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REVIEW: Star Wars BATTLEFRONT II (ps4, xbox one, pc - ps4 version tested)

4/12/2017

28 Comments

 
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I love Disney almost as much as I love Star Wars. When my kids were younger, I spent far too much money taking them to Disney World. I've spent the years since I last visited wanting to go back, and I dream - almost daily (and that's not an exaggeration) of being able to afford to.

It's hard to pin down what it is about the place which got under my skin.

I think, partly, it's because, for an organisation of that size and scope, Disney has an incredible ability to make every customer feel special. It would be easy to be cynical, but until you've experienced The Happiest Place On Earth, I urge you not to judge. There's something unique about the Disney parks, that comes from a singular approach to customer service.

I mean, go to pretty much any UK theme park and it's night and day in comparison with Disney parks. They might have the rides, but they don't take things to the next level; theming will be the bare minimum, food will mostly be bog-standard fare, staff are more likely to spit at you than engage you in conversation.... Disney fans can be obsessive, but they're obsessive because Disney treats them like they matter. 

When Disney bought Marvel, and then Star Wars, I was optimistic. I couldn't think of another company  that could handle those properties better. I knew that they would put pleasing audiences, by emphasising the creative side of things, at the forefront of the movies. By doing that they knew that profits would follow, but - as it has proved to be - the product always comes before the bottom line. 

So you've got to imagine, given the unprecedented backlash against Battlefront 2, that Disney and LucasFilm are regretting ever handing Star Wars over to Electronic Arts to look after; a company that very evidently puts profit over product.
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BAD GAME
Unfortunately, even before you get to the whole issue of microtransactions, Battlefront 2 isn't as good as its predecessor.

Responding to widespread disappointment with 2015's multiplayer-only Battlefront, EA might've included a campaign here, but it's woefully weak by modern standards. The story, such as it is, follows Iden Versio - an Imperial special forces agent - as she (because it's Star Wars) turns against her high-ranking Imperial father to defect to the Rebels.

That's all fine, but the story is sketched in. It makes an attempt at crowd-pleasing with ultimately jarring, levels in which you control the heroes of the original Star Wars Trilogy. What it means is very basic, very rote, FPS stages which add nothing to the genre; one interminably tedious level has you, as Luke Skywalker, swiping his lightsaber at challenge-free space cockroaches for what feels like an hour, while another has a bearded Han Solo wandering around Maz Kanata's castle looking for another man with a beard.

Exciting stuff.

Levels often reuse maps from the multiplayer portion of the game - with obvious alterations to funnel you through them. Something Star Wars should never be is boring, but throughout the single player game I felt I was trudging through syrup.

Worse still, it all feels a bit unfinished. Lacking is a final layer of polish - the graphics don't have the element of "wow" that you want from Star Wars, and pale next to the likes of Assassin's Creed Origins, Horizon Zero Dawn, or Call of Duty WW2. 

They feel, at times, almost last-gen; rough animation, textures that seem unfinished or rushed, and - something which really bothered me - when you get up close to X-Wings, TIE Fighters or AT-ATs, they seem to be about half the size they were in the films. Rogue One's U-Wing is shown here as about the size of an inflatable mattress, whereas in the film it was clearly big enough to accommodate an entire Rebel strike team.

Yes, only a total Star Wars nerd would care about that - but it demonstrates a lack of finesse and care.

Ultimately, you can almost hear a high-ranking EA exec saying: "Hopefully this'll shut them up".

Because, of course, EA really wanted to focus on the multiplayer - which it has done. And recent revelations have demonstrated why; that's where the money is.
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MIXED BAG
The multiplayer here is much as it was in the previous Battlefront; a mixture of big, 40-player battles and smaller skirmishes, this time set across the entirety of the three Star Wars trilogies.

Fact is, the Original Trilogy levels still have the same appeal to me, whereas the shinier Prequel maps are less interesting. The Force Awakens - again, you can blame this on the production design of the movie itself - feel similarly overthought, rather than the believable, ramshackle, nature of the original movies. Additionally, returning to a lot of the locations from the previous Battlefront - even if they're given new twists - has robbed them of their impact.

