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The best experience in the Star Wars gaming universe just got better

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 172 / 186
Date: November 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Star Wars Battlefront II (2005.) The second game in the Star Wars Battlefront series.

INTRODUCTION:
In 2004, Star Wars Battlefront was released. Although not wildly popular at its time of release, the game gradually won many gamers over with its awesome gameplay. The deathmatch-style gaming in a galaxy far, far away ended up becoming the best-selling Star Wars game of all time! Still, while it was one of the best Star Wars games ever, it did lack in a few areas, and it left fans yearning for a sequel. One finally arrived in the Fall of 2005! Is it an improvement? Read on for my review of Star Wars Battlefront II.

OVERVIEW:
Star Wars Battlefront II was released in America on November 1, 2005 - the same day Episode III was released on DVD in the United States. The game features single player and multi-man action alike. There are a ton of different characters, classes, locales, and game variants. The game is available for Playstation 2, Playstation Portable, XBOX, and PC.

REVIEW:
I had high expectations for this game, being that the first Battlefront was one of my all-time favorite Star Wars gaming experiences. The sequel takes this already-excellent formula, and makes it even better in a number of ways! Let's see how it fares.

-THE GOOD:

-THE GAMEPLAY THAT MADE THE ORIGINAL BATTLEFRONT SUCH A GREAT GAME MAKES A COMEBACK HERE. The original game was a Star Wars fan favorite, and I'm not at all surprised that the basic gameplay concepts, for the most part, remain unchanged in most modes of play.

-THE STORY MODE HAS GOTTEN A REVAMP. Rather than just generic battles aroun the galaxy, it has become mission and objective-oriented. The alteration makes for a refreshing change of pace from the standard battle games.

-TONS OF NEW LOCATIONS TO TAKE THE FIGHT TO. The locales you'll explore in this game have greatly been expanded. Now, you can fight in a great deal more places than the first game. Episode III worlds like Utapau and Mustafar are now playable, as well as other classic Star Wars scenes like Dagobah and the interior of the Death Star.

-SPACE COMBAT! This is the thing the game is getting a lot of hype for. You can now do your battles in space! The sheer amount of options in such a battle makes these some of the funnest things the game offers. You can fly a starfighter and attack enemy ships from the outside, or land in their docks and cause destruction from the inside out (and maybe even steal an enemy fighter!) This is definitely one of the game's best features.

-JEDI/SITH CHARACTERS NOW PLAYABLE. Such characters were just "extras" on the battle scenes of the first Battlefront, but now they are playable! In your battles, sometimes you'll get an option to play as one if you fulfill certain objectives. Now a whole cast of them is available for play, and it definitely makes your fights more interesting.

-LOTS OF OTHER NEW STUFF. For instance, in some battles, you can earn points by killing foes, and my killing them and getting these points you can choose from other character classes that weren't available at the beginning of the battle. There are also tons of new vehicles, including many that premiered in Episode III.

-GRAPHICS ARE BETTER THAN EVER! If you thought the first Battlefront had great graphics, you haven't seen anything yet. This is about as good as a game of this type could possible look.

-THE BAD:

-THE OBJECTIVE-ORIENTED STORY MODE CAN BE FRUSTRATING. I myself would have preferred it if Story Mode has just kept the standard gameplay styings. However, I am NOT saying that this chance to the gameplay was all bad, it's just not what I was expecting in some ways.

-LEARNING CURVE IS STEEPER THAN MOST STAR WARS GAMES. The Battlefront series was obviously designed with PC gamers in mind father than the console crowd, so these games are a little harder to learn than the other Star Wars titles. Give the game some time before you reject it - you may end up liking it more than any other Star Wars game!

Overall, the sequel to the best-selling Star Wars game of all time is even better than its awesome-in-its-own-right predecessor. If you liked the first Battlefront, you're bound to like the second one even better. I give it my highest possible recommendation if you're a fan of Star Wars. Pick this one up. It may be a little hard to learn if you're new to this sort of thing, but ultimately, you should agree that this game rocks.

