Back when the game was announced I did shared my thoughts has to why Battlefront looked like a disappointment from the get go: many months have passed since then with many youtube reviewers giving their take on EA´s Battlefront, the hype for The Force Awakes has passed and now with a clean set of eyes I give my take on EA´s Battlefront... and I am so happy I didn´t expended a single dime on this at lunch because it is a true slap in the face not only to Star Wars fans but to players all over the world.
First a little history: When Disney bought LucasFilm in 2012, Electronic Arts rush is to acquire the rights to develop Star Wars video games and their licence was given for a total of 10 years (a pretty long time indeed), when this news reached me I knew they were going to develop a Battlefront game with DICE, the same people behind Battlefield; It was just common logic... Battlefield games are very popular among many so of course the cries of people for a new Battlefront practically ensured the eventually existence of the game.
And of course later on E3 we got a teaser trailer for a brand new Battlefront game... all I could think of was "I knew it". I knew I wasn´t going to buy this game and while many people got exited they seem to forget that not only this is the modern gaming industry where games are purposefully lunched with serious lack of content and out right broken but the the publisher behind it is Electronic Arts, the corporate beast that´s always looking to gauge consumers with every new game release and responsible for pioneering Day One DLC via pre-orders... oh yeah the future of Star Wars games is looking very bright now huh?
I didn´t play this game at release since I refused to purchased an incomplete game with a 50$ season pass... making me pay for a whole other game just to get everything is offensive, but I´ll talk about this later how is the actual game... well there is no single player at all, so there is no story mode, galactic conquest, no regular bot matches no interesting use of maps or meaningful single player tasks. For people like me who enjoy taking it easy with a video game by myself this just isn´t the game I am looking for... this could have been somewhat easily fixed by giving us the option to play multiplayer matches offline against bot; I know many people argue that DICE should have included a campaign mode but I don´t think that would have helped anything because in a shooter like this campaign would´t have helped with replayability of the game.
For off line there due indeed are some modes to play:
-Training: is basically mini-misions that you can easily complete in 4 to 7 minutes.
-Battles: is basic generic matches against AI opponents or another player where you take them out and collect their fallen tokens, collect 100 and you win. You can also play has a hero against against the AI or another player and is the same basic rules only here you can be Luke Skywalker swinging a lightsaber.
-Survival: it is what it sounds like; you endure wave after wave of imperial soldiers coming after you until the game stops, I like this mode but it gets really boring and repetitive quickly... they could have made this mode much more interesting if they let you play has a hero or use vehicles but instead you just go on-foot at all times and occasionally protect drop pods against imperial forces.
There really isn´t much to say about single player, say you want to play Battlefront but for whatever reason your internet connection doesn´t work... well does modes are all you get you can easily complete the whole thing in less than 1 hour if you power through it.
Obviously EA and DICE want us to focus on the multiplayer... what do we get? meh... some fun game modes here and there, some alright modes and some modes you play once and never tough again.
I´ll go through them one by one:
-Walker Assault: This is the flagship mode of Battlefront EA, the one mode they use to sell us the game (the one we played on the beta, the one showed at the E3 demo, etc...). The Empire must protect the AT-AT through the battlefield while the Rebels try to take it down by calling Y-Wing support, it´s fun I´ll admit... however I don´t find it has fun after a while: it gets boring fast after just a couple of matches there are very few maps, granted thanks to a couple of patches that number has increased but I am sure that wasn´t the case at lunch.
-Supremacy: This is my favourite mode out of all the massive modes in the game, is all about capturing control points while pushing back the enemy... there are heroes fighting around, ships fighting above in the sky, etc... is pure all out warfare and it is very Star Wars indeed. Unfortunately unbalances ruin this mode, the empire can summon AT-ST´s and just wreck rebels left and right while the rebels don´t really have a way to counter the war-machines, this could have been easily fixed by giving the rebel players some form of ground vehicle like a tank but no because apparently it "isn´t cannon".