Gameplay is faster and more chaotic - and not necessarily for the better. You run, you die, you respawn, you die. Upping the pace has resulted in removing any sense of strategy. The previous Battlefront was also guilty of this, but somehow it worked better when you and your teammates where cornered and blasting away at the entirety of the enemy army. Here, in the early stages before you've become more of a damage sponge, it feels like slog, a repetitive grind to level up.

Mercifully, the highlight of multiplayer is Starfighter Assault; handling of the aerial vehicles has been tinkered with. Ships are now easier to fly, if - admittedly - somehow less realistic, but it's an improvement on what came before, and goes some way to capturing the essence of Star Wars. Something which can't be said for the rest of the game. 

You don't need me to recap the way EA has handled the release of Battlefront 2. The microtransactions have been removed post-release, and what remains is a relatively solid multiplayer shooter, with a ton of modes. Unfortunately, the pursuit of "Star Cards" and loot crates remains entirely random. Your progression as you play through the multiplayer is dependent more on luck than the hours you put in.

Removing the microtransactions has laid bare a game that was built around microtransactions, and is now exposed as a weird, oddly balanced - and confusing - experience. 
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PLUS IT
Electronic Arts is clearly regretting its decision to structure Battlefront 2 around encouraging players to pay cash on top of their original outlay; it has been a public relations disaster, while the company's shares have taken a pounding.

Thing is, it's unlikely the public would've cared as much if this hadn't been a Star Wars game. There's an added level of scrutiny when it comes to Star Wars, and there's no question that Battlefront 2 would've made a lot of money regardless; such is the nature of anything with the Star Wars logo slapped on it. If ever a game didn't need microtransactions to turn a profit it was this one. 

What rankles for me, though, just as much as the money-grabbing, is that lack of finesse in the campaign.

Whatever you might think of Disney owning Star Wars, one thing that Disney, and Star Wars, does better than almost anyone is storytelling. I mean, look at the Star Wars movies released since Disney took over; at great expense, three of the movies have had their directors either removed or sidelined because LucasFilm wasn't satisfied with how they were being handled. Heck, the Han Solo movie was almost entirely re-shot. 

The company understands that quality = happy audience = profits. 

PLUS SIZE
A key part of the Disney philosophy is to "plus" things. This basically means going above and beyond what its audience - its customers - expect. Disney doesn't need to end every day in its theme parks with a massive, expensive, fireworks display, but it does.

It doesn't need to furnish the queue lines of its rides with storytelling elements, but it does. Pixar doesn't need to spend years working on the script of its films, doesn't need to rework that story once production has started, but it does - and the quality that results is what reaps rewards. It respects its audiences enough not to shovel out shit, and the audiences pick up on that.

Disney and LucasFilm and Marvel are incredibly hands on - but it's apparent here that handing one of its most important properties to an outside company has backfired. You've got to wonder whether they're ruing the decision to close down LucasArts.

Decades ago, when Walt Disney wanted to hold a $350,000 Christmas parade at one of his parks, the company's accountants begged him not to do so; nobody was expecting it, so why bother? Walt's response was: “We should do the parade precisely because no one’s expecting it.”

Unfortunately, it feels as if EA's accountants were the ones in charge of Battlefront 2 - not the creatives. 

"Do the bare minimum, and work out a way to make as much money as possible."

What a massive shame. What a wasted opportunity.

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28 Comments
Jareth Smith
4/12/2017 09:46:53 am

Yeah, I was never going to get this anyway it looks like your standard, insipid AAA bilge. I spent the weekend playing the wonderfully charming indie title Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (which cost me £4) and I'll be picking up the stunning Teslagrad on Thursday as it's made it's way to the Switch.

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Alastair
4/12/2017 06:59:24 pm

That was a hoot, it got my tablet only offspring joining in.

