This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
Don't let the title fool you; I liked the Prequels. It was merely a reference to the irrational, only partly meritorious hate that they receive.
I'm going to start with the absolute reality. I work for a living. Money is not something that falls out of the sky, and $69.99 plus tax is a significant amount. I charge $75.00 to tune a piano. This disc cost me the amount of an entire job. I was quite eager to get it. I had been looking forward to it. I love Star Wars. It's probably my favorite film series. I'm as immersed in the Expanded Universe as the typical Star Wars fan. That's why this game is so upsetting. If you've played the game, you know full well where I'm going with this: the hour of tutorials, and only about an hour of actual games if you're playing offline, and then having to pay an additional $49.99 if you want the content that really rightly should have come with the initial sticker price (minus the Battle of Jakku, which we'll be getting free: what a surprise!), and then having to pay for the privilege of playing multi-player.
But...I've been reviewing games for awhile on other forums, and I wouldn't be much of a reviewer if I just complained about the most glaring issues without even getting into the game. So, let us begin.
I bought Battlefront when I got my PS4. Fortunately, I bought the PS4 with the Disney Infinity 3.0 bundle, so I actually wound up paying the same but got a couple more games out of the deal (yes, that's how the math came out...I don't know what genius came up with that sales gimmick). So, I got it home, didn't have enough lines to hook up my PS4 to the internet, was too lazy to unplug my computer so I could enjoy online PS4 gameplay for awhile, so I just settled for the offline content for the time being.
STORY: 1/10 There is no story. You are literally replaying battles from the Original Trilogy, and one that wasn't seen, but alluded to, without the story. They are the battles of Hoth, Tatooine, Endor, and Sullust. Yep, that's all. You can go through them in tutorials, mission mode, or survival mode. It also comes with a screensaver that features C-3PO and R2-D2 arguing with each other.
GRAPHICS: 10/10The visuals in this game are absolutely stunning. Seriously, I wonder why the CGI in movies look so lousy when we have video games that look like this. Seriously, you could stare at these scenes for hours.
GAMEPLAY (PART 1: OFFLINE): 4/10 The tutorials are a good place to start as they teach you the different styles of gameplay and the controls. You can play either ground missions or starfighter missions. The ground missions are typical of first person shooters such as Call of Duty or Fallout. The aerial missions are also disappointingly common as well, with controls similar to just about any flight simulator. The system is straightforward: kill as many enemies as you can while dying and respawning a ridiculous amount of times. It's a style of gameplay conducive to multiplayer, but I've never really enjoyed it as it just feels like losing over and over again, even when the game says you won. It's very difficult to aim in ground missions, and I understand that the lack of an autolock is for realism, but at the very least, they could incorporate some kind of system to assist with aiming. It's not this hard to aim and shoot in real life, and it's an exceedingly frustrating system. You can focus on a target with L2, but this still isn't an autolock, so it doesn't lock; it just tightens controls so that your sights don't jump all over the place when trying to aim.
Aerial controls are another matter. L2 does act as an autolock, but an extremely tight one. If an enemy ship even slightly gets out of your sights, the autolock will break. It's still a very good autolock, and using it improves the game tremendously. Not using the autolock makes it virtually impossible to hit the target. Also, you have to hold down the L2 to use it, so your hand motions on the controller are extremely limited (not that it's a detriment, considering how limited your maneuverability is). Also, you have to maintain the lock when firing missiles until they hit their target (which isn't how missiles work in any reality). Dogfighting is very cumbersome.
The speeder bikes on Endor: piloting a Star Wars speeder bike is a fun thing to do in video games. It's a really hard aspect of gameplay to mess up, but somehow, Battlefront manages it. In the extremely overrated quest for realism, this aspect is an EPIC PHAIL. It's true that that the ground assault and aerial missions have controls that aren't stellar, but they're okay, which is just fine for merchandising gimmick game, even one as beautiful as this, but the speeder bikes in this game are simply a terrible experience, and it's all because of the high level of ultra-realism that this game employs.
