Retro Review: Star Wars: Battlefront II

First played: 2005 on PlayStation 2

Star Wars Battlefront II remains immensely popular and has a deserved reputation as one of the all-time greatest Star Wars games. With a third entry in the series finally coming out thanks to EA and DICE, how does the previous title hold up?

Battlefront II’s game modes take place both the original and prequel trilogies across single and multi-player with the campaign, titled Rise of the Empire following the 501^st Legion’s career in both the Clone Wars and later the Galactic Empire; it’s a simple story, but surprisingly it manages to be engaging with Temuera Morrison’s (Who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones) narrations drawing you into to each mission, which in turn tie in well with series canon and even provide some insight into what the Empire was up to in the twenty years leading up to “A New Hope”. But following the canon as with every Star Wars game does force the campaign’s length down to around five or six hours max. The enemy AI is also quite inconsistent, sometimes enemies will run right past you, shoot the ground, or suddenly turn their attention to you with sudden accuracy, making it poor preparation for online play. Fortunately the game still has plenty to do beyond the story; across all modes, you’ll earn medals which (after much perseverance) will unlock upgraded weapons and bonuses for your character and then there’s Galactic Conquest. Adding a twist of strategy to the mix, GC pits the player and their fleet(s) against an opposing force for control of planets; winning battles will capture worlds, whilst losing will force your side to retreat. The game also adds boosters to vary the combat further such as enhanced weapon damage or the appearance of a hero or villain on the battlefield. It’s a long-lasting mode, but it begs for an option to play it online. What you will get online is a strong-standing multiplayer component offering up to 64 player galactic warfare across a huge number of maps. All players can host their own servers and join games via a buddy list; the latter could have used some tightening up as the only way to add buddies is to join the same server they are on. Battlefront II isn’t quite as organised as its modern contemporaries but terms of sheer chaotic online fun, the game delivers quite well.

In a similar way to EA’s Battlefield series, Battlefront II is all about playing as a team with the different classes through either first or third person (my preferred viewpoint!); soldiers are built for direct combat, heavy troopers target vehicles, marksman take aim from afar and engineers provide support through repair. But where Battlefront differs from other games of its kind is with its special units; the Clones, Droids (CIS), Rebels and Empire each have their own unique units which really add a spice of variety to the proceedings including the rolling destroyer droids (CIS) and the jet packing Dark Troopers (Empire). In addition to returning vehicles to commandeer, Battlefront II also added heroes and villains and fully-fledged space combat. Playing as a hero or villain is a fun and balanced novelty, although after a while it doesn’t feel too much different from standard infantry. Space combat on the other hand is very enjoyable and deep; the factions have four types of vessels specialising in dogfights (TRI Fighter), bombing (V-Wing), transport (Imperial Landing Craft) and a well balanced mix of the former (X-Wing); battles take place between capital ships, both of which can be boarded and have specific weak points to exploit. Each aspect of the game is simple to get into but also requires a degree of skill to master and aside from some cheap tactics where force powers are concerned, Battlefront II remains a mostly enjoyable and tactical experience.

Star Wars Battlefront may have some problems with its AI and a brief campaign but it does what no Star Wars game that came before it could; it absorbs and invests the player into the battlefields of George Lucas’s sci-fi epic better than any other game based on the licence, making them feel like one cog in a giant machine.

My recommendation: Get it on PC if you can; the multiplayer servers are still running and it’s often very cheap on Steam.

Retro Rating: 8/10