Angry Joe has reviewed Star Wars Battlefront, and he is angry at EA for ruining the game. I doubt anyone is surprised at that. It is what he does, dress up in nice costumes and vent rage — often shared by many players — at games. He also points out, multiple times, that Battlefront is one of the best looking games out there, one of the best games for Star Wars fans, and really not something any Star Wars fanboy would want to miss. It is just that EA could do even more with it than we’ve got so far with the initial release.
I’m a Star Wars fan, and enjoyed this game’s predecessors, especially Battlefront II (yes, don’t worry about the numbering, this is like those movie reboots). I’m not tired of playing this game yet, nor bored with it, even though I do wish for more content. One reason that I play games is for the immersive sensual experience. The adrenaline rush feeling of being inside the action of a movie, in a life or death situation, with breathtaking scenery and amazing shots, moves, and victories. This game gives me that. Turn off the HUD, and you will be watching game play which looks and feels like it belongs in an actual Star Wars movie.
DICE has a winner here. The people who want that experience are not going to be disappointed playing this game.
So if you are a Star Wars fan, or want to play the best looking shooter and like science fiction action, get this game. You’ll have fun and it will be worth your money.
It probably will even be worth your money with the Season Pass. Because the game does need more content in order to maintain variety and interest, I don’t think that is going to be an optional purchase for fans of this game. There is no real reward for getting it before the first DLC is released (or at least, two weeks before for the early access), but unless the DLCs are way below the standards of the release game maps, they’ll be worth the money. We just don’t know yet how good they can be.
Until that point, what do we have to keep our interest? There are a lot of game modes, and Four large world maps and nine small maps in the release, plus one large and one small in Battle Of Jakku. So five large epic maps and ten small ones for battlegrounds. Good thing that they are pretty awesome maps, because in terms of numbers, this is way less than most multiplayer games at this price point. Far less than any Battlefield game, or Battlefront II. The DLCs are essential to expand play variety. I expect some free material as well as the paid DLC, but DICE hasn’t yet offered us a clue as to what the future content is actually going to be like.
The map realism is part of the reason for the limited variety. The scenery is taken from actual locations used in the movies and from the movies themselves, and you can reproduce shots from the movies within the game engine. The sound is also taken from the movie, and is also pretty much perfect. Has anyone ever done movie authenticity as well as this?
Ranking up and unlocking items is another thing to chase. The carrot of new shiny stuff, especially if it is powerful and useful in the game, is a strong incentive to keep playing until you get everything you want. It should be good for a month or two of play, as you go after not just the obvious useful weapons, but also the decorative collectable sorts of items and achievements. This kind of thing can keep you playing even while you are still learning the skills to be good, or at least not incompetent, at the game.
There is a learning curve too. The weapons do require skill, but the combinations of Star Card devices, weapons, and clever moves, as well as map tactics, adds enough complexity to make the effort to master this game feel like fun, not work. The ranking up aspect is also pretty much fun, as you really don’t have to do too many things you wouldn’t otherwise do in normal play in order to rank up fast.
The bigger game modes tend to be more popular. In rough order now: Walker Assault, Supremacy, Fighter Squadron,Turning Point, Drop Zone. While Drop Zone is a smaller map size, the action tends to be more focused as in the big epic game modes, and that makes it feel a bit closer to the epic scale of the action in the game. The other, smaller game modes do offer variety, and that is important too. You sometimes want to take a break from the hard-fought tactical battles, and do something a bit lighter. These smaller modes especially lend themselves well to playing with friends. I’d especially recommend Droid Roundup (Droid Run), Cargo, Hero Hunt, and Heroes vs Villains. These also make use of the two smallest maps (Imperial and Rebel bases), which use areas not otherwise used in the larger game modes.
In short, there is enough to see and do in this game to play for a long time. You’ll get your money’s worth if you stick with it.
What’s Missing?
I’m not going to hit Angry Joe’s points one by one directly. There are a lot of reviews pointing out things which could be improved. So here is a short list:
- Weapon and Character unlock content.
- Single player play, especially the lack of a campaign story.
- Good but limited number of maps. Mentioned above, because you’ll notice this quickly, and don’t know what future DLC will bring.
- Imperfect multiplayer game support, especially for community play.
There are 11 Blaster weapons in the game. While this may seem like a small selection compared to the wider offerings in the Battlefield games, it is actually quite sufficient. You really don’t need more than one gun which fills a specific role, and all blasters share the same basic ballistics, so you don’t really get to vary those for more variety. There are a lot of devices and weapons from the Star Wars Universe (and previous Battlefront games) which could be added, but many of them would be Star Card and Power Up pick up weapons. A number of those aren’t in the game yet, and will probably be part of the 20-something items we get in the DLC. In yet another way, we are stuck waiting to get the complete (Ultimate/Deluxe/Season Pass) version of the game.
Character customization could use more options, especially for the Imperial side. Just taking off the helmet and choosing a hairstyle isn’t quite enough variety. Besides, I’d rather look at more cool helmets and armor/equipment sets than faces, for the usually faceless Storm Troopers.
