Games Roundup - Star Wars Battlefront.

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Normally each week I'll pick up two to four older games for the PlayStation One and Two, play the hell out of them, and head back to the store for a few more the next payday. This week though, was a tad different. Star Wars: Battlefront came out, and the inner child in me had to have it.

Based on Battlefield 1942, SW:Battlefront allows you to take control of one of four factions throughout the Star Wars legacy.

Common to each faction are infantry troops, a sniper, a heavy weapons character, and a pilot who can repair damaged turrets and dispense health pods to soldiers.

The Rebels are the camouflaged heroes, having Luke Skywalker on their side as they go up against Vader's Imperial forces. The special unit for the Rebels is the Wookie Smuggler, for anyone that's feeling like taking Chewbacca into the field and blowing things up with time bombs and a bowcaster.

The Imperials are the chilling, white-clad Storm-Troopers we're all so familiar with. With Darth Vader occasionally taking the field alongside them, and the jet-pack equipped Dark Trooper as their special unit, the Imperials often have the scales tipped in their favour.

The Republic army represents the clones of Jango Fett used by the Jedi Council at the end of Episode Two, with Mace Windu charging into battle alongside your basic units and a Jet Trooper who is very reminiscent of Boba Fett.

And finally, playing as the CIS (led by Count Dooku) lets you control the robotic army as seen in Episodes One and Two, going so far as to let you abuse the Droideka's fearsome shield and rapid-fire laser combos.

The action is fast-paced as each side tries to take control points where units may spawn and ammo and health can be replaced, while their dwindling reinforcements introduce a race against time. There are several single-player modes to keep those PS2 owners without internet capabilities happy, including a historical campaign mode where you can follow the course of the major battles of both the Clone War and Rebel Alliance eras, a quick action mode where you face off against bots on the various maps in the game, and a Galactic Conquest mode, which sees you gaining special abilities (like regeneration for your troops, or extra reinforcements) for winning all the battles on certain planets.

Multi-player is definitely where this game shines. Like other games of its calibre, the action is fast and frenetic, with grenades being lobbed willy-nilly, vehicles mowing down several dozen troops at a time, and pesky campers... ahem, snipers... messing up your finely tuned assault with a well placed laser blast to the dome. Although you can play from your PS2 against some PC players, I wouldn't recommend it as the precision afforded by mouse and keyboard far outshines that of the dual-analog pad PS2 players are bound by.

Sadly, SW:Battlefront is not without its drawbacks. The vehicles, while quite reasonably balanced and true to the spirit of the films, have control issues. The control scheme for hover vehicles is reversed in aircraft (left analog controls pitch and yaw in one scheme, and in the other it provides acceleration and reverse - quite confusing), the smaller craft are far too weak when bouncing back to the ground, and the maps are generally too limited in regards to the speed of the aircraft. In several cases you barely get up to top speed and engage the enemy before you're on the receiving end of the "Leaving the battlefield" warning.

If you're stuck without online capability, the single-player campaign is very limited, swapping between the evil and good sides without control, and often the bots favour walking endlessly into a wall for greater portions of the battle.

Whilst the vehicles are unique to each faction, the soldiers are blandly and generic. The three human races are all but clones of each other, with stamped out classes of Shooting Guy, Rocket Guy, Sniper Guy, and Health Guy - each with identical weaponry and equipment. The special classes assigned to each faction rarely shine above the rest of the units to any significant degree. Despite seeing them in the game, you can't play as Jedi, nor lead them into battle. For the fans, not being able to charge into battle with a lightsaber and the Force surrounding you is a bit of a letdown.

I'd recommend Star Wars:Battlefront for die-hard Star Wars fans, Battlefield 1942 veterans, and fans of both looking for a new challenge. New players to the Battlefield style of gaming should probably head to their retailer and pick up an old copy of Battlefield to play as you'll likely find more multiplayer games to join and the classes are balanced a bit better.

[PapaZeb]

Next week, I'm going back to reviewing a few older games for the PS2. After spending a few days with just Battlefront in the system, I've grown quickly bored. I just picked up Frequency and Bloody Roar 3, and I'm bothering my local gamestore about Katamari Damacy for the week after. See ya then!

(--as a note, I wrote this nearly a month ago. With the changes to the magazine and article section, personal comments might be a bit dated. I'm aiming for a weekly roundup, so see ya next week)

[Ghostsuit]

So is the multiplayer better than Jedi Knight 2?

[PapaZeb]

Wholly different games. JK2 you've got your standard FPS fare with force powers and lightsabers. With Battlefront you've got the new war-arena shooter as laid down by Battlefield:1942 where you fight to take possession of checkpoints with vehicles (Think Unreal Tournament's "Domination" mixed with Tribes), savvy troop placement (again, Tribes), and matching different professions to counteract the opponents troops (think of the original Team Fortress mods for Half-Life)

The combat damage model is somewhat akin to things laid down in Counter-Strike. Shotgun (or their futuristic equivalent) blasts to the head will generally instantly kill the opponent. Grenades are 1-hit death that you can throw about in the name of mayhem, and snipers get that nasty AWP feeling going on.

[Ghostsuit]

Hmm sounds cool but I feel it won't drag me away from Counterstrike.

[PapaZeb]

No, no it won't. Battlefront/Battlefield games tend to appeal more to lovers of the classic Axis n Allies and other similar war games.

[Griever]

In the tradition of PapaZeb's PennyArcade links...

[GoddamnElectric]

Mua ha ha

[PapaZeb]

Heh, I love VGCats.

tbh, going up against another team and finding out they have a Jedi on their side is a nightmare. It legitimately means "I get my game shoved down my throat repeatedly" since they're just plain unkillable