Star Wars: Battleground.

[dunchy]

Well, I managed to pick this game up the other day, I find the game rather lukewarm. He's some points I picked up from the game:

- The bots are among with most useless programmed for a video game shooter. Not only will bots away from the front lines only stand around doing nothing. Additionally the bots are very counter-productive, taking a plane, speeder, anything and just getting in and out for no reason at all. AT-ST controlled by computers will walk in circles away from the battle, many battles will have the computer not even focus on the task at hand (1 map had a ice world where an AT-AT HAS to be taken down because troops can spawn in their location, however the rebel army didn't show an effective resistance and pretty much allowed me to plunk the machine right in the middle of the base and lay waste the the rebels). Many times the AI is very very easy to kill, but for some reason unexplaigned, I will often lose. 50 kill game, and I lose, with the computers next highest kill count is 8-9. Pretty sad.

I'm only focusing on the single player aspect of this game, I'll leave multiplayer to someone who's wants to review it.

[Maegtelluma]

I wrote a review for this at BF, Ill copy and paste some of it here either tonight or tomorrow :). I like it a lot online, but in the larger servers there is some crazy lag. You have to lead your shots quite a bit, a load more than in CS.

[dunchy]

Well, were waiting Maeg :D

[Radical_Edward]

<radical-ed> im soooo happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<T3h_Hair> and why's that?
<radical-ed> i installed starwars battlefront!!!
<radical-ed> it works!!!!!!!!!!
<radical-ed> ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
<T3h_Hair> ...
<radical-ed> i love you internet!!!!
<T3h_Hair> you really do have low standards of happiness don't you?
<radical-ed> i love you file sharers!!!
<radical-ed> i love every1!!!!
<radical-ed> im soo happy!!!!
<radical-ed> ahahahahaha
<radical-ed> ii hope the patch doesnt wreck the game
<radical-ed> S***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<radical-ed> DAM PATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<radical-ed> ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
<T3h_Hair> LMAO
<radical-ed> F*** I HAVE TO REINSTALL NOW!!!!!!!!!!
<radical-ed> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
you cant play with a light saber? that sucks.

[Maegtelluma]

Eh.....here we go... I'm a weee bit lazy with this :)

This game is a BITCH to install. There are three discs, with no mention in the instruction booklet. So, I'm halfway through, and it just stops. Then it terminates everything done, so I start over. Get 2/3 done, and it craps out again. Luckily at this point it starts saving progress. It still took me over an hour to install the thing, colossal pain in the ass. $50 for a PC game is also a little steep, but I guess that's something that will be normal before we know it.

I have not played any of the "story" yet, but I have played a lot of single player Instant Action. Some of the maps are very in depth and great, (Hoth, Geonosis, Cloud City, a few others.) These have good vehicle selections, nice "base locations", and mobile spawn points. However, some of the levels are utterly ugly. The Naboo Plaza map is damned near impossible if you draw the Trade Federation, because the Republic starts out in a completely walled off area but for one entrance. Of course, they camp, and you can't hardly hit them without getting blown away. The visual effects for bushes and grass are bad, it's difficult to see. There are some very cramped feeling levels, and poor vehicle selections/none at all. It doesn't make sense to have a Pilot (who heals in vehicles) when there are none.

Types of soliders: A nice variation of choices. You can choose your basic trooper (Stormtrooper, Super Battle Droid, etc.), which is basically a gunrunner who goes in shooting everything that moves. Second is the "artillery" trooper, they tote rocket launchers. Long reloads, but it's a one hit kill if you have any accuracy at all. Next is the pilot, which is useless on non-vehicle levels. They have a weaker gun, but if they're in a vehicle they heal. Snipers or "Scouts" come next. Sniping against AI is really easy, but if you run out of shots you're screwed, as the basic pistol is awfully difficult to use. Lastly is the "special" unit. This was interesting, because it kind of evened the scales. For all purposes, Trade Federation units are WAY weaker than everything else, probably because they're mass produced. To make up for this, they get Droidekas (Destroyer Droids). They kick ass, but the rolling takes a lot of getting used to. Expect a lot of crashes into walls at first. They shoot very fast and are accurate. Two to three hits is usually a kill. The Rebels get Wookiees, which have the basic bowcaster, the Empire gets the Dark Troopers and the Republic gets (I believe) the "Jet trooper". Droidekas are by far the best of the lot here, but you do have about a 2 second delay to "unroll", so you have to start out a little farther away from the battle than usual.

Vehicles: They did a pretty good job overall with these. I have two complaints. First, the speeder bikes. They're hard as hell to steer, especially in the woods levels, which have randomly placed trees and rocks that are impossible to avoid at the good clip that these things travel at. Secondly, the X-wings/TIEs are difficult to get used to. The controls are inverted and quite sensitive. There is also a rather low "ceiling", meaning that an X-wing is hardly out of spitting distance of the troops on the ground. When giant rocks protrude from the ground you're bound to hit one within thirty seconds of your flight's departure.
Most of the other vehicles work out well, though. The AT-AT, AT-ST and AT-TE are all very difficult to destroy, but it can be done. They are painfully slow, it takes a couple of minutes to walk to within sight of the the battlezone on Hoth, which gives a bit of a disadvantage to the Empire, but the Empire has won each game that I've played on that map. I found that the Speeders are rather overpowered, sporting dual rockets that fire quite quickly. There is a great selection of vehicles from the movies, I was impressed on that point.

"On the Ground": Difficult to get used to at the beginning, but it's fun. Sniping is quite easy, but it takes a few shots for a kill if you dont get the headshot (assuming that your foe is a footsoldier at normal health). Unfortunately for some, the AI is dumb as a post. On my second round, I went 32-5 with god knows how many base captures. However, if you run into a group of 4+ enemy, you WILL die unless you have a vehicle, which is a little annoying. On normal mode some enemies just stand there, literally asking you to snipe them, which is painfully easy. I was 48-0 at one point on Geonosis without sniping at all, if that gives you any idea. I expect that this will be better online, as human intellect is obviously superior to this AI.

Overall, a great game, but there are some things that just got me going. Mainly, the "grass graphics", the installation and the hard to control vehicles. It would also be nice if the AI was a little better, but I'm sure it's more challenging on the higher level. It's worth my money, I'll get a lot of play out of it. But if you're not a Star Wars fan, you can get the same shooter for probably less money. The real appeal here is the use of the Star wars vehicles and characters. Other thing is online, it's going to be a race for vehicles. It's not out of the question for one person to acquire thirty to forty kills in an AT-TE without getting a single death if he knows what he's doing. Just grab the rockets and BAM, I've got to assume that half of the online players have to use rockets to take out the vehicles.

*discuss*

-Maeg

))


Some has changed obviously, since I have played a lot since the time I wrote this. I can fly now (really!) and I can hold my own online. Discuss!

[Raging-Fury]

i have battlefront for xbox and agree with ur points maeg, but i must add that the sniper should also be called partial artillery with the airstrikes it can call from its probe, the probe is pathetically weak but pretty quick and can dance until the strike is called, the strike is a good weapon against packed forces or pain in the ass jedi's overall it was a good game, teh speeders ya they fire missles too fast but their reload time is a bitch, i hate the republic's walker for the Rhen-Var harbor level because the CLS tanks are an unstoppable force in comparison but the game is good overall for a first or third person shooter depending on your preferences

P.S. to win hoth grab a rebel soldier and a snow speeder, strafe their forward encampment and capture it hten do strafing runs on the guys spawning at the walkers (an incredibly huge amount) ive won hoth in 5 minutes from the rebel side because i captured all the command posts