Oh, quick note: the Deluxe version, for an extra $10, gives you three weapons you unlock in a few weeks — two in the first week of play, and one after a while. The unique content are Emotes — actions you can take to show off for other players in the game, but which don’t affect combat. Nothing cool like a couple of extra custom skins, or something of real value when playing the game. It is just a pretty expensive short cut kit otherwise, and not really worth it if you are going to play this game regularly.
Single Player. Will you play it much after completing the sparse offerings? Or even play it at all?
The stuff which is there isn’t bad, but it is short. The Tutorials offer some pretty nice mini-stories, which tend to last about three to five minutes. Nice little appetizers, but not a meal (or a campaign).
The Battles are just standard multiplayer games. Except they are essentially offline, with AI opponents, no rank up or credits, and as a result end up feeling pointless. They do give you a way to play without Internet, which can be useful sometimes.
Survival is just a simple, survive waves (hordes) of attackers, game mode. It is pretty short too, and its only good side — and it is a pretty good one, since many games don’t do this — is its cooperative partner mode which supports split screen on console.
But the limited number of maps and scenarios really brings single player down. Battlefield has never been known for its campaigns, and Battlefront II’s campaign was really a string of single player Battles, with the results affecting the next one (or defeat forcing you to retry in order to continue). Its strength was a very solid story and voice acting, with some nice cut scenes, to make you feel that your actions in the game were actually an important part of the movie universe.
Couldn’t they come up with a comparable story and do the same thing with this game? The Clone Wars storyline obviously can’t be lifted whole, and we’d be more likely to root for a Rebel storyline than Battlefront II’s mixed loyalties, but something could be done. Even as a DLC, it might be worthwhile from a player’s standpoint. The art, script, and voice acting could cost a bit. I found the Battlefront II story to be replayable, simply because the story was pretty good. The bit where you get to take the heroes and use them in your battle (scripted based on results and situation) adds to the movie feel of the story.
Long term play, though, is going to be multiplayer. I can see why EA focused on this, because a lot of people are going to look at things like Tutorials and Survival and think “I don’t need that to know how to play.”
Multiplayer maps are amazing in quality, horrible in quantity. With only FOUR maps at the start for the big modes, plus Jakku, there simply isn’t enough variety to avoid eventual boredom. The beauty of the maps and the great game play on them can make up for this for a while, but eventually, having so few maps is going to hurt. We need to see new places, and if the game doesn’t eventually come with enough of them, it may not survive. That would be really bad, because the game design is simply amazing. The best movie scenery in any game so far. If the DLC come with four BIG WORLD maps each, that would be enough to make this work. I mention this because Battlefront II is still playable, though the loss of the multiplayer servers does make more work for players to get together. A game which is still played after TEN or more years is definitely a success, and I hope that DICE and EA won’t drop the ball on this element for Battlefront.
How about the way Matchmaking finds games for you? Or on bad days, doesn’t find any. Or in between, drops you in games with RED connections (bad ping), with no warning until you join?
The use of matchmaking systems rather than server selections is a design choice, and when it works well (and it does do so often enough in Battlefront), you get a full match with a good variety of players each time, and fairly fast. The speed does matter. Battlefront doesn’t keep you out of the action long waiting to find a game, or to respawn after you die. For players playing without a group of friends, this is totally awesome.
The game won’t start without enough players for the game mode. So if there is a mode you want to play, even if you have a few players or friends willing to join in, but not enough other players are available, you are stuck waiting. The matchmaking is designed not to put you in games which won’t fill up, though it can (and you can lose team mates who drop out at the start too). You also can’t avoid getting matched into a game with a poor connection to you, with resulting difficulties in actually playing.
The Challenges encourage you to try more game modes, often only for the three wins you need for the bonus score, but it is enough to make it worth doing. But not if you can’t find other players to play with.
The top, most popular modes are pretty reliable for getting players. But the other modes are there to enjoy, but it would be nice if we could be assured of actually being able to play them. Even if it starts with too few players to do it, I think it would be better than keeping players waiting forever.
The Partner system avoids any worries about squads and team organization, which has its positives. The biggest is that you only need one cooperative player to work with, rather than three to five, so staying organized is easier. You can still play with friends in parties, but you can’t spawn with them. The respawn system makes it easy to stay in the action as long as either you or your partner can stay alive. There is no respawn delay in this game, so you aren’t stuck waiting and watching a long while if you die.
But there are no team voice communications either. I’m sure that friends forming parties will have their voice chat running outside the game, which is fine. But there is nothing in the game to let you talk to other players. You can use emotes — if they notice you and realize what your gestures mean. On PC you can use text, which is OK, but not as fast as talking. Given that the objectives tend to be pretty clear in this game — go for the nearest marked target — that isn’t critical for game play, but it does affect the cooperative, community side of multiplayer.
Community gaming. Playing with friends is a big part of online multiplayer games. It is a large part of what keeps the best games going and going, even long after release. In order for this to work, the game has to offer players a way to actually play together. And optimally, to both play ONLY with selected friends, or with special rules. Or just to explore maps without actually playing the game by the rules at all, sandbox style. Machinima movie makers really love that, and the visuals in this game would give that some spectacular potential for amazing videos.
