I really did enjoy the first Battlefront game and played that a lot. I was really looking foreword to the next installment when I heard they were making another. Being a true Stars Wars fan and watching the first movie when I was about five years old, I do expect a lot with anything that is labeled with Star Wars. maybe with this game I expected to much but, I just didn't see enough improvements in what need to be addressed. There are some, new things this time around, and for the most part they are welcome additions. You get to fight in space, play as Jedi or hero type characters from the movies, and a new single player campaign mode that follows the Episode III movie. For the most part I did enjoy my experience with the game I just felt that I wanted a little more in it's complexity.


Game Play
Battlefront II is your typical run around and just shoot everything that moves style of first-person shooter. It does offer a few different modes of play over the first game like space missions, capture-the-flag, new quick-play games, you can now play as Jedi or hero units, and a new upgraded Galactic Conquest game. Some of the new quick-play missions include space battle only games and even two maps that allow for Jedi vs Sith combat. This includes even heroes like Han Solo. Your main goal on the battlefield is to take over command points. As you take them over your opponent is doing the same. during a mission both side have reinforcements that you see tracked at the top showing you how many reinforcements each side has. If you own more command points than your opponent then these will slowly drop until changed. There are other game types you can play but, if you play the galactic conquest or single player campaign this what you will be doing.

The overall game play is not to bad and designed for easy play. The AI is not hard at all on normal mode and on Elite mode they still are not quite hard enough all though a noticeable difference is apparent. Even though each faction has a new class to choose from you will find yourself using the standard gunner most of the time. Especially in the beginning to get a lead on your opponent then you might play around with others. Since most maps don't have a lot of areas for sniping you will rarely use this trooper. Still, there is enough change between factions and units that whatever style of game you want to play it should be here.

The chance to use Jedi and other heroes now is a nice change as well but, it is not as exciting as it could have been. If your playing a quick mission, once you get enough points you can re-spawn as a specific hero for that faction on that planet you are fighting on and come back to the battlefield. The only bad thing is, if your playing co-op and your a much better player than the others you will get much more of a chance to use them over your friends. So, you may find yourself denying the chance to use one just giving someone else a shot at it. Most Jedi have the same powers like lightsaber throw or force push and most Sith have the same like force choke. Each lightsaber wielding hero can block blaster fire and all you will most likely do is block, run, and slice. That is about it unless you get a little creative and try a force push or force choke once in a while for the fun of it. The other heroes like Han Solo and Boba Fett are pretty much a waste of time as I would rather be a regular gunner than them. These heroes don't like other units do, they have a health bar that goes down slowly as time goes on. The only way to get the bar to go up is with a kill. I hated when I would be using one at the end of a battle and just can't find the fast few opponents or waisting time taking over a command point slowly dying. It is just to bad there was not more the Jedi than what is in the game because it is a great idea.

The space battles are a nice addition but, you will just get the feeling it was kind of just thrown together without a lot of in-depth thought. You get two units to choose from, the fighter pilot and the marine. The pilot has the ability to heal your ship on the fly which makes a big difference on bombing runs and the marine is used to go inside the capital ship and take out it's defenses from the inside. Each factions have five different ships to choose from and they do just like what you see in all of the movies which was nice. If you choose a pilot you can pick a bomber and go on bombing runs taking out the freighters that guard the capital ship and then bomb the different sections like the bridge or communication tower for example. Or you can stay by your capital ship and choose a fighter and just protect while dog-fighting other fighters. Don't get close to their capital or freighter's or their turrets will pick you off with ease. The marine is fun taking a ship inside theirs and attacking different sections by blowing up their auto-turrets or even their shields making it easier to take out everything on the outside. However, you will find yourself taking out mostly everything as your AI does not seem to play as good as your opponent AI. Once in a while they will take something out but, mostly you will be doing all of the work. In all, I did have fun with this for a while and dog fighting hearing the different sounds of the fighters is solid.

The game does have a medal system and keeps track of some stats for each profile used. I do love stats but, there really isn't much to it as it more or less just keeps track of bonuses that you received each time you played. It does have a kill/death ratio and how many kills and total player points you get per death. As you play more and more and receive bonuses during missions you get medals. The more medals you get the more bonuses you receive when you start each mission. The only down fall to this is, the more you play, the more accomplishments you get, and the more bonuses you get make the game that much easier. Since the game is not really that hard anyway, this is to much of an advantage after you become a General for example. Still, the game play is there and you will should enjoy playing through everything at least once. Going back for more will just depend how much fun you truly had.


