Star Wars: Battlefront Review

Game: Star Wars: Battlefront
Year (s):  2004
Company:  dev.  Pandemic Studios
            pub.  LucasArts
Engine: Zero
Type:  first/third person shooter
What I Paid:  $4 on eBay


Obligatory Video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2KCjFATtBw

Plot and General Gameplay

Levels in this game take place on various battlefronts from the Star Wars universe.  Some are straight from the movies and feature video clip accompaniment.  The single-player campaign mode has no plot, and you aren't always on the same side from one battle to another.  For every game type you can choose your loadout on spawning (sniper, rocket-launcher guy, engineer, etc.).  At the beginning of each map, each side has a set number of spawns.  Wipe out the other side, take strategic command posts (spawn points) along the way, and you win.


Campaign Difficulty

Maps are not balanced.  Maps often have definite positioning and/or vehicle advantages given to one side.  Additionally, the campaign mode may start you off outnumbered.  Lastly, your bot helpers (but not the enemy bots) are incompetent.  I once led my team with seventy kills and two deaths, only to lose.  Enemy AI is such that you'll be mowing them down most of the time.  If you're playing the campaign you'll play many of the levels many frustrating times before winning.


Galactic Conquest

This is another single-player mode that is basically Risk.  You move, attack, and can use bonuses.  Instead of rolling dice, you attack planets with the usual take-command-posts-and-wipe-'em-out agenda.  I didn't feel this added much to the choice of Instant Action.


Vehicles

Some vehicles are quite powerful (particularly against infantry) but I largely found vehicles to be slow and clumsy.


Zero Engine

I have no complaints about the engine.  It only crashed on me once, and is visually at least as good as the Unreal Engine of the time.


Final Thoughts

I picked up Battlefront because it was cheap and I like Star Wars.  I got some enjoyment out of it, but I wouldn't recommend it just for the single player.  If you know someone that wants to do muliplayer, it could be a lot of fun though.  The game supports a crazy number (estimate: 50 total) of bots running around at a time.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 came out a year later with a couple new tricks thrown in.  There will be a review of that in a week at the latest.