EDITION NOTES:
This game is a very recent release at the time I write this review. Accordingly, you really shouldn't have any problem hunting down a copy of it for yourself. Just about every place that sells video games should have plenty of new copies, just waiting to be sold.

WHOLE NEW GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 77 / 97
Date: November 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is different, I bought battlefront II thinking "I master Battlefront I on hard level in one day, so I should be able to jump right into battlefront II and wipe everyone out" Not!! When I 1st got the game I went right to Galactic Conquest I click on the 1st selection and I was fighting in space and was very excited until I got kill 15 times!! (most I ever died in Battlefront I was 4 times) then to top it off I couldn't shot down any ships, I became very frustrated!!! Then I exited the space fighting and went to Genoese to do land battle (which I know I'm expert at) then I was being killed there every minute and I had hard time understand were my life meter was, how to reload ammo etc... I was ready to give up on the game and understood why some people said Battlefront II isn't as good as Battlefront I.

Then I decided to started the game from the beginning and went through "Training" which is Very easy but that is where I learn how I can change my trooper in the middle of the game (without having to kill myself, is a great new feature!!) and how to use a Jedi, after the training was done I went to "Over View of Space" where it tells you to do "Rise of the Empire" Your on land at 1st, which is easy to accomplish but you learn how to take down shields and find object to take back to base or to a ship. Then your in space where it teaches you how to fly, how to lock on the targets, and how to fly into enemies hangers and blow up their ships. After completing all the task in the training & Rise of the empire, then I jump into Galactic Conquest and I did so Much Better and I now LOVE Battlefront II.

It's so much more challenging Then BFI, you can't accomplish BFII in one day, which I like!! BFI my 4yr old can play it and get score as high as me, but BFII is to hard for him as it should be. There are more troops & vehicles to choose from. And I don't understand why other say the graphic are bad, maybe they have cheap TV's. But on my 32" flat screen TV the graphic are crystal clear for me, the planets have more detail and are almost real looking, the wookies look a lot better then they did in Battlefront I. There are so many more planets to choose from and fighting in space is a great feature when you get tired of doing land battles.

The best advice I can give: I don't care how good you are at Battlefront I, this is a Whole new game with different features so I suggest going through "Training" and "Rise of the Empire" before conquering the galaxy and you'll like the game much better I do. BFII IS SO MUCH BETTER THEN BFI!! can't wait for BFIII

Great Improvements but H-HARD!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: November 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I haven't played through the whole game yet but the improvements I have seen so far are very good. However before I get to the changes in game play I have to say that this game makes Battlefront I look like a walk in the park. The space battles are HARD and when I say "HARD" I mean borderline "IMPOSSIBLE". Flying over to land on an opposing ship with turbo lasers frying anything that gets close to it only to land (if you make it) and have 10 enemy pilots waiting to blast you when you step out of the cockpit as well as automated blasters guarding vital systems that you need to blow up equals a lot of controller hurling frustration.

On the positive side the playable heroes are powerful but unfortunately seem to function more as temporary bonuses rather than "characters". Heroes can only be accessed during certain points in a battle and are limited to their own boards. For example you can't play as Han Solo during the Clone Wars. Once a hero is killed you'll be waiting awhile for them to respawn unless you change the settings.

The graphics are much improved over the first game but as a trade off (on the PS2 version) the game does suffer from choppy animation and even slowdown at times. As far as sound goes you will still get tired of hearing "They've captured a command post!" but having voice actors that at least sound similar to the each of the heroes was a nice touch.

Battlefront II also ushers in some new game play modes including the 501st mode which is Battlefront's version of a story mode that follows the storyline of the films. Some older modes have been given a new amount of depth including a much deeper, sophisticated Galactic Conquest mode and better Instant Action mode that lets you incorporate heroes right from the start (rather than having to unlock them)

All in all this is probably the most comprehensive, "all purpose" Star Wars game in awhile. While most Star Wars games focus on the events of specific movie or on characters that don't even appear in the movies, this game spans ALL the movies and has every major character, minion, and vehicle represented and playable in some way. You can't ask for much more than that...