Let me see if I can make this point: NOTHING KILLS A GAME LIKE ULTRA-REALISM!
Now, there are those that argue that ultra-realism is the best gaming goal. No, it's not. Sorry, but it just isn't. First, let's start with the obvious point: if we wanted realism, we wouldn't be playing video games. Next: games are supposed to be enjoyed. Even frustration and stress can be enjoyable to a certain degree, but when that's all there is, it stops being fun. How do we know it's not fun? Simple: I'm writing a review on Star Wars: Battlefront instead of playing it. Do you see what's going on here? If it were fun, I'd be playing it.
So, what's wrong with the speeders? Nothing, except that you are just going to die. If you manage to get your speed up, there is no thrill like in other games. You explode, die and respawn the second you hit something. Why was it made like this? Because life bars and hit points aren't realistic. So, if anything you touch kills you, unless you're going really slow, then whatever you hit just doesn't kill you as quickly. If you want to know who did speeders well, go back to N64 Shadows of the Empire. The controls and game play in the swoop level were pretty much like they are in this game: you even die the second you hit a rock wall. The difference? You don't die the instant you hit another swoop, and it's actually not as ridiculously easy to wreck as it is in Battlefront, and it's still pretty easy to wreck. That was my favorite level in that game. I played it over and over again. Battlefront actually made me hate speeders. This was terrible. Whoever designed the gameplay for the speeders should have been made to redo it. You know, patches have become a crutch and they've become an excuse to release a crappy game. If there is a patch that fixes the abysmal control on the Battlefront speeders, that's exactly what I am going to think: they were just more concerned with making a deadline than making a good game.
So, playing ever single mission, and survival mode after the tutorial, it took me two hours to finish the offline content. All of it. I played the entire offline game that I paid 70 dollars for in 2 hours. Every mission. I suppose I could go back and play the Dark Side, but that would only give me another hour of gameplay. 70 dollars of this. Oh, and sometime this month, we're supposed to get the Battle of Jakku for free. That'll be another 20 minutes per side of the Force. That's all you get for 70 dollars. Want more? Well, more is coming, but you have to pay for it. I got 100 hours of content in Metal Gear Solid 4 for 50 dollars, and I couldn't even get a 3 hour Star Wars game for 70. No, you do not get to play multiplayer for 70 dollars; you still have to pay for that, but that may be more on Playstation than EA, but you still can't play the multiplayer unless you pay the monthly fee for Playstation Plus. If you're not willing to do that, you're SOL. You could pony up the 50 dollars for a yearly sub, but why? Why can't I just play the damned game? Why can't I just get what I've already paid for?
GAMEPLAY (PART 2: ONLINE): 6/10 This is where the game is. There isn't much more in the way of content. There's a few more missions, but nothing truly remarkable. Everything is played against other players in versus combat. There's Droid Run, which is a King of the Hill style game in which you capture three droids before the opposing team does. There's Fighter Squadron, which is exactly what it sounds like, and my personal favorite (but that's only because the ground missions are so damned hard, again because realism). There's Walker Assault, which is the Battle of Hoth...again...this time with people other than you and the AI. There's Hero Hunt where you get to play all by yourself against everyone! And they're trying to kill you! And they're not trying to kill each other! Fun! Everything else is just variations on war: defend the cargo while stealing the other guy's cargo. Capture enemy supply drops. Or Supremacy, where you have to drive the enemy away (In other words, kill more of them.), or Blast, which is basically the same thing.
What these missions offer are credits and ranks that you can unlock new items and abilities with. You have very little choice in your in game appearance. You have to win the privilege to change your in game appearance. This helps to make the game fun. Also, you have enemy players that are obviously going to be better than you. The gameplay here in multiplayer is about the same, but it's much more fun than in singleplayer mode. You also begin to really see the limitations. Your ships can't do barrel rolls or loops unless you press the D-Pad, and you only get three special aerial moves. The down button on the D-Pad changes you from external view to cockpit view. In my opinion, this only makes the aerial combat more fun as instead of having maneuvers handed to you, you have to be creative.