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Jareth Smith
5/12/2017 09:09:53 am

Glad you enjoyed! It is awesome.

Super Bad Advice
4/12/2017 10:18:05 am

The thing I really, REALLy don't get is that after this disaster, and the half-arsed (but WAAAAY better than this) mess that was Mass Effect Andromeda, that head EA guy still came out and said something like 'people don't want single player stuff anymore'. Presumably before ending the press conference by diving Scrooge McDuck style into a pile of coins.

Thing is, people *do* want single player stuff. What they don't want is absolute piles of steaming arsebiscuits, or the most token of token gestures. The group he so obviously really meant who don't want single player epics are shareholders.

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Mr Biffo
4/12/2017 10:31:59 am

It's irritating, because they're not taking responsibility, and they're putting it on the players - who they label as being at fault for not wanting single player stuff. Which, as you say, is just a flat-out lie, and feels like a Trumpian attempt to wriggle out of their own mess.

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combat_honey
4/12/2017 10:49:52 am

I totally agree with you about Disney, particularly in relation to Star Wars. There seem to be a lot of Star Wars fans who resent Disney mainly because they're a huge business who are capitalising massively on their ownership of the SW franchise. Which seems totally bizarre to me. We had 10 years of Star Wars films being made as Lucas' passion project, and that got us the utterly appalling prequels. Now we've had a couple of years of Star Wars being run as a business and it's given us two films that are, at the very, very least, 50 times better than the prequels.

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Spiney O’Sullivan
4/12/2017 12:07:30 pm

We’ll see if this sentiment remains ten years from now after they start blasting us with two films a years alongside a non-stop media barrage. Just look at Marvel.

I loved Marvel comics, and the first Avengers wave was great fun, especially considering they took a bunch of characters nobody really cared about since the 70s and made them amazing. The second was decent, with a few exciting newcomers dragged down by an incredibly boring Thor film, an okayish event film and accompanied by a disappointing TV series, and now the third has been so-so, accompanied by a mixed bag of series that I can’t be bothered to watch.

Between oversaturation and Marvel’s weird decisions with the comics (goodbye entire Ultimate Universe, you can rest in peace along with Spider-Man’s marriage) I didn’t even care enough to watch Thor 3.

Granted it’s not helped by Fox churning out X-Men films or Fantastic Failures alongside it, as well as DC imploding all over the silver screen, which does help to keep superhero oversaturation happening, but I’m fully expecting Disney to wear out my Star Wars love soon enough.

For now, though, I’m quite enjoying the Phasma novel...

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Mr Biffo
4/12/2017 12:12:57 pm

But even Marvel feels like it's getting it right. The third Thor film is well worth seeing - because it is, essentially, a comedy. And it has done great business for them.

I think Marvel and Disney know that they risk people getting bored of superhero films and are going to mix it up - and are saying as much. Importantly, they understand that you've got to give people a reason to invest emotionally in the characters; look at the trailer for Avengers Infinity War - the most watched trailer in history, and I've not read a bad word about it. 10 years of engaging people with decent stories and characters, and we're ready to watch it, even if there have been a few less-successful movies along the way. I mean, I got a bit tearful watching it! I didn't realise I was that engaged with the MCU until I saw that, but I really am.

Spiney O’Sullivan
4/12/2017 12:27:37 pm

I’ll admit that to an extent my perspective is pretty skewed, as I’ve been reading these things for most of my life. I’ve dipped in and out of a lot of series over that time, but followed Ultimate Spider-Man for its entire run; in itself that was about half my lifetime.

So I guess I already have a baseline level of Marvel superhero saturation that most people who watch those films don’t, and to most people the films are probably exciting and new, whereas to me they’ve sort of come to feel like an obligation, like I have to watch them because everyone I know is. Comics used to be a thing I escaped from the mainstream stuff I was expected to like with; now they are the mainstream stuff I’m expected to like, and that’s still kind of weird to me.

It does sound like they plan to shake things up after Avengers: Infinity War, though, which is good news.