Single-Player/Galactic Conquest
The single-player campaign mode was actually more fun than I thought it would have been and you can play in a co-op mode as well. You play mainly as the Republic Clones following the story-line from Star Wars Episode III. You get some narrating before each mission and during as you have different objectives throughout each mission to achieve. You will even find yourself playing as Jedi both good and evil throughout as the story changes just like the movie. You even find yourself playing a mission from Darth Vader's perspective in the Star Wars Episode IV in the first fight scene aboard the ship at the start of the movie. Even though all the game play is the same the different objectives and the feel you get remembering the scenes from the movies that you are fighting in was a lot of fun for me as a big Star Wars fan.

Galactic Conquest mode has been revamped and is not to bad but does get repetitive. You start off owning just two planets and one fleet with your goal is to conquer all of the galaxy of course. You can play as one of the four factions. The Republic Alliance, Galactic Empire, Republic, or the CIS. The game is played in turns that is divided into three phases. The beginning of each turn you get credits that can be spend on recruiting new units, purchase bonuses that can be taken into the battlefield, or construct additional fleets. This is not to in-depth as once you recruit another of your factions units they are with you permanently. There are quite a few different bonuses some of these include an additional garrison of troops, taking a hero into battle, better blaster power, or even turret guns that will help protect your command points. after you get done purchasing what you want then you move one of your fleets where you want. If you land on a planet not owned by you a battle will begin. If you land on an enemy fleet a space battle will begin. After the battle is over and credits given out the AI gets their turn and does the same as you. This is fun for a while but, it will get a little repetitive after a while. Especially if the computer AI keeps making a fleet next to one of yours and attacks it every turn. Even if you are attacking planets they keep going after your fleet for space battles. That can get a little annoying after a while but, doesn't happen to often. I had more fun with this with friends and family than by myself.


Controls
If you played the previous installment then the controls will be very familiar since they are the relatively the same. For new players the controls will be easy to figure out as they keep to a basic shooter style game controls. You fire your primary attack with the right trigger and your secondary attack with your left trigger. One complaint I had was there was only one crouch level. By tapping the B button your character will get into a crouch position which really has no affect in the game. As a sniper you can't get into a prone position making it harder for enemies to spot you so it really takes the fun aspect of being a sniper out of the game. Crouching for any other character means little as the AI may miss one shot when you first crouch and that is it. If you hit the B button while running your character will roll. This is the only effective way of dodging enemy attacks. The rest of the controls are easy like the A button jumps (force jump for Jedi), X button will lock onto a target and follow it around the battlefield as long as you have line-of-sight, the black and white buttons switch weapons, and the right thumb stick is used to look around or if pressed will zoom. My favorite control is the ability to press the left thumb stick to run. Making it much faster to travel around the battle field which really helps on some of the larger maps. These controls are the same for the Jedi as well with just a few changes on what they do. For example, the black button is used to block incoming blaster fire with your lightsaber and the jump button is a double jump for Jedi for faster movement around the battlefield. The only control you have over your other units is to call one over to follow you. They will but it is hard to release them once you do this because they follow so close everytime you move they quickly move behind you so you cant get your aimer on them again to release them. It is a funny dance though to try this and I did get a really good laugh out of it.

Your vehicles and fighters are controlled easily as they control the same as an infantry unit. The one thing I liked was even being able to do an evasive maneuver inside a a vehicle or fighter. And you still can call for units to follow you as well. If your in a vehicle and you have a computer character with you manning another gun on the vehicle you can press the black button and switch weapons and let them drive. This is fun on some vehicles as they have some pretty fun secondary weapons you can't use if your driving. But, for the most part the controls are very basic and will take maybe 10-15 minutes to get everything down. Just a little to basic for me and not very complex and I wanted to get prone or be able to hide behind walls and still fire. That does not happen here unfortunately.


Graphics
Overall the graphics were pretty solid and you can tell right from the first game played they put good effort into everything. The character models are detailed and smooth and the animations are fluent. The different planets also look very detailed. For example, seeing the Droid Drakkar's rolling throughout the battlefield or a Wookie off in the distance still towering over the soldier he is standing next too look great. Even the vehicles AT-ST or a Snow Speeder look excellent. The space missions are not quite as polished but, still look pretty good. As you are attacking another command ship and flying right over the bridge bombing away looks really good. The different planets also look very detailed and you you get too see a lot of different battle fields as you fight across the galaxy. Fighting in the swamps of Dagobah, or in the town of Mos Eisley, or even in the frozen planet of Hoth the backgrounds look really good. Even split screen does not take anything away from the graphics as everything still looks detailed just smaller.