The best gets better . . . .

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: November 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

A lot of people are down on this game, but I liken that to when the new Air Jordans used to come out. At first some people would be like "yo, those things look terrible" and then two weeks later they are, as usual, the hottest shoe on the market.

People always bitch and moan about interface changes, moving the health meter from one place to another, not allowing you to reload until the ammo is depleted, etc. If this is what you're mad about, it just goes to show how great the game is.

The good :

More levels - Space, inside the death star, coruscant, etc. The old game had a good variety, the new one just expands on that.

Left some old boards - Hoth is the same, but looks better. I think this is awesome personally. Go play hoth on BF1 and then play it on BF2 and tell me the graphics and presentation aren't MUCH better on this game.

Space combat - Waahh, this is too hard, I get killed too much. that's the idea, it's not easy. This is the best space combat since X wing vs Tie Fighter. GREAT addition

Jedi's - Some people don't like them, I love them. The very first thing I saw on my first spawn in this game was Grievous running at me with 4 light sabers. CRAZY! They aren't omnipotent either, cause I killed Vader on my second board ever played.

More units - Commanders (with chain gun), etc. I don't remember all the names but there are now up to 6-7 units that you can play with.

Changed the Vanguards - By far the cheapest unit in the last game, they aren't as cheap now. mines are a bit easier to see, and the rocket launcher takes a bit longer to reload. good balance on the characters.

More vehicles - The mini walkers, more tanks, better design of the speeder bikes, etc. The vehicles rule in this new version.

Doors open and close - A small addition that is great. On Kamino and in the death star these little touches are extremely good.

More high/low play - You have more opportunities to use the high ground, or to run up and down hills than the last game which seemed to focus on straight combat.

The bad :
You have to earn the right to play with new characters - This means that the better player, who puts in more time, will not only be better overall, but will have a more diverse selection of playable characters. I don't necessarily like this.

Less AI units in online play - I didn't see a single AI last night in about 3 hours of play on 5-6 different servers. I like killing AI's.

HORRIBLE TEXT on honors screen - I have a 32" HDTV and I use top notch equipment and this stuff is still blurry. Unacceptable.

No Bespin - These two were my favorite maps and I understand they aren't on the new game. I might play BF1 just to play down the hallways in bespin.

Anyway, this game is CLEARLY superior the old game in most every way, and anyone who says differently is just complaining to complain.

A Must-Have for any PS2 Gamer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Star Wars Battlefront II is a great sequel to a wonderful game. Numerous game balance issues have been remedied, and new features bring interesting challenges.

First, the basic premise. This game is all about massive scale battles on pretty much any location thought of in the Star Wars universe. You can run around the streets of Tattoine, jumping from sandstone building to building, mowing down rebel forces. You can explore Hoth, fighting off the snow. Even the meteorite featured for a few seconds when Padme gave birth is here.

With this wealth of locations, you also get a huge selection of unit types. There are traditional stormtroopers, snowtroopers, sandtroopers. You get jawas and tuskan raiders. You can even play as a jedi for a short period of time, to give your team an edge.

There are all sorts of game modes to play in. There's Galactic Conquest which gives you a giant galaxy map of the planets, and you move fleets of ships across them, taking on one planet at a time. Your aim of course is to take them all over. There's cool games like capture the flag and hunt, for quick, fun gameplay.

I love the fact that the world is so in depth. For example, you can be flying your shuttle in space, dodging laser bullets from other ships, with a planet spinning below. If you fly your shuttle into an enemy ship, you can actually hop out and start running around IN the ship, shooting out the troops. You can even attack the systems of the ship - like the shields and engines - to damage the ship. In the background you can see other battles going on, giving your actions an epic feel.

It's important to note that this is not an EASY game. There is a lot to learn here. You can switch characters on the fly, earn points to unlock items, earn bonusses mid-game to upgrade weapons, and much more. It's really key to do the training missions and understand how this all works.

The graphics are really stunning. The textures on the building, the character models, the general look and feel of each world, was clearly done with an eye to detail. The sound is equally good, providing the original sound styles from the Star Wars world to draw you in to the environment.