We don’t get any of that yet. Making private matches is probably not too hard to pull off, and I can’t see DICE being against doing it, but they aren’t available now. Custom private SERVERS — games that any player can enter, or which are persistent and available to a group of players even if all quit for a while — offer a way for players to get into games with known, predictable pings (and thus online performance). The downside of both of these is that the online progression system and game play is geared to full games. Any private games may have to give up player rewards in exchange for player freedom.
A compromise would allow private games which meet the open game requirements to still score rewards, and thus allow players to advance while enjoying more freedom and choices of play style and environment.
This is a game which is designed to appeal to casual, movie fan players as well as serious FPS gamers. But organized or even informal matches with friends (or against groups of other friends) do add to the community element of the game play. Players are more likely to keep playing games when they get to share the experience with their friends.
If EA and DICE would say “Yes, we are going to add private matches/games,” we would both know and could patiently wait. Or they could say no, and we’d know that the way multiplayer is now is how it is always going to be. I’m hoping for a positive result here, but until then, the game is missing an element which really could benefit and expand the multiplayer community. After all, the main reason we play games is to have fun, and to do that, we need the freedom to play as we like.
On to some short stuff:
Space Combat: We have Fighter Squadron, and I think that a setting either on an airless planet or above an asteroid field would work with it, giving us a space environment. Battlefront III’s (cancelled) concept of an integrated space and planet layer system, where fighters could take off from Endor and defend the Death Star (or attack it) sounds exciting, but the scale of it frankly might require the equivalent of Planetside 2 to support the environment, both in map size and player count. Cool idea, hey? But Battlefront II’s space combat really didn’t work well as purely multiplayer (it needed AI players to fill roles and be targets, but so does Fighter Squadron), and it rewarded attacking the Star Destroyer far above actually fighting other players in space. And you don’t really get map variety in space — only the choice between Clone Wars or Rebellion. Still, maybe DICE can come up with another vehicle-heavy mode which can work out well, to add variety.
The equipment mix and classes in Battlefront II were derivative from Battlefield 2 (by design), and the new Battlefront eliminates all that in order to make it feel like its own game. And also to make it feel more true to the Star Wars universe. People who worried that this was going to be Battlefield 4: Star Wars won’t be disappointed. Those who wanted that, sorry. That isn’t what either DICE or many players wanted. The basic classes were designed to be roughly equal but different. You are supposed to be able to emulate them via your weapon choice and Star Card selection in Battlefront. And that is close enough, for the basic classes.
What we don’t get are the more exotic, more powerful characters. These worked sort of like the hero power ups, but the characters weren’t as powerful as the heroes — and there were more of them available on the battlefield. An officer, with some team supporting abilities (like Leia or the Emperor). A more powerful soldier, with a power-up weapon like the Arc or Chain blaster (these weapons might appear later). A cool element was that your character’s appearance changed to reflect your new ability, as long as you stayed alive. You got to be a Bothan (stealth) or Wookie (reusable Blaster Bow), and so on. This sort of thing also could still be fitted into the game, either with map pickups or Star Card customizations or such.
No Prequel content. That is a downside for player variety, as there are a lot of good hero and villain characters in the prequels, as well as weapons and planets. Of course, more Jedi, that is a given with the era. But we can expect some new ones of those along with the new movies. Maybe we’ll get to see Kyle Katarn and Mara Jade from the expanded universe, but we are sure to get some cool things along with the new movies.
The Prequels would be, in essence, a whole new game with new maps and characters. You couldn’t mix and match both eras together. You would have to choose which one to play, right at the start when joining a game. With Battlefront II’s server system, that wasn’t a problem. But the new Battlefront’s progression system doesn’t lend itself easily to tracking your progress both as a Droid soldier and a human (or at least live alien). The necessary content to flesh out another era would be the equivalent of a couple DLC packs at least, if not a full expansion. The vastly improved map visuals and models pretty much doom the more flexible expansion that the older games offered. Could DICE make a prequel expansion? Or could they add it as DLC?
It is a lot of maps and new content. The key reason to do it is that, with the new movies coming out, there might not be another chance to have a good game based on the cool elements from the first three Episodes. You also get more Jedi combat and heroes that way. But they aren’t as popular as the original trilogy, and won’t really help tie in with sales from the new movies. If you want this, you are going to need to be pretty persuasive and get DICE and EA to find a way to make it happen. Possibly, paying even more money for this game.
The price is a big issue, to many people. But the fact is, a lot of games now in their complete (deluxe, ultimate, etc.) package are $110-120 US. The use of DLC to extend the life of a game and allow for follow-on content to come out after the initial game-engine and core release is normal. It is too late to complain, the change has already happened.
I’m a Star Wars fan. I love the Battlefront experience. The game has the potential to be, with more DLC content, free or paid, to be a really great game. Not just a great Star Wars game. It is up to EA and DICE to make that happen.
