Star Wars Battlefront II: Lucasarts loves me and won't hit me again

[Triforcer]

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/606/606383p1.html

EDIT: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/starwarsbattlefront2/media.html  Some great videos- check out the jedi fighting...I haven't been able to confirm this yet, but someone on the boards said in online multiplay there is only one jedi per side, based on who did the best in the previous map.

I completely admit that my fanboishness on this site for Battlefront I was completely unjustified, the game played like something a handful of moderately talented indy developers threw together in a couple months.  The flight engine blew goat balls, the classes and vehicles were awkward and unbalanced, and the maps were uninspired and uninteresting.

However, at least at THIS early stage BF2 sounds like our wet dream for what the pvp-minded among us envisioned SWG to be.  The highlight:

While all Frigates and Corvettes cannot be boarded, the larger vessels will include working hangar bays, command rooms, armories and gunnery emplacements. It's important to realize that Pandemic cannot model an entire ship, but at least the on-foot gameplay is still being delivered here. Think of it as Battlefield 1942's Midway map gone Star Wars. It's mainly about flying and shooting, but there's definitely grunt work involved. In fact, ground pounding will have a direct impact on most levels.
In our spacey demonstration, we could work to explode every ship with a long volley of torpedoes and blaster fire, but we could also hang back and allow the two capital ships to bombard each other with enormous laser pulses. The real winners, however, took it upon themselves to board the enemy and destroy specific components of their carrier, be they defense systems or the more vital power core. Of course, the engineering class can rebuild most of these devices and therein lies the back and forth style of attack and defend gameplay Pandemic is shooting for this year. Most of the time it'll be tied to specific multi-tiered objectives, too.

I foresee good things here, the article exudes a sense of sheepishness on the part of the devs on how badly BF1 came out and if they can pull off their Wake-esque vision this could be a winner.

[MrHat]

That does look pretty cool, but I don't see how you can have people playing jedi and people playing storm troopers and not have crying.

[Furiously]

use tactecs newb!

[Kail]

That does look pretty cool, but I don't see how you can have people playing jedi and people playing storm troopers and not have crying.

I don't really see this as a balance problem.  Playing Jedi Knight 2, characters using rocket launchers and concussion rifles and stuff had a huge number of advantages over characters who insisted on using nothing but the saber (in my experience, anyway).  Even in the original Battlefront, the AI Jedi weren't uber lethal killing machines, despite the fact that they were completely invincible.  As long as they don't go too nuts on the force powers, I don't know that it would be a huge problem.  Some people might be pissed off if they're working with the assumption that Jedi should be able to knock down the entire enemy team, but... meh.

One thing that does bug me is the idea that players get to be Jedi by having the highest score... I remember in the original Battlefront (as well as most games of this type) most of the players with really stratospheric scores got them by being complete dicks (spawn camping in tanks and so on).  It seems to me like a bit of a mistake to encourage this kind of thing by rewarding it with the opportunity to play as the most desired class.  I'd be happier if they just powered down the Jedi to the point that anyone who wanted to could play one without unbalancing the game...

[Jain Zar]

My main problem with the first game was the complete lack of content, solo or online.  Play it for 4 or 5 hours and you have pretty much done everything the game had to offer.  Battlefront needed more content.  That was its problem.  Hopefully they don't make the same mistake twice.  And hopefully Lucasarts learned from it AND KOTOR 2 that rushing a game out for a certain ship date is long term suicide.

[Toast]

Battlefront was an absolute mess.

I'm not touching this franchise with a ten foot pole.

[Stormwaltz]

Interesting about the starships. Of course, being the wag that I am, I have to point out that the Galactic Combat mod for BF 42 has both pilotable ships (that work as described in the article) and static boardable ships that allow you to fight through the hallways.

Granted, those maps amount to miles of repetitive corridor...

[sidereal]

Battlefront needed more content.

You mean more of the theoretically good content that you're imagining, or more of the content that it had?  Cause it sucked.  If you give someone five bucks and they kick you in the balls, it's best not to demand that five bucks is worth AT LEAST two kicks in the balls.

