Star Wars Battlefront Reviews
From the wail of a TIE Fighter and the humming of a lightsaber, to the plastic Stormtrooper crotches and Leia's crown braids, everything looks and sounds fantastic. Unfortunately, this wonderful level of detail and immersion offered in Star Wars Battlefront, comes to a screeching halt once it is realised that this is just a half-done, money-grabbing piece of style-over-substance, which is insanely entertaining in short bursts, yet lacks the required depth or amount of content that would make gamers keep coming back for more.
Star Wars Battlefront is a graphical tour de force that fails whenever it becomes an interactive experience. There are hints of better games here, but nothing that saves it from mediocrity.
For all its polish, it brand-name polish, it lacks that creative energy found in building battles from faded toys and dumb ideas. Battlefront imposes limits and gates on an expansive universe, reigning in instead of expanding the possible ways to become part of that world. As such, the game remains mercenary in its goal of selling an experience solely on those feelings we have about that galaxy far, far away. Instead of offering a chance to inhabit that space, Battlefront only shows us Star Wars at a distance, perfectly preserved in small pocket dioramas tucked away behind the rose-tinted glass of a toy shop window.
Star Wars Battlefront is fun, but it doesn't take long for that fun to be reduced to monotony. Spawn, shoot, die, repeat. It would have also been nice to have a stronger offline component to the game. Even if it was something as simple as battling against bots in the different modes available. Maybe something along those lines will be included in one of the upcoming four DLC packs, so we'll have to wait and see what EA does with this game over the next year. In the end, it's a good game for Star Wars enthusiasts, but it still has lots to work on if it wants to stand up at the pinnacle of first-person shooters.
This game was reviewed on a digital copy provided by the publisher.
Unless you're the sort who quotes dialogues from the movies verbatim, fantasises about Princess Leia, and speaks like Yoda, you can safely pass on Star Wars Battlefront.
There is fun to be had, especially when the spectacle of Star Wars is in full effect. That spectacle, however, soon wears off and what's left is a game with too few weapons, maps and heroes. In the end, Star Wars Battlefront is all Binks and no Fett.
Beautiful and authentic sound and visuals of licensed materials fail to mask a shallow movie tie-in gaming experience.
That nostalgia, much more than the current depth offered by Battlefront is going to drive adoption of this game. You'd probably be better off waiting to see what the expansion packs are going to offer, and then getting the total package for much less than the $110 it's going to cost you if you buy everything on release. Then again, who wants to wait for their Star Wars video game pew-pew fix when it looks and sounds this good?
Star Wars: Battlefront does a fantastic job of transporting players into the Star Wars universe for a big initial kicker, but that ultimately fades when you realize how light it is on content and game features. A textbook case of style over substance.
Get a bunch of equally enthusiastic friends together and you'll have many hours of nostalgic revery, with that Williams score nudging you through match after match. But then you'll reach the outer edge of this game's progression system, or you'll get a little too familiar with the four landscapes on offer, and the magic will wane. And then, of course, there will be downloadable content, massing in a distant corner of the galaxy, waiting to invade.
DICE's reboot looks and sounds exactly as Star Wars should, but the game ends up a tired, shallow, and sometimes sloppy retread of well-covered ground
Star Wars: Battlefront is everything a Star Wars fan could want. The game's locations feel iconic, complete recreations of the beautiful settings introduced to us in the movies. But the game's casual attitude towards weapons, and the limited number of locations to explore make Star Wars: Battlefront sizzle out far too early. Top that with an exorbitant DLC offer, which features content that feels like it could be in the base game, and EA has already done a great job of freezing Star Wars: Battlefront in carbonite before it's even had a chance to live a fulfilling life.
Star Wars Battlefront feels authentic in many ways, but that authenticity is aggressively pursued at the cost of gameplay, and is often tacked-on. If you're in the mood for a relatively shallow shooter with caveats you likely won't be disappointed, but I wish that DICE had a little more time to polish it and add more substance.
Slick production values, solid controls, and tons of fan service can't make up for mediocre progression and a lack of content.
Authenticity comes at a price—Star Wars: Battlefront is beautiful but makes too many mistakes when it comes to maps, balancing and spawning. These issues cause anger, and anger leads to hate.
Battlefront was a game I highly anticipated, played like mad, and probably won't revisit. It was fun for the time I got out of it, but the lasting appeal, the lacking sense of progression, and the repetitive nature quickly pushed me away from the game. It's a perfect title for a die-hard Star Wars fan that wants to enjoy a cool multiplayer experience, but only if they are ready to play the same thing over and over again for a long period of time.
Star Wars Battlefront fails to match the ambitions of its visuals with equally as impressive gunplay, leaving it in the awkward position of looking amazing while also being rather boring.
Battlefront certainly doesn't reinvent online multiplayer FPS gameplay or even have any lasting reasons to keep you coming back for more, but its presentation and nostalgic values are more than enough to keep casual gamers out there entertained.