Customer Reviews

Star Wars Battlefront

5 star:		(69)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I got the chance to get my hands on the full version, and I can easily say this is another quality game from LucasArts! Combine some of the best new first-person shooters with Rogue Squadron, and this is what you have here.

You get to play as either a Rebel or Imperial in various famous Star Wars locations from all the movies (and books/games too). There are different types of characters, from soldiers to snipers to special forces.

The first person controls are excellent, but I found flying the aircraft (eg: X-Wing, Tie) to be a little difficult with the mouse and keyboard, but you might get the hang of it after some practice.

You get to control various vehicles and ships too, such as X-Wings, Ties, Gunships, Speeder Bikes, AT-STs, and AT-ATs. Nothing beats driving an AT-AT in snowy Hoth bearing down on Rebel scum, watching them run as you pick them off. You feel the slowness and how heavy the AT-AT is as you drive it. On the other hand, you feel the pure speed of a speeder bike on Endor as the backgroud blurs while you fly through the forest. Great sense of speed there.

The graphics are very good. Not on the level of the newest such as Doom3, but are top notch. And you have the classic Star Wars sound effects and music tracks that are unforgetable.

If you are a Star Wars fan and a gamer, this won't disappoint.

No Ewoks were harmed in writing this review.

Want to pilot your own Landspeeder or AT-AT or blast away from your very own Tie-Fighter or X-Wing? Want to fight dozens of enemy troops, defending your command post, or go on the offensive with Jedis like Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Mace Windu? No problem. Lucasarts has developed a respectable conversion of what made Battlefield 1942 so popular and put you into the Star Wars universe.

Like BF1942, controls are simplistic. The left mouse fires and the right uses a secondary weapon, usually a grenade. You choose from four or five different fighter classes. These range from standard infantry with a rifle and pistol, a missile launcher carrier, a sniper, a pilot class with weak weapons but the ability to fix machines and turrets, and a class of fighter with special weapons specific to whatever map you're playing. Your fighter starts out at one of the command points you control and you progress to take out the enemy by taking out the fighters controlling an area. As you linger in an enemy zone, the enemy command center changes from red to white, meaning they can no longer spawn fighters there, to green meaning you have successfully taken over the center and can now spawn your fighters. Once all enemy command centers have been taken over, you win.

Single player mode gives you a feel for the different maps, but is pretty easy to conquer. Maps are diverse and what you would expect to see, including Tatooine, Hoth, Naboo, and Endor. Although galactic conquest gives you a few 30 second video clips as you progress from place to place, there's really no storyline. The main reason to buy this is for online play as you'll get bored with single player mode after a night or two.

Online play is the chaotic mess you expect with all the good and bad that comes with it. You can have up to 32 players online and those with broadband should find surprisingly stable gameplay assuming you're playing on a good server. System requirements are pretty lax as well. Even on a mid range system you can crank the resolution up to 1600x1200 if your video card can handle it. The familiar Star Wars score blasts from the speakers and the sound effects from the blasters and the various vehicles remain faithful to the films.

While these types of games are fun to jump into to kill an hour or two, it can get old after a while. Basically you jump into a map, kill a few, get killed, rinse and repeat. In Star Wars Battlefront, the heavy equipment tends to be a little too powerful. If you're on the ground with an with an enemy vehicle staring at you, you're done. In addition, Jedi warriors, if allowed, are practically invincible. There is (unfortunately) a lot of incentive to camp somewhere with a sniper rifle and/or man a turret and blast everything that comes your way as in both cases you'll usually last longer. My last gripe is with the controls on the X-Wings and Tie-Fighters which will take a lot of practice to get used to. This is the skill item of the game and those who master these will be able to dish out a lot of damage against inexperienced players.

Still, it's a fun game if you're a Star Wars fan. Shooting through the forests of Endor on a Speeder Bike is nice and taking down an AT-AT with a harpoon cable is a difficult, but rewarding thrill. It's certainly nothing revolutionary, but fans of the genre will find a lot to like.

I have been on the lucas arts website(www.lucasarts.com) and it gives a lot of info about this game i have also been to www.gamespot.com and found lots of info.

1.Yes it is like battlefield 1942 in that it has classes and different armies. The Rebel units will be made up of the soldier, marksman, pilot, wookiee smuggler, and vanguard. The Imperial side will have the stormtrooper, shock trooper, pilot, scout trooper, and dark trooper. the Republic forces will consist of the clone trooper, jet trooper, clone pilot, clone sharpshooter, and arc trooper. Finally, the Trade Federation units will be made up of the droideka, super battle droid, assault droid, droid pilot, and recon droid.

2. Battlefront will include over fifteen different vehicles for players to use on the battlefield. These vehicles will include both air and ground based vehicles from the movies. The following vehicles have been mentioned in press releases/interviews:

AT-STs
AT-ATs
X-Wings
Y-Wings
Speeder Bikes
Rebel Snowspeeders
Republic Gunships
Jedi Starfighters
TIE Fighters
Imperial Shuttles
Trade Federation Tanks
Tauntauns
Other vehicles from the movies are expected in addition to the above. These vehicles will also have capabilities from the movies - a Republic Gunship will be able to hold six people, and Rebel Snowspeeders will be able to launch a tow cable out of the rear of the vehicle.

