People who know me know I LOVE Star Wars. Despite what I thinkof the recent films, the series is still strong. But the videogamefranchise had been slipping over the past few years, with only therelease of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, arole-playing game (RPG) set in the Star Wars universe, breathingnew life into the franchise a few years ago. Publisher LucasArtsand developer Pandemic Studios have obviously listened to what theStar Wars-loving gamers want — they want to be in the StarWars universe, and boy do they get that with Star WarsBattlefront.
Star Wars Battlefront is a first-person shooter (FPS)game in the style of id Software’s Quake orEpic’s Unreal Tournament, but that’s where thesimilarity ends. The game caters to everyone who likes somethingabout the films; you can play as the Rebel Alliance, the Empire,the Separatists (those robots who say “Roger Roger”every few minutes) and the Clone Troopers. There are 10 locationsfrom the films included in the game, including Mos Eisley, Hoth andGeonosis. Many locations can be played as either theClones/Separatists or the Rebels/Empire, adding depth to theplaying experience. There’s even a mysterious location calledRhen Var, which I can only hope will be in the third film —it is a stunningly beautiful level.
There’s a single-player mode which takes you through allthe levels (without the encumbrance of a storyline), but the gamereally shines in multiplayer mode.
Gameplay
The sheer delight I found in playing as a Stormtrooper and goingafter the Ewoks on Endor is unmatched with anything in mygame-playing experience, and many times through the game I foundmyself smiling and whooping with joy. Because there are severalclasses to each side (the Empire has Stormtroopers, Scout Troopers,Pilots, Shock Troopers and Dark Troopers) each with their ownspecialties, you can play the same level several times and havedifferent experiences each time. Combined with this is the hugevariety of craft and vehicles you can use; X-Wings, Y-Wings,speeder bikes from Endor, AT-STs, AT-ATs and snowspeeders on Hoth(and yes, you can even fire the snowspeeder tow cable around theAT-ATs legs to bring it down).
Tactics play a huge part. Of course you can always try to be thehero, rushing into every situation with guns blazing, butyou’re going to spend most of your time dead and waiting torespawn. The AI is pretty intelligent, much more than I expected.Team members will join you in vehicles to work the weapons (ordrive for you if you’re using the weapons), will heal youwhen needed, and they form effective fire-teams on their own. Iwatched a number of AI groups work their way through a battlefield,healing each other and providing cover as they advanced toward anobjective.
Pandemic Studios decided to introduce a feature called Heroes,the lightsaber-wielding figures from the films. With this featureactivated, you can have Vader, Luke, Mace Windu or Dooku rampagingaround the battlefield helping or hindering you. Unfortunately thisis the only time you get to see lightsabers in action as none ofthe available player models are Jedi; the Heroes, howeve, still adda bit of spice to the game. They will often lead a charge againstyou, or rush to your aid if needed. And you’d better not getin their way; they slice through anything that stands in theirpath.
Dying leads me to a final point about the gameplay. Instead ofspawning back into the game as soon as you die, Battlefront onlyallows players to join every 10 seconds. Although this was annoyingat first (I’m used to games letting me back into the actionimmediately), the delay allows you to view your team’sprogress on a map and choose where to spawn; if the enemy isattacking a particular objective, you can choose to spawn at thatobjective and help defend it.
Hardware
If you’re still using Windows 95 or Windows 98,you’re probably out of luck (Microsoft stopped supportingthese two OS’s in June 2003, but the game may work –don’t count on it, though). The game needs at least Windows2000 to function and works best on Windows XP. You’ll alsoneed to update your DirectX to version 9.0, a hefty chunk of diskspace on its own. CPU speed is quite a low requirement for thisgame (as compared to other games such as “Doom3″ and”Far Cry”), as you only need a Pentium3 or AMD 1Ghz,and with only 256Mb RAM the game will function perfectlyadequately. Unfortunately, as with many games today, disk space iswhere this game hits; 2.7Gb is needed for the game itself with anadditional 200Mb needed for sundry purposes. If you want to playonline, you need at least a DSL connection – not a problem inthis country but definitely an issue in less broadband-awareplaces.
Graphics
Only one word is needed here — gorgeous. Well maybe twowords — breathtaking. The environments look exactly like theydo in the films, with high-resolution textures and high-qualityplayer models filling in the details. Endor and Yavin are some ofthe most stunning, with attention clearly having been paid to theatmosphere of these locations; Endor feels just like a huge forest.Nothing is out-of-place; even wandering through the Cantina on MosEisley evokes the same emotions as seeing it on film. You can crankup the game resolution and turn on Anti-Aliasing, giving smoothnessand an almost film-like quality to the game. I dare you to play theKamino levels and not be taken aback by the beauty of the game.
Conclusion
I love this game. Sure it has a couple of graphical glitches andsometimes, when you die, you roll around unrealistically for a longtime. But if you like Star Wars and first-person-shooter games, Ihighly recommend that you purchase this game.
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