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Video Games


Star Wars Battlefront

Star Wars Battlefront 
Released: Autumn 2004 
Company: Lucasarts
Addictiveness: 3-4 weeks
Compatible: PS2, PC, XBOX


I immediately bought this game as soon as it was released, I was so excited from seeing this game advertised on the front page of gaming magazines in shops all over the UK – but was this game really as good as it was made out to be?

I opened the disc tray (PS2) inserted the CD, and wow!
The game started playing Star Wars music and showing blueprints of vehicles and units preparing for battle, whilst the camera was swooping through them and above. 
The atmosphere was great!

I found it very easy to navigate through the menu; one thing confused me a little at first.
In the menu it says ‘Multiplayer’, obviously you would tend to thing that means two player but it actually means playing online. There is an option to go into two player mode and that’s ‘Splitscreen’.

Battlefront can be played in three different game types:

Historical Campaign:

Play the Star Wars battles as in the film and proceed through the history of the clone wars and the galactic civil war as the CIS, Galactic Empire, Rebel Alliance and Galactic Republic. Note: The game is restricted so you can only have Empire vs. Rebellion or CIS vs. Republic to make the game realistic.

Galactic Conquest:

In Galactic Conquest you fight the computer or your friend in order to take control over the galaxy and gain bonuses which may help you in future battles.
This fun mode reminds me of a board game in the sense that you have to think strategically about which planet to attack and also the idea that if you win four battles then you get to use a special attack and destroy an enemy planet of your choice.

Instant Action:

In this game mode you select your favorite maps, the era you wish to fight in (Galactic Civil War/Clone Wars) and then simply play!

The sound in this game is tremendous, possibly the best thing about the game.
John Williams made a great job composing the music for the films and so the producers at LucasArts have included that essential work of art that helped to make the films number one in the 1970’s. The original Star Wars sounds have also been included giving the feel that you are actually there, as you hear the whistling of lasers fired from blasters and the bleeping of droids repairing vehicles and healing troops.
The game has been carefully worked on as you will find out if you look at the detail put into the playable units, their weapons and the army’s vehicles. The units are very realistic, and include the same clothing from the films making this game even more awesome. Each unit has its own use or specialty, such as; The rebel solider is an ideal unit for someone who is going to spend most of the time on the map attacking people on ground level, whilst the sharpshooter is for a person who has a steady hand and wants to hide in a corner and hunt people down individually. Weapons from previous Star Wars games and films have been used in the game and handed out to the units fairly and equally. So some units have a very limited amount of ammunition if they’re weapon is powerful unlike a unit that’s going to be carrying a standard blaster rifle.
Note: If you manage to kill the enemy then you cannot take their weapon but you may retrieve the ammunition they have used if it is possible to insert into your weapon.

The vehicles are also taken from the films. You can pilot scout bikes, AT-ST’s. AT-AT’s, Rebel landspeeders, Tie fighters, Tie bombers, Y-Wings, X-Wings, Cloud cars, and other fantastic transports.

Maps are very nice and detailed. Authentic battlegrounds like Hoth and the moon of Endor have objectives featured as the ones in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “The Return of the Jedi”. Some of them include nice effects, like if you throw a thermal detonator into the lakes of Kashyyyk then bodies of fish will surface the water and start to float lifelessly. 

The actual gameplay is quite different to any other I have played before. You would suspect that this game would be a FPS (First person shooter) but its actually third person.
I’m not sure whether you would class this game as an RPG (Role playing game) due to the fact that you don’t play an individual person on the warfield but part of an army.
Anyway, once you enter the battle you choose which team you wish to fight for (Instant Action, Historical Campaign cycles through all four teams during your progress) and then you select the command post* you wish to start at, and choose your unit. Then its time to battle! If you are killed, then you shall respawn at your chosen command post and your selected unit and continue the battle. The game ends when one teams reinforcements have been obliterated or when you have taken control of all command posts for a time limit of twenty seconds.

Unfortunately the game does have a few down sides. Not all of the Star Wars battles are included, and I was upset to see that there was no Death Star raid from Episode IV or VI as that would have been great as for me, that’s one of the best parts to the original trilogy.
I’m puzzled mainly on why they use the name CIS (the droid army) instead of TF (Trade Federation). The CIS has never been mentioned before so why introduce it now? Through the history of SW and its games I have never come across them. This did kinda bug me.
Also when the game was originally released only 16 players could participate in a battle, but quite recently LucasArts created a update allowing 32 players to play together which is fantastic news for hardcore gamers.

It was nice to see such a realistic game, but although this game may sound so fantastic it could be improved a lot more and as I said, you lose interest in the game eventually.
Although I have never actually played this game online, I am planning to as I can imagine that this would be a enthralling experience as gaming is concerned.

Overall I rate this game: 7/10


* Command posts is basically the place where you respawn. The game normally starts with one team in control of 2/5 of command posts, the other team 2/5 and 1/5 belonging to nobody. You capture command posts by taking out all enemies surrounding you, and waiting next to the post until the logo on the side of your screen turns white meaning it’s not owned and eventually green when a sound will play and your team saying “We have captured a command post!”.

Screenshots can be found here!

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