Customer Reviews

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the second best Battlefront out of the 4 that have been made diregarding the mobile iterations. Basically, it was the product of the cancellation of BF3 and shares many of the same elements like gameplay aspects, story, and characters. This is to date the only Battlefront game in which you can transition between space and ground, and the second battlefront in which you can use a starfighter(not a snowspeeder) to strafe and have dogfights in the air This works surprisingly well, making the game a blast to play, especially online. Every single planet that was included in other installments that features in this game has been completely redesighned for the better.

**If you are not a big time fan of Star Wars, You probably wont understand this paragraph and the next paragraph, so go ahead and skip)
Like say Coruscant: originally, the level was set in the Jedi Temple but now, its set in a plaza and street area and is based off of the ground battle(you only see the space battle in Episode 3) of Coruscant featured in the original clone wars microseries, and the book Labyrinth of Evil. Another thing featured in Labyrinth of Evil and only briefly during the Order 66 montage of Episode 3 is the Neimoidian purse world of Cato Neimoidia. Cato Neimoidia, along with Vjun(featured in comics, books, and the game Jedi academy), and Dantooine(mentioned in Ep 4, featured in comics, books, and KOTOR along with some other games). This is far less new planets than I thought there would be(Renegade Squadron had around 5 or 6 and they were not brought back as cool as they were). Dantooine is following a trend that Renegade Squadron started(Korriban with it's Sith Academy area) by including another area created in the game KOTOR on the planet Dantooine. On Dantooine, you can find the remains of the old Jedi enclave which was a cool feature, but th strange thing is is that it looks like a cave with streams and crystals(lightsaber crystals I assume) everywhere.

There are many new heroes in this game like Pantoran Jedi Master Ferroda and Rahm Kota's former apprentice Falon Grey. Also, their are three variations of two characters X1 and X2: Clone, Rebel, Jedi for X2 and Arc trooper, shadowtrooper/Emperor's Hand, Sith Lord for X1. X2 is the protaganist and X1 is an ally early on but rather predictably falls to the darkside(I'm keeping my lips sealed after that as to what happens). Rahm Kota is also featured as a cameo and playable character, but ingame, he never seems to recognize the death star on that certain mission, and he never mentions Starkiller(Galen Marek). He still is blind and has white eyes. There are special NPC's(in story) that is intriguing and should bring back memories if you ever played Dark Forces on PS1, but I wanna keep that one a surprise.

The story. It's awful. It tries to be good and has potential, but there are tons of plot holes in it. enough said

As far as vehicles, their are less in her than in Renegade Squadron. No Speeder Bikes, AT-TE's, and only two types of starfighter for each team rather than 4 or 5. It's not like they are not there, for every single type of Tie fighter in the BF(includin Tie defenders) series is featured in story mode, but not in anything else.

That promised 'deep customization' is nowhere to be found. The game features only two new weapons and the exact same character models as Renegad Squadron. So basically, LucasArts was lying the entire time. Classy.

As for graphics, it may not look it when you look at pictures, but the graphics are muc better. The movements in this game are the most fluid of the entire BF series. and the Death Star is easilly the most graphically amazing level in the game. It looks a lot like The Force Unleashed on PSP on that level.

The controls take getting used to because the Renegade Squadron-esque controls are worse in this game. This is the primary reason that Elite Squadron has bad reviews. Luckily, the alternate controls are somewhat fixed from the mess they where in Renegade Squadron. It now has a somewhat sticky reticule and it take around ten second to auto-level rather than around 4 in RS. It is the best way to play the game IMO.

And so that wraps up my lengthy review.
Features:4 out of 5
Story: 2 out of 5
Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 4
Controls: 5
Sound: 5
Lastin Appeal: 4.5(not an average though)

Pros: The storyline is the best part of the game, Graphics come next. Deep, Deep customization is a huge plus and the unlock system for weapon and armor customization makes the game a definite incentive to keep playing the campaign. Difficulty is challenging without being frustrating. The transition from clone to rebel to Jedi was a plus because it gave the player a good experience with different modes of play.

Cons: I disliked the control scheme when i first started playing, it needs a heck of a lot of work, but its an option between Battlefront II and Renegade Squadron controls. Another issue was allied AI, the biggest issue is that they tend to run into a storm of fire, get cut to pieces, and waste reinforcements. The lightsaber is the smallest but most critical flaw in HNV battles. the sword has a short swing and almost no range so you must touch the target to slash it.

