REVIEW – Although a lot of people considered Battlefront to be just a simple Battlefield clone, the fans of the original series could not wait to get their hands on DICE’s creation. The Menace however slowly crept in as time went on, and divided the community. It was both considered to be a great new game, and a mere cash cow for the new Star Wars movie, but with a battlefield skin.

It would be an exaggeration to call the BETA perfect, but we have seen enough of Battlefront vote with our wallet with confidence. The gameplay is great, the levels are fantastic, the graphics are beautiful, and the experience is just like if the player was in the movie. What else is there to debate about?

Star Wars

Although I could understand the naysayers, I enjoyed the result as a Star Wars fan. The game has enough new ideas, modes, and opportunities that there are not a lot of problems with the game. There are issues with Star Wars: Battlefront so I thought that I would start with the bad stuff or stuff that are missing from the game so that I may later talk about how much I love this game that is from Dice.

If we were to decide the battle for Battlefront’s „Pros” and „Cons” we can say that after the total war between the two sides during the development, the Cons have been annihilated after a slow and painful battle. Still as with all videogames we can be used to some negative parts or cut contents. In our case, the „Pros” win and defeat the „Cons”, but the Sith always appear somewhere in the Galaxy regardless of victory.

Let us start with the biggest gripe, which is that the Training Missions will not satisfy the Battlefront fans for a Single Player experience. Every fan can admit that besides the multiplayer it would have been great to see some story mode for a few hours in this game. It would not have been too much of an effort to do a coop campaign with a cliché story. It is a shame really since the engine is damn good.

Sadly we only have five different missions that allow us to get to know the systems of Battlefront. However, these are cut off from the multiplayer, and the only show off from individual segments to try them out alone before going into the „Main game”.

„A real partner can read your thoughts” – Dice „No fuck you!” – Kese

The other missing feature is the in-game VOIP – which to be honest is not that much of a problem on the PS4. For us, the answer is to invite our friends to a party, and everything is solved, so the PC player base can laugh behind our backs, even though EA completely stripped them of any natural solutions to this problem.

Some game modes require that AI’s be with us, which is a huge disappointment. The AI is probably the worst thing in Battlefront. The AI does not move its units tactically, their aim is terrible, and the groups can go awol on the levels at times instantly. They are embarrassing to see, but hey nothing can be perfect or otherwise we would be talking about PACMAN.

The other problem – which might have only bothered me – is that we have to be a (Just like in Battlefield) pure masochist to get into a vehicle. The air fighters are especially true as they require a lot of patience and focus so that at the end of the day you’ll be successful in attacking. Unfortunately handling the vehicles is not made easier by Dice, and in the early matches I died rather quickly by smashing into the ground.

The Return of the Jedi

I do not even want to talk about such problems that were mentioned in previews such as the lack of matchmaking system, or the lack of real „Space Battles.” So let us get into the meat of things, the actual parts of the game. First off the graphics are excellent, and the levels, models, the scenery is top notch in this title. There were many occasions when I would just sit back and watched „the movie”, which lead me to become an easy target. Those graphics are something.

The sound design in Battlefront is also beautiful and destroyed any initial fear that Dice will give us only a „nostalgic feeling” with the music. The original soundtrack was mixed up rather well and works great for the multiplayer battle. It’s not just the music, but the vehicles, weapons, characters are also well voiced and have original audio so that you’ll never drop out of the Star Wars movies’ atmosphere. The difference here is that if you stop to marvel at the scenery as a hero, you’ll stay at one place until death.

The Empire Wants You Back.

I could write long novels about the game modes, most of them are very fun to play such as Fighter Squadron, Supremacy, Drop Zone, Blast and Walker assault. Some of the other modes are not that great such as Cargo, Hero Hunt, Droid Run, and Training Missions, and these can be played in single player mode. In Battles mode, we can fight against a friend in 1vs1, where other soldiers are controlled by the AI.

A similar mode is called Hero Battles, where we can battle as Heroes on the maps, and the aim of the game mode is to collect tokens of the fallen enemies. Both of these modes can be played in splint-screen.

Another good thing about the game is that it is well balanced, and you won’t feel that either team can have a big lead in the title.  Of course this depends on the team members, and their weapons, but if we get a couple of good players, the multiplayer will be a lot of fun.

After seeing all the recent Star Wars games that were okay, it is nice to see Battlefront. Unfortunately, the single player segment is non-existent, but the multiplayer part is great, and should make up for the lack of a single player mode. The issues are dwarfed by the quality of the product, and the game modes are also fun. A lot of time can be sunk into this title.

-Kese-

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE)

Genre: FPS

Release date: 2015 November 16