-Turning Point: This mode was included with the Battle of Jakku DLC (it is free though so that´s cool), where imperials must defend check points while rebels push them back, it is indeed similar to Supremacy but this time imperials don´t push forward... they only endure the rebel push, it gets really hard to hold the line at first but the last check point and is only one so it makes it a mouse trap for any player trapped in the middle no matter the side, it is incredibly hard for rebels to win the last check point though. It´s a harmless mode I guess but nothing special either
-Drop Zone: This mode is like "King of the Hill", supply pods are dropped into the battlefield so rebels and imperials must secure the pods from the opposing team, it´s alright but nothing special.
-Blast: Traditional team death match... nothing else to say...
-Cargo: Traditional "capture the flag" mode, is what it is really... you pick up the enemy cargo while protecting yours.
-Droid run: Is a variation of "king of the hill" mode where teams must capture 3 Gonk droids before the enemy team does, unlike supply drop, the droids are always on the move so is not as easy to protect them.
-Heroes vs Villains: Is a moba style game where players take the roll of one of the 3 heroes of both sides and must defeat the others, it´s a lot of fun to play has one of the iconic heroes and trying to take down the opposition although I feel like the rebel heroes are slightly better than the imperial heroes... however to be fair there doe is a layer of strategy to the game has you can easily be wrecked if you go at it alone even if you are a hero so is not so simple.
-Hero Hunt: A player controls a hero and must fend off wave after wave of player controlled enemy soldiers for has long has they can until they are inevitably destroyed by another player and they become the hero... not really a super fun mode, specially if you can´t become the hero.
-Fighter Squadron: After you get pasted the meh flight controls this mode is alright... just wreck any star fighter of the opposing faction you can encounter and you´ll do fine, however the rebels are highly over powered and the empire dozen´t really have a way to counter this so the rebels always win, at least in my experience.
In the whole all the game modes have major glaring problems:
In game modes like Supremacy and Walker Assault, the hero token´s placement is completely unfair for new players, since the same people who become the hero can go on ridiculous kill streaks while never loosing, why? because the heroes never have a time limit, you must take down the hero character so the player can go back to become a regular enemy soldier, new players will almost never get the chance of becoming a hero character since is a power up that you have to pick up somewhere in the battlefield.
There is lack of weapon variety in the game, no classes for players to pick up, instead you make a load out of weapons a-la Call of Duty. You will see players using almost the same load out always and it gets boring really fast.
The way your avatar looks is completely out of control, you can´t select many generic looks until you level up to rank 20 or 30... I wanted to play has the Twi´Lek but the game is telling I need to level up to Rank 50 to play has her (the maximum level in the game BTW). Many developers seem to think that attaching an experience bar on multiplayer games immediately makes it exiting but I just don´t have the time in my hands to level up my character for multiplayer matches... why not just allow us to get this elements from the very get go? why make up play your game so much? is this the definition of fun for some people? This is really stupid.
There is no space battles at all, a mode included on Battlefront 2 is completely absent on Battlefront EA... even on fighter squadron there is no way to fight in space since it´s always on a planetary surface.
No Clone Wars... you only get to play on the Galactic Civil War, another big insult since this could have provided much more variety to the game modes with more unit customisation, weapon variety, heroes, villains and planets. The exclusion of the clone wars seems to me like a lazy executive movement to safe costs.
EA has been excusing themselves by saying that the lack of a single player campaign and modes is due to that kind of development being "too expensive" so they would rather put their efforts into only multiplayer... has it resulted on a better experience?
The biggest insult of them all is the cost of the season pass... 50$
It´s insane that the cost of a whole entire other game will get you a couple of new maps and locations, how can some people accept this is unbelievable to me, perhaps is because some of this kids a 13 to 15 year olds that get the game from their parents and money dosen´t hurt them. I made a post a while back about video games becoming a luxury because of how expensive they are; to cut this topic short, I know that game development now days has become increasingly more complex and difficult to make thus costing more to develop... but asking your consumers to drop 120$ for a single video game is a horrible practice.
...and EA then wonders why people call them a "corporate beast"...
Star Wars Battlefront EA is not good because it relies only on it´s multiplayer component and there is absolutely nothing to say about single player because it´s so barebones that is a joke on the people who like to enjoy a game by themselves offline. Nothing lasts forever, eventually PSN and Xbox LIVE has well has online servers for PC will go offline... who is going to play this game then?
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