Comments: i can understand if you picked this up beat the campaign and put it back down and thought, "this game sucks, there's no customization" I've done that before. but with this game you actually have to work to get the options on armor and weapons. playing to unlock is better then it already being there because it tells players "you want stuff? work for it."

firstly, the bad juju.

okay, for starters, why didn't the programmers set up a control factor that takes off sticky reticle and firing in the general direction of a target means it automatical shoots directly at where the target was when you shot it?? I mean come on: online play is all to shame; you can't use any weapon except the sniper rifle and the strike cannon weapon to shoot free hand, not to mention all the people who were dissapointed at that fail.

no real competition until it comes to the lightsaber combat which was an absolute fail: It is actually a challenge to make the fighting look cool. the range of the lightsabers where kinda strange: throwing a lightsaber looks way to stupid and slow, but the close quarters combat with a lightsaber a range that didn't work really well; the lightsaber would hit anything within its reach, even if the lightsaber didn't hit anything at all. Be prepared also, to stay away from walls, blocks of stone, any other blasted thing that is part of the level that isn't horizontal to the rest of the ground: you can get kind of stuck to the ground: bad programming error again: will it ever stop?!?!?!?!? good thing is is that you can get out of the stuck position, only happens and you get out of it, or you can make it worse, it depends.

space combat sucks: not fun: only two types of ships: a figher(republic has a bomber:fail) and a landing craft. It really is a fail that has an insane lock on feature that makes you do nothing but follow your target. and allow you shoot at the freak. off course, you can plan to target someone else, but just shooting towards an enemy craft, yet again, makes the blaster fire go towards the exact position of the enemy ship: stuuuuuupppppiidddd. really dumb controls for this.

indepth story my &^%$*&$ (sorry parents). This story just proves that there could be novels to fill in the adventures between each episode: barely any story to go on, except the fact that they are two brothers who continually run into each other. terrible voice acting by one of the lady actors, sounds like one of those kindergarten teachers talking to a bunch of juniors in high school: it just doesn't work. The presentation only show about 3-4 actual in game cutscenes, with the story driven off all the movies for cutscenes: really cheap if you ask anyone.

the last 3 cons I will cover are liars, sucky camera, and a terrible glitch, or mishap, idk. liars first: The peoples who made this game are liars, or just not meant to keep promises, or the press lied to us, whatever: you fill in the blank. The problem is was that lucasarts said was that the battlefield will be a full completely live action game happening that requires not transitions whatsoever. well, there are three places you "transition" to: the surface (planet or death star), a starship, or space itself. even though it is one completely interactive battlefield, it is kinda cheap that they make it transitional, because you never know when a bad guy will just pop in space: there is barely any chance of survival if they are behind you and you are not playing on difficulty "padawan"(easy).

if you are playing online or even just trying to escape blaster fire in space, don't go into the enemies hanger at full speed: you might as well just hang the sense of going at all and crash into the ship itself: it will play the cutscene of you landing, but will transfer you back to your capital ship: fail.


lastly, it doesn't help, though, that while you are going through the ships innards the camera starts to fail on you: can see a targeting reticle or nothing of yourself at all.

finally, we come to the good juju.

yes, this actually has some good. If you really step aside and look at it, it is quite a leap, even though it really has some bad points. the multiplayer is a great challenge, the customization, even though you have to unlock it, really is awesome, even though it is limited. you can p*mp your good guy out (with a really good system of allowing only a certain amount of objects and power-ups with a point system) so that every grunt soldier can get (if they aren't too picky about their weapon set or accessory set) a jet pack, a shield generator, a jump pack, det packs, flamethrower, shotgun, you name it. basically you can customize what your soldier carries. even though that was also in renegade squadron, this game makes sure you are a good player first: you have to unlock medals and do certain things to get weapons or better customization objects. one thing that is totally new is the melee bash: this game is unique for that reason.

having it so that you can transition to certain parts of the battlefield absolutely rocks, including sending in a command point known as a landed drop ship to not only another space cruiser, but also the ground.

it is a very balanced battlefront: the only way to win is to either win all reinforcement points or get the number of points nessicary for the end of a match.

if you want to take out the enemy capital ship, just take out the shields (usually with the ground ion cannon that is controlled by certain command post that belongs to a certain faction, but sometimes can be pounded away in space), fly into the hanger, and then destroy the core reactor. you can use a ship escape pod to quickly get back to the land battle.

