Star Wars Battlefront II

They didn't. It's better than the first one, but that's hardly an accomplishment, is it?

First of all, this is not Battlefront. It should never have been named Battlefront. It's Star Wars: BattlefEAld or something else entirely. It doesn't have anything in common with the old series apart from the concept of Star Wars as an FPS/TPS with heroes and spaceships. They stole the concept so that they could use the name, then they made their own game. Hell, they even renamed all the game modes just so they could add unneccessary tweaks.

- Conquest = "Supremacy" But if your team "wins", you have to play an extra round by boarding a ship to destroy an objective within a timelimit while the enemy team just has to prevent it. If you don't do it, the match restarts on the ground. It will do that over and over until one team wins both rounds.

- Team Deathmatch? = "Blast" Only 16 players tops, sometimes it's way less.
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People might be ok with this installment but overall, people never wanted a reboot, they wanted a third installment and a continuation of the series. This ain't that.

It's still lootboxy and grindy as all hell. It's completely unbalanced and beginner-unfriendly

Heroes are way too superior in the game and you're basically f*cked if you think

The sensetivity balance in the game is way off. Either it's too slow or too quick. I always had to change depending on the map. If i expected to run into enemies from behind or in close combat in general, I needed to be able to turn around. If I expected them in front of me and far away, I could just turn it lower and have better aim. Of course, all maps aren't 100% either of the two and therefore it's unbalanced. I have never experienced that on a game before.

Obviously this game has had a small redemption arc after the original terrible launch, but that does not mean the game is good by any means. It is still painfully mediocre. The gunplay is a lame blend of battlefront and battlefield. The lightsaber combat is clunky and doesn't have much depth to it to be a mode of its own. The air combat is a bit better, but still is outclassed by many other star wars games. There's not really much this game is doing that other star wars games haven't already outclassed it in. If you want gunplay, the original battlefront 2 (or even the first one) still holds up. If you want flying, Squadrons or the old TIE fighter games are better. If you want lightsaber combat, just play one of the Jedi knight games.

That being said there are still a few nice things about the game
- The graphics and sounds design are amazing, the beautiful graphics also help nail the art style
- The customization features are really in depth and contain a lot of love for the series
-Ewok hunt is genuinely terrifying and a weirdly unique experience. I would reinstall this game just to play that with friends. One of the best 'infection' type modes I've ever played

Anyone who defends this game has either never played the original battlefronts, thinks new things are always better, and/or clap when they watch their favorite marvel or star wars movies. I recommend any of the amazing 2000s star wars games instead.

There's certainly a hard truth we gotta admit here: as far as gaming redemption arcs go, this game has had a rather glorious one. Of course it was a gigantic laughing-stock on release thanks to its, to put it bluntly, pay-to-win aspects. But as time went on the developers fixed their mistakes and have provided a fairly solid multiplayer mode in the current day. It's not really my cup of tea (especially compared to the older Battlefront modes), but I have to commend them for making something surprisingly playable (ESPECIALLY after the travesty that was 2015 Battlefront, good lord).

The other non-multiplayer modes aren't half-bad either, in my opinion. The campaign, though pretty rough around the edges, is a welcome inclusion for a AAA shooter and certainly has its moments. In addition, some "Instant Action" modes are included to allow for "offline multiplayer matches" (pardon me if that makes no sense, but it basically means you can play a multiplayer-style match with AI). These considerations for solo players are very welcome in light of the 2015 game's total negligence of this aspect.

In all, a very surprising play on my end. By that, I mean I actually quite enjoyed this.

Okay, so I had low expectations going into this because I heard how terrible it was on release with the microtransactions and lack of content, and well, I ended up getting PS Plus on discount and this was the first free game, and I decided to try it out because I loved the original Battlefront games on PS2. Lets just say I was pleasantly surprised, this game has a lot of what I loved about the originals on PS2, it has the 4 classic factions, droids, clones, stormtroopers, and rebels, as well as 2 extra ones from the newer movies. Almost all the heroes from the older games are in this, and it has decent enough multiplayer and variety of classes.