3. The planets in star wars battlefront are:

Hoth
Yavin
Tatooine
Naboo

Geonosis
Kamino
that is all i know about star wars battlefront

Star Wars Battlefront uses a two-thumb movement system - the left thumb moves your character, the right thumb changes your point of view. Players of several other games will be used to this, and for the rest it is not that hard to master.

You can choose quick action, Historical Campaign or Galactic Conquest. Quick action is just what it sounds like. The historical campaign leads you through a story, but the game doesn't really save yor progress, instead it keeps track of how far your character has ever gotten and you have to remember where you left off if yo replay or you have one solo and one co-operative game in progress.

Galactic Conquest is a simplified strategy game, conquer different SW planets to get more bonus options (like Jedi Hero, special training), and take that advantage from the enemy. Each player chooses one of these each battle. Fight alongside Luke or Lord Vader! Here at least you can save your progress in each new game. A conquest can be completed in one or two sittings.

The game offers LAN or online play, which I am unable to test. It also offers splitscreen two player action. While it is tough to adjust to the much smaller display area (half screen split top/bottom), the game is certainly playable this way. You also get the choice of co-operative play, which is a welcome option, since zero-sum games can be frustrating for some family members.

SW Battlefront allows you to control many vehicles, but most players will spend most of their time on foot. Once you're good at ground combat you can kill enemies fast enough to give you the luxery of learning how to control the vehicles. Your weapon choices are mostly blasters and missile or grenade launchers, though sniping is a lot of fun and you can also be a healer or ammo supplier.

Unless you have LAN or online access SW Battlefront is the kind of game you're likely to play intensely for a few weeks and then come back to fron time to time. The campaigns don't last long enough for you to play constantly for months on end. There are many choices, on each side of the Civil War and from the old and new films.

In short, Star Wars Battlefront is a fun shooter, but not the kind of near-perfect game that will destroy your life.

Being the military nerd I am, I saw this game in 2003 and my jaw just dropped. Battlefield 1942 in Star Wars? How awesome can this get! When it finally came out in September, I immeadiately bought it, along with all my militaristic buddies, and proceeded immeadiately to full-out LAN Party war. As soon as we started the level of Hoth, all hell broke loose. AT-ATs falling thirty feet to their doom. Bodies flying in every direction. It was freakin' carnage. Now, first of all, BF1942 was extremely balanced in the vehicle area. That's true here too. AT-AT's are easily overwhelmed with little snowspeeders and near-invulnerable tanks can be taken down with the help of rocket launchers. Another up in BF was that the maps where ingenious. The map layouts here are sometimes odd, but turn out to be quite action-packed: over the huge map of Hoth, only one area was used at a time for battles. In the end, the Empire blasted its way into ICE CAVERNS leading into the rear of the rebel base and taking them completely by surprise. One of the downs in BF was that there was no single-player component- just a weak bot-match where the dumb AI used rockets that could barely hit the side of a barn to try and kill infantry. In this game, I consider them human. They throw grenades when the enemy groups up, yell out warnings (Oh no! Grenade!), and use vehicles efficiently. There is also campaigns that mix things up a bit (Gungans vs. Droids! Who will win?). Another down in BF was its high system requirements. Battlefront has almost none. I have a 800 mhz Athlon processor with built-in graphics and 512 RAM on one of my computers and it runs like a charm! This game is certainly one for the record books. Kids will love it, serious gamers not as much in the beginning, but when the grenades (and bodies) start flying, you know this is Star Wars. Emphasis on WARS.

This game was clearly rushed out the door so they could sell it the same day the trilogy was released on DVD.

The multiplayer server brower is jittery and selecting a server to join is like playing whack-a-mole (but less fun). It's a simple interface issue, but it just wasn't tested completely.

The dedicated server software is incomplete. It sometimes hangs for no reason when changing maps. Administrators of the servers have no control over the servers once they are set to run.

The gold standard for this kind of game is Battlefield 1942. A Battlefield server has about 60 customizations and functions. Most of them can be accessed from within the game while the admin is playing. The Battlefront sever have 14 options and you can only change them at the server launch. There is no way to change the duration of the maps, no way for server admins to kick unruly players, no way to force a map change, no way to select which map hte server plays next.

The failure to design a robust and easily administered server ruins the multiplayer part of this game. Last night on my server, we had a player who walked his AT-ST up to a friendly spawn point and blasted his teammates as they spawned into the map. As a server admin, I was powerless to stop this teamkilling because there is no kick function.

The single player game has its own problems. Chiefly, the bot AI is as dumb as a stone (this was also a problem with the Battlefield 1942 single player game). It kills any replayability in single player mode.

It's not all bad. The graphics are superb and the sound is cool. Once you get on the server you want, the game is going and you have a good group of players, it's a lot of fun. At least until the server hangs on a map change.

The game as it was released on 9/21/2004 is worthy of a "beta" label. It has the promise of one day being a great game is Lucasarts chooses to complete it with downloadable patches.