I only wish the ground battles were as enjoyable, and the fact these missions feel more like a chore cannot possibly be more apparent in the fact that far fewer people seem to play them than the fighter missions, and it seems that there are a lot more awards and bonuses for playing the ground missions, or maybe I'm only seeing them listed since I don't get a list of bonuses for the aerial missions, but I still get them. That's telling. The fact that they display the fact that there a bonuses for the ground missions but don't make bonuses for the aerial missions apparent tells me that they know the ground missions are poorly done. It's very hard to kill and it's very easy to be killed.
On the plus side, in the Hero vs. Villain game, you get the opportunity to play as one of three main characters on each side. If you're not a troop from the start, you either get to play as Luke, Leia, or Han, or if you're on the Dark Side, Darth Vader, The Emperor, or Boba Fett. In one game, I played as Darth Vader and actually got into an epic lightsaber duel with Luke (I lost)...on top of the Millennium Falcon!!! I wish I recorded that! That was awesome! But, ahem...whatever awesomeness there is to be had in these ground missions doesn't redeem their overall tediousness. It's impossible to aim decently, even at close range, and any attempt to aim will surely get you killed. Good cover appears to be all over the place, but it's surprisingly useless. The levels are so open, no areas are defensible, and because of this, using cover is really pointless because there's no way to form a line and keep enemies from sneaking up behind you. So it really is, "die over and over again until the match is over", and that is a really depressing and unenjoyable style of gameplay.
The aerial battles are really the only missions that are really, truly fun, but there's only two, one that takes place in the four different settings the game comes with and Walker Assault, which is the Battle of Hoth.
MUSIC: All Star Wars stock music, a lot of it unrecognizable entries from other video games and audio books. Very high quality recordings that are quite nicely added to appropriate settings and situations.
REPLAYABILITY: 2/10 None for the singleplayer mode. This game gets very boring, very quickly. It's only marginally better in the multiplayer mode as each mission quickly becomes the same thing over and over again. The real fun is in fighting against other players that have managed to annoy you so much that you have got to get them just once. Sadly, this game is extremely overpriced. For aerial battles, you only get two missions, one set in three of the four settings (no aerial battles over Endor, so no, you will not be blowing up the Death Star II). You also only get 6 ground missions, each of them only in the four settings. The fact of the matter is, you only get a few hours of gameplay, each with goals that don't really interest you. Trust me: this is not the type of game you have to win before you're done.
All this game has to offer is fighting the same battles over and over again. There's nothing at stake. There's no ending to justify winning. You just fight the enemy until the mission is over and you either win or lose, and if it's multiplayer mode, you slowly get credits to get barely two or three dozen available upgrades that you can't even buy until you have achieved a high enough rank, and these upgrades aren't even that good. There are no upgrades for the fighter ships, and what you get for your ground missions are blasters that are weaker than what you're already using or are only good for certain conditions that aren't going to come up that often. You can get a thermal detonator or a grenade, and those are good, but upgrades include a function that for a brief time makes it possible to more easily aim your gun, just for example. There's nothing really worth it. The only thing you get are different appearances, and they are basically just a variety of the same dozen humans with a few different hairstyles. You have to put in dozens of hours of gameplay before you'll be allowed to play an alien (the highest being a Twi'lek at Rank 50). Think about it: days and days of playing the same missions over and over and over and over again just to be able to make your in game appearance as customizable as the game will allow. There are only a dozen or so blasters available, with the most useful one being available at Rank 4.
The graphics cannot redeem this game, and their score is negated by the shortcomings. Because of paying for multiplay and having to pay for additional content, I can't even recommend this game at bargain prices, and even if that wasn't an issue, the typical bargain price of 15 to 20 dollars is still quite high. This is the true 5 dollar bin game.… Expand
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