeze them with kylo ren, the jedi characters all feel incredibly powerful and 'bad-ass-esk'. The new map featured on the planet Kamino (the shiny metal base from episode ll where boba and obi fight) is thrilling to fight on, the way the heroes slide across the metal surface, millimetres from the edge, hoping they fall into the ocean, is extremely fun.

Despite the few fond memories I have had so far on Battlefront ll (2017) I honestly can't recommend in good faith buying this game in it's current state unless you're a dedicated star wars fan. My own advice would be to look out for future reviews and wait to see when they fix the currency and infastructure issues.

I shall update this review when future updates occur and if they change anything I have mentioned in the review

Review for single player campaign:

Based purely on the single player campaign, I thoroughly enjoyed this game! It is difficult for me to separate my love of the Star Wars universe from this game, but it was varied, tight, and gorgeous. There was a nice mix of well known characters, vehicles, and the new characters introduced were compelling and well-fleshed out!

I know there have been numerous issues discussed regarding the loot box system, so I cannot comment on this as it has to do with the multi-player, but the campaign itself was truly enjoyable!