Highly, highly recommended!

A great game, but needs some work

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: November 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Me, along with many millions of other die-hard Star Wars fans, have anxiously awaited Battlefront II for almost a year. So, November 1, I rushed to the store and purchased it along with the Revenge of the Sith DVD. I immediately went home, popped it in my PS2, and sat down on my couch.

It tops Battlefront I. Yes, it does. If you're like me, you like every video game menu to be organized and easy to access different game modes and features. This is partly why I liked Battlefront I so much because it has that. Its sequel does not.

The menu is sort of all over the place, and has no description of any game mode or anything.

I almost always play Galactic Conquest mode while playing both versions of Battlefront, so naturally it was the first thing I went to. It's pretty hard to navigate through this also. Instead of earning planetary bonuses as you conquer planets, you spend credits you earn in battle to buy them before every battle you fight.

The best is hero. You can play as MANY MANY MANY Jedi and Sith, including Darth Maul, General Grievous, Aayla Secura, Yoda, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu, just to name a few. You can perform two Force powers not including Force Jump. Each character also has his own voice and stuff. It's pretty sweet finally being able to play as a Jedi.

Many of you guys probably are looking forward to space battles. I was too. I was disappointed. Space battles are UNBELIEVABLY hard to manuever. Before long I was doing strange 360 turns when I wasn't even realizing it. Next thing I knew I crashed into my flagship, blowing myself up. Sorry, Lucasarts, these space battles NEED MAJOR WORK.

The new locales, especially the ones from Episode III, are amazing but some of the graphics are cheesey, especially on Mustafar. Looking out over the lava...well, it just looks very weird and unrealistic. But anyway, its fun to finally play on Coruscant, Mygeeto, Felucia, and other cool places.

Anyway, not a bad game. In fact, its pretty addictive. But it needs some work. Overall, buy it. It's still worth your money.

Absolutely incredible letdown

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 21
Date: November 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

After a week plus with this game, my initial reaction has been confirmed time and time again - This is a true hack job, an incredible disappointment and waste of money for most consumers. The graphic interface on this game is truly atrocious - overly busy, frequent pixelation, freezeups, useless maps, illegible fonts, the list goes on. Countless fellow fans have commented to me that the game seems untested, because no sane person would approve this mess!

Just try reading the summary page after each battle - it's impossible! Could we have audio during the loading page? Did someone just forget that? Clones are copies of Jango Fett, so why didn't Mr. Temuera Morrison provide voiceovers for them? He did for stormtroopers, but someone else (seemingly Troy McClure) was cast as the clones. Who was in charge of continuity?

Battlefront 1 was a graphic masterpiece because the visuals never got in the way of the gameplay. Battlefront 2 does feature smarter AI, more classes, and some excellent new planets, but the interface makes any improvements moot. Lucasarts needs to go back to Battlefront 1 and the brilliant Bounty Hunter to refind how to present the Star Wars galaxy in videogames. I've already loaned this game out to people who have returned it with the statement "Thanks for saving me the $50, this is awful". Save yourself the money too. This game isn't worth it.

Awesome, as good as Halo 2.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was curious about his game some people were nuts about, so I borrowed it from a friend, and LOVED it! Some of the missions can be challenging, but you eventually get them done. Now for an organised Review:

Graphics: Pretty good. Not as good as Halo 2, since there's no expressions, but some of the special effects are done nicely.
4/5

Gameplay: Very difficult to just pick up and play, but play a few easy missions like Kamino, and you'll be destroying droidekas in no time. In the missions, if you get enough kills, you unlock 2 special troops, each with special abilities. Also, if you do good enough and get lots of kills without dying, you get to play as a Hero, and deal some serious damage. Have a hard time using your hero? Do Assault on Mos Eisly Cantina, and you'll get to practice aginst other heros and Villains in the Ultimate fragfest.
5/5

Durability: Tons of Missions to do and areas to explore, making this quite a worthwile game. VERY long, should actually take you a few days to beat, like a good game should.
5/5

Multiplayer:
Has a few downsides, like getting a mode you don't want, but there's one downside here: Only 2 Players at once can play on Xbox Live. But, fortunately, this game has the tendancy to not get into too extreme competition, unlike Halo 2, which makes the split-screen much better than Xbox Live.
4/5

Overall, this is by far the best StarWars game ever. give it: 5/5. A must-have for any Star Wars fan. I hope you enjoyed this game as much as I did.