If you're considering buying this, I'd check to see if there has been a patch or two released my Lucasarts.

Some of the recent products put out by Lucas Arts with the words 'Star Wars' in their titles have had very little to do with Star Wars (SWG, KOTOR, etc). Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed playing all of them but I just didn't feel the connection to the `Holy Trilogy' they way I had expected.

Battlefront on the other hand delivers exactly what it promises. Relive key battles from the (real) Star Wars Universe in exciting `Battlefield' fashion. This is by far the most immersive Star Wars title in quite some time.

Pros:

- The variety of vehicles, character classes, weapons, etc. is great
- Original scoring by John Williams and sounds by Ben Burt
- "Historical" battlefields are rendered very well and add to the overall immersion of the game. For instance, the Hoth battlefield is setup almost identical to the way it was in ESB.
- Fast paced, easy to learn, easy to play

Cons:
- Aside from Temura Morrison the voice acting is total cheese
- Very hard to find. After months of co-advertising this title with the DVD release my local retailers told me they only received like 4 or 5 copies each. Also, online customers seem to have the same complaint...
- NO MAP EDITOR? We had the same issues with the original Battlefield 1942. What's the deal here guys? Average players will finish the single player campaigns in a day or so. After that there is maybe a week (at most) before we all get bored of playing the same maps over and over again.

Verdict: Very nice marriage of Star Wars and Battlefield. Definitely check it out.

At last Lucas Arts has made a Star Wars game where, in the end, you do not end up becoming a Jedi. Now don't get me wrong, all the rest of the games are good, but playing a game to become a Jedi just gets old after a while. But not with this, finally they have made a Star Wars game that actually puts WAR back into the name. Experience the battles in the Star Wars movies like never before!

Yes, this game is just like Battlefield 1942, and the engine seems to remind me of it, but the game is nothing like BF1942. The main menus are much more spiffy looking, and the graphics much more crisp. The graphics are smooth as silk on both my machines at their maximum resolution (one Radeon 9800 at mobile and one geForce FX-6800 GT). Although I have had a few problems with hardware surround sound, I must say that the sound effects in this game are just like what you get in the movies. I am also sure that they will patch any kind of hardware difficulties within the next few weeks, too.

Just like said in other reviews, you can pilot ANYTHING (and I mean anything). Take a speeder bike through the forests of Endor, ride a tauntaun across the icy plains of Hoth, or (and the best thing to do) ride a sluggish AT-AT crushing down those Rebel dogs!

All in all, if you are any kind of a Star Wars fan, or just a fan of good first person shooters, then this game is perfect for you. But beware, if you want to play a game where you get to become a Jedi...look in other places.

as I can see, C.Cain hasn't visited the battlefront web page, it clearly states that they will NOT charge multiplayer gaming for PC users, and XboX & PS2 will be charged with their respective services (XboX live! e.a.). anyway, this game has the potential of being the best starwars game ever!

If you want a role playing game in the STAR WARS environment, this game may well be worth checking out. You get to be one of several classes of warriors playing on multiple maps spread out across the STAR WARS galaxy. Most all the familiar SW planets are represented here, including Tatooine, Hoth, Naboo, Rhen Var and others.

One of the surprising things about the game is that you can even choose which side you fight on. Want to be a stormtrooper? No problem. Want to be a Wookie? Go for it! Want to be a droid from THE PHANTOM MENACE? Have fun!

Each side has different classes, including snipers, rocket launchers, mortar launchers, close-quarters rifles & more. Each map favors a different class. Snipers are good in maps where there is wide open space - especially if you can get a high position overlooking the enemy. Rocket launchers are good vs. enemy vehicles. Mortar launchers are good inside narrow halls where the enemy combatants are unable to get away from the grenades.

One of the funnest things about the game is commandeering vehicles. Actually, one of the most effective ways to kill the enemy is to simply run over them. It's fun to be the "mad driver" in a combat landspeeder, mowing down stormtroopers. Apparently there are no traffic laws in the SW universe....

You are able to get into starfighters as well (X-Wing fighters, Y-Wing figthers, Tie fighters, etc), but I've found trying to shoot down enemy starfighters with a mouse & keyboard to be next to impossible.

The game has a few drawbacks. First of all, the directions re: gameplay are generic & incomplete. They don't cover all classes. For example, I still haven't figured out how to use the jetpack, and I can't find any information on it in the handbook or on-screen instructions.

Secondly, Jedi knights are obnoxiously powerful. Yes, they should be more powerful than regular classes. However, on this game they are invincible. It gets frustrating when you empty your entire arsenal on a Jedi only to have him nonchalantly waltz over and get you with a light saber. To my knowledge there are only 2 ways to kill a Jedi: (1): Run over him at high speed with a land speeder. (2): Blow them off the side of a catwalk with a grenade. Other than that, it's actually best to simply avoid Jedi knights on the other team.

All in all, this game is a lot of fun. A few of the maps are fun to play over & over & over again. If you're into STAR WARS and / or role-playing combat games, this one is worth picking up!