the capital ship itself can also fire upon the ground as well, if you use the orbital strike cannon, which, if cordinated with some human players on the ground, can make accurate hits upon the ground. oh yeah, you can also destroy the ion cannon if you think it is neccisary.

the game itself has very good graphics for its size, but don't go bragging: you can see where it lets up.

if you like the alternate controls(fps controls), you can also set up the sensitivity of the controls and it will play like a 3-person shooter.

my personal opinion: that this game, while sporting some awesome advances, has it issues with a console gamer like me: they should of set up the same control options as they had in battlefront 2 for ps2: you could turn of the sticky reticle, and all that lock on junk it has.

This was a present for my son. He is totally hooked with Star Wars and this game made his Christmas. Quality of the game is really good!!

Star wars elite squadron is really epic!! Well not as epic as some games but its fun. This game is very very fun! But if you play battlefront 2 a lot than its going to be hard to get used to the controls on this game because its only the analog stick that you use to move and look around. But thats the only bad part of that but theres is sooooooooooooooooooooooo good things that i can say about this but im not gonna put in the energy to say it the only thing i have to say is buy it if you are a star wars fan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron is an fun game. The story mode is a little short but is challenging in the hard mode. I like the customization and the battle fields are cool to. The also has many flaws. The graphics are horrible even for a handheld. The game also doesn't run as smooth as Star Wars Battlefront2 and the vehicles aren't very well done. For starters, when you get in a ground vehicle you hardly get to see the vehicle your driving (for example: If you get in a walker you only see the very top of the walker and don't even get to see the legs move). Another flaw with the vehicles is that no one will drive them. The computer players will drive them at the beginning of the game but after they get blown they won't drive the vehicles again for the rest of the game. Also, were did all the space ships go. Each team only gets one type of fighter and one type of gun ship. The space battles suck. There's hardly anybody in space and the capital ship is way to easy to blow up. All you have to do is take down the shields with the Ion Cannon, land in the enemy hanger, walk to the core of the ship with little or no resistance and then blow the core up. And why are all the new Star Wars Battlefront's only for the PSP and NDS3. This game would rock if it was made for the computer or PS2. Then it would have better graphics, better computer players, better vehicles and space ships and would have more types of vehicles.

I've completed this game and it was really fun and a fairly long game,then i completed it and started doing instant action{you can play capture the flag, heroes and villians etc.you can also choose from planets, each planet contains certain varieties}Sometimes instant action can be in space, like capture the flag.The graphics arent the best but they're pretty good. After a while of playing this game,I kinda started to get bored of it but overall it was a fun game and a good buy.

star war battlefront elite squadron is my favorite battlefront game but the downsider is the campagin is real short like the other 1 and gameplay great it keeps you occupied for awhile but i dont use the internet feature online cause it gets hacked alot :( but the rest is awsome

My son loves this game. Plays it as much as I will let him!!!

Ok, so I was eagerly waiting for this game to come out. Idiot me, it was already out as i discovered at best buy. I bought it immediatly and started playing. First thing I noticed, is that the controls are kinda stiff. Say, you are by a wall, targeting some droid. Well if that droid chooses to come toward you and get close, the camera goes screwey. Then you scramble around to try to shoot the droid, meanwhile the droid has no problem shooting you. It gets annoying.
It might seem insignifigant to some people, but one of the best things for me about the game is the sniping system. In Renegade Squadron, the sniping was next to impossible. Lucasarts completely balanced out the sniping, so that if your reticle is next to the person, then it will automaticly shoot them. That feature makes online play so much more fun. On one match I got 185 kills and 13 deaths. Not bad kill to death ratio for online scores.
Online play is the way to go. I never get bored of it, and if you have a best friend that plays too, then you can add him and join the game instead of jumping in and out of games like Renegade. The game is fairly new, so there arent many hackers. But you could be enjoying a game and all of a sudden everyone on your team dies from a hacker. NOT FUN. Hackers aside, online is great.
You must know what the story is about from other people, so I just want to say that I like the story a lot. It is pretty different from the other SWB games, and I like the diversity.

OVERALL:9.5
STORY:8
ONLINE:9
GRAPHICS:8
HANDLING:7
EVERYTHING ELSE:9.5

It is a great game, and I would reccomend it to other battlefront fans.