Though I make no concessions on Thor 2.

Spiney O’Sullivan
4/12/2017 01:04:40 pm

P.S. I am fully aware that the gist of that post is “I liked them before they were cool”.

Mr Biffo
4/12/2017 12:09:34 pm

There's been a bit of a backlash about The Force Awakens, and I don't get it. It feels like they're missing the point; yes, it had a structure that was similar to the original Star Wars, but that was intentional. They needed to remind people what Star Wars was, after the prequels, to restore faith, and to introduce it to a new generation. I think it nails everything I loved about Star Wars and - importantly, and unlike the prequels - feels part of the same story. Obviously, I hope they don't repeat the template every time, but I don't think they're going to.

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combat_honey
4/12/2017 01:36:44 pm

I don't get the backlash either. I have a few quibbles about TFA, but really not many more than I do about the original films when I think about it. And TFA just got the feel and look and atmosphere of Star Wars so perfectly that, after the airless prequels, I could forgive it any number of sins.

I hope they branch out a bit for the next two films too. As much as I liked TFA I was never particularly surprised by it, and I really would like to be surprised and to see things I've never seen before in a Star Wars film. (Which is why all the speculation over Rey's parenthood makes me roll my eyes - I really don't want another "I am your father" moment.) In any case, the fact that Disney have just given Rian Johnson a new SW trilogy to develop bodes well given that, as you pointed out, Disney don't stick with directors if they don't like what they're doing.

Spiney - that's a fair point. I do think there's a risk of making everyone fed up of Star Wars. For me personally, I hope that beyond this current trilogy any new Star Wars films move away from old characters and ideas, much like Guardians of the Galaxy did with the MCU. There’s only so much mileage you can get out of existing characters, settings and situations before the whole thing starts to get stale and cynical (which is why I think the Han Solo film in particular is a bad idea - surely the whole point of Han is that he starts of as a selfish criminal and eventually learns to care about people other than himself - why do we need to see how he became a selfish criminal?). So I hope they keep the prequels etc to a minimum and keep it all relatively fresh.

I think Rogue One proved that you can make Star Wars films with almost entirely new characters in other genres and still have them feel quintessentially Star Wars-y, so I'm eager to see what other ideas they come up with.

Treacle
4/12/2017 11:01:05 am

Dear Santa, please don't bring me Star Wars Battlefront 2 as I've not been that bad a boy for a quite a while.

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Tarty Vesthandle
4/12/2017 12:12:33 pm

I've been very naughty.

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Spiney O’Sullivan
4/12/2017 01:02:55 pm

A festive song:

Santa baby/
Don’t put that Star Wars under the tree/
for me./
It’s a horrible game/
Santa baby,/
Don’t make me play that terrible shite.

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Mentski link
4/12/2017 01:23:21 pm

Whilst I agree with you on the way Disney does business, particularly in the post-Eisner era we're in now (I think we can agree that the 90s and early 00s were bad times for the House of Mouse, where they DID start caring more about bottom line than customer enjoyment), there is one thing we seem to be ignoring:

Disney keep a tight reign on Star Wars and what it's licencees do with the property - so they signed off on all of this.

You could argue that maybe the decision makers at Disney fell under EA's spell and fell for their schtick, and that they didn't know there has been this undercurrent of dissatisfaction about microtransactions, and lootboxes in the gaming community for a while.

Maybe they didn't see or understand the difference in adding this crap to a full-price game compared to the free-to-play titles such as Marvel Contest of Champions, Marvel Heroes, and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.

But the fact of the matter still stands: Disney share some of the blame for this.

I do think that due to the overwhelming negative press, it's a lesson they have no doubt learned from pretty quickly, and hopefully they'll take EA to task over this as much as they possibly can, but I can bet there's been a whole lot of finger pointing going on, not only towards EA, but within Disney/Lucasfilm itself.

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Mr Biffo
4/12/2017 03:40:39 pm

Oh, I agree. Completely. I think they were wrong to get rid of LucasArts. If anything, they should've built it up.

