So the beta for Star Wars Battlefront was released and as you can imagine I played quite a bit of it. You see, Star Wars Battlefront II is one of my all time favourite videogames, not only because I love Star Wars but because of how fun it is, and when I say fun, I mean insanely fun, seriously, i've wasted days of my life playing that game and I've been waiting for a new Battlefront game for years, a game that has been in development hell, going from studio to studio and now we have one developed by DICE, the same people behind Battlefield and Mirror's Edge, so they know their first person videogames, so what did I think of the Beta? I liked it. Well, most of it. Let's talk about that.
Now first of all I have to say the technicals of this game are fan-fucking-tastic! Not only were the servers for the game fast, seriously, i didn't have to wait more than 3 seconds before getting put into a match, but then again this is the beta so who knows how that's going to pan out when the game actually comes out. But the design of this game is beyond amazing. The graphics are beautiful, particularly with the environments and the sound design is top notch. Not to mention this absolutely feels like a Star Wars game more than any before it, you feel like you're firing a proper blaster, you feel like you're in a TIE Fighter, i got completely sucked into the world of Star Wars and clearly a lot of effort was put into recreating that feeling. Also having the original score play every now and again was a nice touch. Then when it comes to characters, just the fact that there are male and female characters on both teams is a nice touch because we both know how Star Wars and Video Games don't have the largest representation of women. Though I will admit it was weird to see a Stormtrooper with a woman's voice, just because i've never seen that before. So yes, if I were to judge this game based on the technicals alone it would get a 10/10.
But then there's the most important part of a game, the gameplay, how is it? Well taking the aesthetics of Star Wars out of the picture, the gameplay is just fine. Not all that much about it is unique or different, it's fun if a bit repetitive (Again, it's just a beta) I will say i feel the game is just a bit too slow, the running feels a bit slow, aiming feels a bit slow, flying seems a bit slow, nothing seems to be going at the right pace, it's not bad enough to irritate you in anyway but it does make the game feel a bit less exciting. And while the game isn't as busy as some of the trailers would have you believe, there are some really cool moments to be had, like when a TIE Fighter crashes right next to you and you see the explosion, the fact that it's not pre-scripted and things like that can happen can make fights really exhilarating. Also the respawn areas aren't all that great, it takes you forever to run back to the battle unless you use the partner spawn system, which i will admit is a really cool system. But the respawn can lead to some really annoying scenarios, you spend forever running into the battlefield, get shot, die, have to run all the way again. Also i hate when multiplayer's have this type of kill system, you die too easily to the point where it's not a matter of skill, it's a matter of who sees who first. I also don't have that much to say about the upgrades because you could only max out at level 5 so i don't think i've seen enough of them.
Next are the maps & missions, because Dice decided to leave out a campaign because yeah, multiplayer only games are always a great idea ad offer a lot in terms of artistic merit and longevity of the product. The first mission on a new planet has you capture escape pods for...reasons before your enemies, so basically it's a capture the flag type mission. Overall it's fine, i mean there's not much you can do in terms of variety when it comes to capture the flag, my biggest problem with it is whichever person captures the escape pod gets extra points, a system i don't like because it discourages teamwork and until the pod is captured it's pretty much every man for himself because i want those extra points, i don't give a shit about any of you.
There's also the mission on Hoth which was friggin terrible! Like I said about the respawn system sucking, it's even worse here with the map design because it's so large you respawn miles away from the action and the terrain is so badly designed it has a linear feel to it making it difficult to get around, also the fact that it's 20 people per team means you get shot almost instantly when you get close to the action and it makes reaching the objectives nearly impossible. I like the idea of the two teams having different objectives but in reality it's the same. Two AT-ATs are heading towards the Rebel base, the Rebels need to call in for back-up to bomb them before that happens, the Stormtrooper's mission is to cancel out their signal, which means you find the signal, capture it and fight off Rebels, basically the same formula for Capture the Flag. Also this map has almost no balancing to it, i swear every time i played it the Rebels never even came close to winning, the AT-AT's have insane health it's so unfair.
The single player mission was a simple fight off waves of enemies was fine, i noticed the animations on the AI Stormtroopers is a lot better than it is when it's player controlled. My big problem with this mission is how easy it is due to the small amount of Stormtroopers. But to be fair the Beta only has about half as many waves as the full game so I would imagine it would be a lot more fun in the full game. Also having Admiral Ackbar talk to you is very entertaining.
So that's pretty much all I have to say on the Star Wars Battlefront Beta, how was it overall? It was fun. It showed a lot of promise but has some clear issues, i will admit i did get pretty addicted to playing and i am still looking forward to the official release.
-Danny
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