It's just too bad that there are some hiccups here as well unfortunately. Some of the battlefields will have tight corridors and if you get to many on screen all bunched together you can see some pretty serious flaws. I have seen characters disappear for a second and come back and some jump over other to fill a spot close by. This makes it pretty hard when your aiming at one and poof they are gone and back at different location. Also the camera can get really hard in this tight situation and if your moving around to avoid being shot and get in a corner sometimes all you see is that corner for a second. It can be really hard to keep your barrings in a tight frantic spot and this will definitely cost you some fatalities. At least most maps are well spaced and this will not happen all to often but, enough to be an annoyance at times.


Sound
The sound effects themselves in the game are actually pretty good. Your guns firing off their laser shots sound like what they did in the movies, flying a Tie-Fighter or X-Wing sounds perfect when you take off or do a roll-over (which I loved as a kid), and the voice overs are not to bad. However, there is a sound in this game that may drive someone insane if played the game is played to long. When you do good during a mission and get a power up, your character starts glowing like he is being electrocuted and gives off the most annoying alarm-clock sound you have ever heard. It will go away after the bonus time has elapsed. However, once you play the game more and more and get a better profile ranking you will start every mission with some sort of power up. Meaning that you will glow and give off this horrendous sound every second of every mission. Playing by yourself will completely ruin the game at times as it will just simply drown out every other sound you hear for the most part. At least playing with others or on-line talking will help get over this sound. I just can't imagine whoever were test playing this game never said anything about it, or they never tested it long enough to get their profile rank high enough. At least the space missions are not effected by this while flying around taking out other ships.

The voice overs are not bad but, have some problems too because they are not always on the ball. Hearing the different factions like the the CIS droids and the Empire are kind of cool as they tell you that they took over a command point or you lost one. However, they will try and talk to you throughout the missions and usually are not on time. For example, they tell you to "get that battle droid" but, you may have killed them already a few seconds ago. I can see the effort they made here it just needed a lot more work. The music is Stars Wars music that plays throughout the game. I definitely had no problem with that myself and liked what I was hearing all over again. In all the sound effects are good and the voice overs are not bad but, the annoying pump up alarm-sound and the voice overs being way to repetitive just ruin all the good sounds unfortunately.

Multi-Player
As of the time of this review there were still games to be played on-line just not very many. It is your basic system as there is a quick match, optimatch, create a match, personal stats, and leader boards. My experience on-line was a good one and I had a lot of fun playing with up to 32 at once. Of course with that many you will have some frame rate issues but, for the most part it ran very smooth.

Playing multi-player with friends in split-screen is were I still play this game once in a while. It is fun taking out worlds in galactic conquest with friends or family or just playing a quick match of Jedi vs Jedi.


Conclusion
If you have played the first game in this small series you will not be disappointed at all with this new installment. There may not be a huge amount of changes to this one but, there is enough to warrant a purchase. I do feel that there were improvements that needed to be addressed from the first game that were not touched which hurts the game. I guess, they felt why fix something that is not broken because of the success of the first game. If you already own the first Star Wars Battlefront I would see no reason to go back and play that one if you purchase this. For Star Wars fans, as I am, you should enjoy the new space battles, heroes, and the new single-player mode. Even if you are just looking for a team oriented style of a shooter game you can't go wrong here. Still, even now, I find myself playing this game once in a while with family for the team battles just for the fun of it. There is not much replay value to play by yourself though. I recommend giving this game a try to anyone that enjoys this genre of video games Star Wars fans or not.


Thank you for reading.

My Ratings
Game Play: 4/5
Controls 3.5/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Sound: 2/5
Learning Curve: 15min
Replay Value: 3/5
Overall Rating: 3/5

Publisher: Lucas Arts
Developer: Pandemic Studios
Genre: First-Person Shooter
ESRB Teen

Game Specs
Players: 1-4
Resolution: 480p
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Online: Yes, 1-4 Players
Cooperative Online/Offline: Yes/Yes

Recommended: Yes