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Rufio1980
4/12/2017 04:34:12 pm

There is hopefully a silver lining to all this. This is a huge, high profile meltdown over the worrying slide into micro transactions in full price games. How many game publishers are now taking a second look at upcoming releases and wondering whether they too are going to suffer the ire of a disgruntled gaming community?

If this backlash makes publishers respect consumers a little more then in might be worth sacrificing a Star Wars game now, for the better one that will surely follow.

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PeskyFletch
4/12/2017 05:34:38 pm

The open beta put me off before the brouhaha about MT/grind even started.
It felt a lot less star wars-y than the hoth demo for 2015 felt, not at all that feeling of being "in" the film that the first managed to give me. Maybe it was all the non red blaster bolts?

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Corkersoft
4/12/2017 05:40:47 pm

The first Star Wars film = a top-of-the-line sci-fi classic. The Empire Strikes Back = one of the best films ever made. Every other Star Wars film (including the awful The Force Awakens) = dreadful shite. The second trilogy = George Lucas forgot a) what made the originals good in the first place, and b) how to direct a good film. This new trilogy = paper thin sci-fi rubbish for people who are easily pleased. Me = I couldn't give two hoots for Star Wars any more - it is now dead to me (outside of the first two films in the original trilogy). And I'm glad that this has been a disaster for EA. Couldn't have happened to a nicer company.

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Chris
4/12/2017 06:30:05 pm

Me too

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Spiney O’Sullivan
4/12/2017 08:08:44 pm

I don’t know about that. Regardless of Lucas’ later pretensions to political commentary, Star Wars was meant to be paper-thin fun pulp, pretty much beginning as an homage to Flash Gordon and similarly melodramatic and campy old sci-fi-ish serials of the 40s/50s (with a heavy element of The Hidden Fortress thrown in). In that respect, The Force Awakens was absolutely fine, as was Return of the Jedi. When Lucas tried doing something clever and political, it fell apart horribly, as we saw in the prequels.

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Suspect
4/12/2017 09:01:37 pm

I reckon people were so desperate for a good Star Wars experience (after the lows of the prequel trilogy) that the mediocre Force Awakens and Rogue One were overly praised when released.

The love for Disney (and other massive faceless corporations such as Apple, Samsung, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft etc) also baffles me. I have a hazy memory of a South Park episode which tore Disney to shreds. Pretty sure it ended with a giant Mickey rampaging through the streets breathing out fire. I remember at the time thinking it hit the nail on the head.

Corkersoft
4/12/2017 11:37:05 pm

Well, I don't buy the "paper-thin fun pulp" argument because Lucas spent years researching Joseph Campbell's cultural connections between myths and different world cultures. He even got Campbell involved in checking his work. Yes, Star Wars was inspired by his love of Flash Gordon serials, but ultimately it was far more than "camp". And yes - it was also an unashamed remake of The Hidden Fortress, and Lucas has gone on record to say that he "took the plot" from The Hidden Fortress, but I think that it was more than just the plot he stole. I agree about the prequels though - they were far too political talky (but also crossed the line into pure cheese, which Jedi did/does too, which Star Wars and Empire don't).

SweetMrGibs
5/12/2017 02:28:46 pm

I know it doesn't conform to the 'rules of the Star Wars Nerds' (of which I am one), but Return of the Jedi is my favourite film by far. The original trilogy had it's moments... the end credits were fantastic.

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Cc
8/12/2017 07:48:59 pm

Me me too. Though i like jedi and parts of the prequels are verging on the good, though never as a whole film.
TFA is a by rote stinker.

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SweetMrGibs
5/12/2017 02:25:45 pm

"Unfortunately, even before you get to the whole issue of microtransactions, Battlefront 2 isn't as good as its predecessor.". Nope, sorry, I know opinions are subjective, but I've played both for 50+ hours and counting. You're wrong Biffo.

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Cc
8/12/2017 07:50:21 pm

Wrong and right are interchangable, sweets.

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