Star Wars Battlefront Review

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]etas are tricky things to write about. Pretty much anything I complain about can be explained away by saying “of course it isn’t perfect, it’s a beta!”. But let’s give it a try anyway.
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First things first, fans of the old Battlefront games are going to be disappointed; This definitely isn’t the game you used to love. In fact, a lot of what made Battlefront great to begin with is missing. Space combat? Gone. Third-person gameplay? Gone. Moving an AT-AT? Gone. Even simple things like walking up to a vehicle and climbing in have been inexplicably removed, replaced with a pick-up system that makes it very easy for power-ups to be dominated by those who know where they spawn.

However, the game certainly feels like a Star Wars game, with lots of effort having been put in to create an authentic experience. The sound effects are brilliant; blasters and vehicles sound like they do in the films, and everything has been lovingly designed to look like it belongs in the Star Wars universe. It also helps that visually, the game is absolutely breath-taking, with the Hoth snow-scape glistening in the sun a particular highlight.

Fans of the old Battlefront Games are going to be disappointed; this definitely isn’t the game you used to love. In fact, a lot of what made Battlefront great to begin with is missing.

Gameplay-wise, three separate modes can be played in the beta, two multiplayer and one single player/co-op. The single player mode is essentially a glorified horde mode, with context provided by everybody’s favourite fish-faced soldier, Admiral Ackbar. This was fine, but felt a bit boring to begin with, with the map feeling particularly sparse.

The first multiplayer mode, Drop Zone, is a King of the Hill style game, with two teams of 8 trying to capture and defend escape pods falling from the sky. Whilst simplistic in idea, matches often felt incredibly tense and exciting.

Finally, and perhaps most excitingly for Star Wars fans, there is Walker Assault, in which two teams of 20 players face off against each other, with the Imperials trying to defend an AT-AT, helping it to destroy the rebels shield generator, whilst the rebels try to bring the machines down. Although this mode may seem exciting, it was actually the least fun to play, thanks to the teams always feeling imbalanced. Most games would end with an Imperial victory, as the imperial side always seems to have the upper hand. In 8 hours of gameplay, the rebels only won once.

It’s a mechanical step up, but the new Battlefront lacks the charm of the originals.

All 3 modes share some pretty important problems that need to be addressed right away. Level design in particular becomes a problem fairly quickly. The Suluust map is covered in deep geyser pits that are easy to fall into, but a pain to get out of, which makes the map feel poorly designed. The design aspect is also tiresome due to the size of the maps. I understand that DICE were aiming for the scope of a battlefield, but due to the location of spawn points, it often takes far too long to get back into the action upon death.
Spawning seems to have been unfairly set up. I regularly spawned right in front of the enemy, or found the enemy spawning behind me. During one game, I managed to get the most kills because I stumbled upon the enemy spawn point, which must have been incredibly aggravating for the other players.

Vehicular combat needs some work as well. When playing for the first time, the game gives you no indication as to how to control your character. Whilst on foot, this is no big issue, as it’s pretty standard FPS-fare, but when vehicles, particularly flying craft, are involved, it becomes problematic. You’re not told how to fly, how to shoot, or what the various power-ups for your ship actually do, making for a steep learning curve. This is further hampered by some particularly shoddy collision detection. The game encourages you to fly low in order to take out foot soldiers, yet, due to poor collision detection, I often found myself randomly blowing up, with the game accusing me of suicide, when I knew that I hadn’t hit a damn thing.

As the game is made by DICE, the team behind the Battlefield games, the shooting is unsurprisingly spot-on. Dogfights between TIE fighters and X-Wings are a particular highlight.

For the beta, there were no beginner servers, meaning that I was dumped into a game with people who had clearly already spent hours levelling their character, which quickly made it feel like a game of haves and have-nots. I was expected to do well to level up, but found this difficult to do, as the enemy all seemed to have more powerful weapons (including an infuriating sniper rifle pick-up), and the ability to use a jetpack.

This isn’t to say that the game isn’t fun. As the game is made by DICE, the team behind the Battlefield games, the shooting is unsurprisingly spot-on, feeling fair, fun and easy to handle. Vehicular combat is pretty good once you get the hang of the controls, with dogfights between TIE fighters and X-Wings being a particular highlight. Star Wars fans are going to get a lot of fun out of playing with their favourite vehicles and characters in these beautiful and authentic levels, and I will admit to squealing with delight when I got the chance to pilot an X-Wing or control Darth Vader for the first time.

These impressions seem to give off a negative vibe about the game, but that’s not quite fair. Yes, there are many aspects that several fixing before release but despite these flaws, I kept wanting to play more. I had only intended to play for a couple of hours before going back to The Witcher, but I ended up playing for nearly 10 hours over the space of 3 days. If the flaws and poor game design are fixed before the December release, I can see this being an outstanding multiplayer experience. This may not be the Battlefront game that you were hoping for, but that doesn’t stop it from being a whole lot of fun and a damn good Star Wars game.
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Have you tried out the Battlefront beta? Let us know what you thought @boargames