The best Star Wars game I have ever seen!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off, let me say that I do own Battlefront I. The gameplay was amazing, but the game had one main fault... every level was won in the same way. Either you depleted your enemied reinforcements or captured and held all of the command posts for 20 seconds. Star wars Battlefront II has remedied this problem.
First off is The Rise of the Empire game mode. This is the new campaign, where you actually have objectives to accomplish. At first, playing on the regular setting, I found this mode to be rather simple, but as the missions went on I found myself losing more and more. The new Galactic Conquest is put in a new board game form. You must build "fleets", and move them around the field capturing enemy planets and destroying their fleets. You must also buy your powers and units (yes, I said units. You only start off with the soldier class until you buy the other classes.) with credits you obtain from fighting a battle. Instant action has been changed in that it now offers more than one way to play. The differant modes are capture the flag, assault,(you destroy stuff to get points and the first to reach ____ points wins.)hunt,(natives versus a normal side. Both are playable)and the original style of conquest. Note: you have unlimited reinforcements for assult and capture the flag.
Many people have complained about the graphics. If you played the demo, you might, as I did, worry about the graphics. The graphics are in the same style as in the demo, but are greatly improved. Everything looks almost real. The new Screen layout will take time to get used to, but if you go through training you'll get used to it in no time.
Space battle has been the biggest complaint apparently. I found that it is awesome, and has a certain rhytheme to it. The people who comlain probably didn't watch the space overview. But let me tell you: This game is way harder than the original and if you don't go through the training level and watch the video you will hate this game. I don't think the contols are bad at all. It all depends on what kind of ship you use. A bomber or transport will obviously get gunned down faster than an interceptor or regular starfighter.
Overall, this game is great. The presentation is awesome, and little touches you might overlook, or notice right away, make this game better than the original. Jedi are amazing AND OPTIONAL, so I have no complaints there. I hope this review helped.

This game is more frustrating than fun, and a huge disapointment.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 16
Date: November 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Make no mistake, this game is not better than part one. It does not even approach the level of fun that part one did. I would rate this game as a 4.0 out of 10, while part one would be a 9.0.

I don't know who is reviewing the game so glowingly (and misleading), (he sounds like a cross between a Luftwaffe Oberst and Sith), but he is probably connected in some way to either the game publisher, or Lucas' marketing empire. I find it extremely difficult to believe that a real gamer, a true "civilian" that is not part of industry would feel that it is truely necessary to begin their review with an introduction and overview that sound suspiciously like an advertisement I read over the weekend.

I (unfortanately) purchased this game and promptly sold it a week later. The GRAPHICS are WORSE than part one: choppy, skipping, with a range of colors that is somehow diminshed from the original, just look at Kasshyyyk, it looks terrible.

The BATTLES are FRUSTRATING. The format is changed from part one. It is more difficult to mount counterattacks, and to defend, since the AI controls your team members, and you have almost no control as to what they do.

The new SPECIAL CHARACTERS are cool, however you can only play them after you shoot so many enemies. Then you are allowed to switch to the special character (such as yoda or han solo). But when you die, you lose the ability to choose your special character, and have to kill an all new amount of enemies.

Most disappointingly, the SPACE BATTLES are WORTHLESS. They might as well have not put in that aspect. I felt as if I was playing the old defender game. You spend most of your time flying a space ship, lost with no reference point, and no real way to perform offensive or defensive manuvers.

If this game had been released, and part one didn't exist, then maybe it would be an okay game to buy. BUT, that is not the case. Lucas set the bar extremely high with the quality of part one, and Star Wars Battlefron part 2, is just a dispicable way to milk the sequal cash cow.

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