I mean this is essentially Battlefield meets Star Wars, you got your assault class, your heavy class, sniper, commander, heroes and you capture command points and fight off enemies. My favorite mode is playing on a team against an AI controlled enemy team, and this mode also means you all get to play as a hero so heroes won't be all used up. There are other modes like deathmatch, team deathmatch, deathmatch where everyone plays as heroes, and weird modes like one where you play as ewoks and have to kill stormtroopers. I'd say really only 3 or 4 of these modes are really interesting, but to be fair that's all I really need, all I really have time or interest playing are co-op against AI enemy, heroes vs villains, and galactic assault. Occasionally I'll play blast or starfighter assault, but almost all other modes I found to be too bland, too long, or uninteresting. Capital Supremacy is supposed to be the games main mode and its basically similar to co-op but instead of AI you face off against human players and on a bigger scale, but I found this mode just drags out a bit too long and there is usually lag for me on the bigger maps.

The game has vehicles too you can control, you basically get points for killing enemies and capture posts which you can use to buy vehicles or heroes you play as when you respawn after dying, its pretty easy to build points up in this game, so it doesn't have much frustration in that regard, only frustrating thing is some game modes the heroes will get hogged up early so you won't be able to play as one, and sometimes in co-op the better heroes get chosen first so you are forced to play as a hero you don't care for. Most of the heroes in this are alright, but some I just didn't care for, like there are 2 droid heroes you play as that just aren't interesting, and I didn't care much for most of the heroes from the newer movies. The balance is pretty alright for the heroes, although I did find some heroes to be a tad overpowered and some to be a bit underpowered. Also as you progress you unlock better weapons for the classes and the game has like 100s of in game achievements that unlock points for you in the game where you can buy different skins for your characters.

The main problem with this game was when it released most heroes were locked and you needed to grind tons of points to unlock them, and most people were forced to pay for the points with microtransactions to save time. Luckily now all heroes are unlocked from the start and the only thing you use points to buy are costumes. The space combat in this game is kind of a mixed bag too, I found the PS2 game to have better space combat. It just is often so hard to hit enemy ships and the controls are a little awkward. I guess another issue I have are the maps are kind of a mixed bag. We get the classic planets like Tatooine, Endor, and Hoth, but I feel like many planets were left out and there just isn't a huge variety of maps in this game. I guess Battlefront II spoiled me with its wide variety of maps, but this game really has a limited amount of maps and only 4 or 5 of the maps I found to be interesting. I didn't really care much for the map design.

Also the single player in this is kind of dull. There is a campaign where you play as a woman who is a part of the empire, but of course she ends up joining the rebels, so it basically becomes a generic Star Wars story where the occasionally throw in heroes like Han Solo and Luke to play as. The campaign is really just there to say it has single player, and mostly feels pointless. Really the multiplayer is the only thing worth playing in this and none of the single player content felt satisfying. Despite its flaws though, it still is a fun game that has almost all the characters and it was fun to have droids back, and to play as General Grievous and young Anakin Skywalker. I mean they even brought Droidekas back in this, and some of the special classes in this are cool to play as, even if some of them have a steeper learning curve. The class balance could be a little better too because I feel assault and heavy are just so overpowered compared to the other classes.

I still feel the PS2 games are better, but this game does a decent job, the graphics are good, the voice acting is good, the music is good, the co-op mode is pretty solid, and almost all the classic characters and units are here, I do wish they had Mace Windu, Jango Fett, Padme, Qui-Gon, Aayla Secura, and Greedo, I feel they skimped a bit on the prequel heroes in favor of the older trilogy and sequels. But, I still had a lot of fun with this and put dozens of hours and its a game I can go back to at least a few times a week for fun and jump into a few co-op matches. None of the co-op or heroes vs villains rounds last too long and can be as quick as 30 minutes, which is perfect. Really if they fixed some of the balancing, added the missing heroes, had an extra mode or two that was interesting, and gave us more maps this would probably be better than II, well and of course good single player but I can somewhat forgive that. At launch I'd probably have hated this too, but with all the content now and being unlocked from the start, its an awesome Star Wars game and definitely one of the best ones currently out, its just too bad it had to be ruined a little by EA's greedy marketing.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is primarily an online multiplayer game although you can set up battles against the computer and also contains a single player campaign. The campaign is split up into two parts (I believe the second part was free DLC).

You begin the campaign as a flying droid (which is a bit strange), and you have to rescue the main character; an Imperial Commander called Iden Versio. You don't play all missions as her though. On the positive side, this means you get a demo of some of the characters to introduce you to the different abilities and play-styles. The negative is that the characters aren't as developed as you would want, which means when the time comes for the predictable change in allegiances, it lacks the impact it should.

The multiplayer has quite a few different modes, which usually involve large teams of players battling over some objective, respawning in as a different character when you die. Some of the modes include:

Heroes and Villains is a 4 on 4 battle mode but each round highlights a character from each team that is the target, and it is up to your team to take out the target whilst defending yours. In this mode you play as the primary characters in the film, so the Heroes feature characters like Yoda, Luke Skywalker and Rey, and they will battle against the likes of Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and Emperor Palpatine.

Starfighter Assault features battles in space, so you will be flying craft like Tie Fighters and X-Wings, with the Hero characters being crafts like the Millennium Falcon. The Starfighter battles were decent but felt a bit clunky in some ways. I preferred the standard combat.

Blast is a team death-match; 8 vs 8, first to 100 kills.

Strike is another 8 vs 8 mode but gives you objectives like arming bombs or capture the flag-style.

Ewok Hunt is quite scary. Storm Troopers have a flash-light and a gun and wander Endor's moon in the pitch black whilst the Ewok's hunt them down.

By achieving kills, you level up your characters which powers up your abilities or unlocks new ones to use. Most game types allow you to switch characters, and often you will use different types of troopers; assault, heavy, commander, specialist (sniper). When you achieve a certain amount of battle points, then you are allowed to assume the role of a more unique hero character.

The game was heavily criticised for its pricing model, hiding certain characters behind pay-walls and asking for a ridiculous amount of points in order to unlock them. It seems after the backlash, EA have changed it to a fairer micro-transaction model where character are unlocked from the start (apart from the recently introduced General Grievous), and you just pay/use in-game credits for cosmetic unlockables; skins, taunts and victory poses. You get a some credits for playing each day, obtaining set achievements, daily achievements, and your performance in each match you play.

I'm not great at these types of games but I did wonder if players had a better advantage by having access to abilities I didn't. I was late to playing this game, and they would already have the advantage of game experience and knowledge of the characters and maps. Having extra abilities as well does skew the difficulty.

The core gameplay is actually very fun, and Star Wars fans will obviously enjoy it. I think it helps to have knowledge of Star Wars so you can quickly recognise who is a threat. There are indicators over your team member's heads and sometimes enemies, but with the constant switching of sides, it was hard to remember which colour represented my team. There can be times where it is a little too hectic. Some modes allow up to 40 players, and putting them in certain areas means it's constant laser fire and explosions and it's hard to work out what is actually going on.

The graphics and sound design is very good, although some maps have a few areas where the lighting is very odd. It could be a bug in the game engine because I have seen similar lighting in FIFA.

Currently, (November 2018) the game is being supported with new content like the new Clone Wars update, and it still has an active fan-base. So newcomers are still fine to join in, but you will have the disadvantage that the majority of players will be at a higher level of experience and skill.

Loot Box bullshit aside, the game is pretty good. It sucks that EA tried to ruin it with P2W garbage, because what we have here is a pretty great game. At least I'll be playing it for a while.