The more I think about it, the more I think Republic Commando's abrupt and asstastic ending was inserted by whatever malevolent force has decided that every SW licensed game since X-Wing must suck.  Because otherwise, that was a good game.  Oh, KOTOR escaped the curse, too.  Dunno how.

[Krakrok]

Battlefront suffers from consolization. Fuck consoles.

[Surlyboi]

use tactecs newb!

Smed?

[Azazel]

My main problem with the first game was the complete lack of content, solo or online.  Play it for 4 or 5 hours and you have pretty much done everything the game had to offer.  Battlefront needed more content.  That was its problem.  Hopefully they don't make the same mistake twice.  And hopefully Lucasarts learned from it AND KOTOR 2 that rushing a game out for a certain ship date is long term suicide.

Battlefront 1 was rushed out to meet the DVD Trilogy Boxed Set release date.

Battlefront 2 will be rushed out to meet the Episode 3 DVD release date.   ..I have forseen it!



Az

[Dodger_]

Battlefront 1 was rushed out to meet the DVD Trilogy Boxed Set release date.

Battlefront 2 will be rushed out to meet the Episode 3 DVD release date.   ..I have forseen it!

Don't forget the SWG Wookies expansion being rushed to be out before the Episode 3 theatrical release.

[Merusk]

Battlefront 1 was rushed out to meet the DVD Trilogy Boxed Set release date.

Battlefront 2 will be rushed out to meet the Episode 3 DVD release date.   ..I have forseen it!

Hey at least they're consistant.

They also have one deadline they can push it back for, probably3-4 months after EP3 is on DVD.  The "Box Set Collector's Edition" release! (and a year after that.. the ultimate collector's box set edition in digital THX sound!)

[Azazel]

Good point on the Wookie Ep3 thing.

I doubt they'll push SWBF2 back until the mega-box set though. This christmas when they release Ep3 they'll have the Prequel-boxed set out at the same time, just like the all-in-one LOTR boxes and every other bloody thing when they wrap a new shiny cardboard box around an existing set of DVDs for a film series...


Which is all a real shame. A properly-done Battlefield game in the Star Wars universe could be really good..

Az

[Rodent]

Stormtroopers and wookies, bah! I just want X-wing vs Tie Fighter 2. Re-inacting the first assault on the deathstar would be love in a 64-128 player game.

[HaemishM]

Which is all a real shame. A properly-done Battlefield game in the Star Wars universe could be really good..

He can't even properly do Star Wars movies anymore. The games... pheh, another revenue stream.

[schild]

People keep saying Star Wars <whatever> done right would be good. Honestly, who gives a fuck anymore? Any Star Wars battlefield game would be a WWII clone in different armor with laser guns and maybe lightsabers. It'd be like Germany vs. Poland. But Poland would win. I mean, seriously, the Star Wars galaxy of worlds has gone stale since Lucas can't stop fucking the corpse. He didn't even let rigor mortis set in before he said he might do a prequel to the prequels and besides KoToR there hasn't been a truly solid SW game since....

....forever.

There's simply better licenses out there that are even more ripe for the picking. Stop trying to rape old fanbases and try to build on smaller ones.

[Soln]

People keep saying Star Wars <whatever> done right would be good. Honestly, who gives a fuck anymore? Any Star Wars battlefield game would be a WWII clone in different armor with laser guns and maybe lightsabers. It'd be like Germany vs. Poland. But Poland would win. I mean, seriously, the Star Wars galaxy of worlds has gone stale since Lucas can't stop fucking the corpse. He didn't even let rigor mortis set in before he said he might do a prequel to the prequels and besides KoToR there hasn't been a truly solid SW game since....

....forever.

There's simply better licenses out there that are even more ripe for the picking. Stop trying to rape old fanbases and try to build on smaller ones.

And wasn't it interesting that the first thing the new head of LA Marketing did was to cancel KOTOR3 last year?

[Stormwaltz]

A properly-done Battlefield game in the Star Wars universe could be really good..

Not to belabor the point, but... there's always Galactic Conquest.

[schild]

And wasn't it interesting that the first thing the new head of LA Marketing did was to cancel KOTOR3 last year?

I hope he cancels the rest also. Frankly, I don't care much for KoToR. Not since the dispersion of the BIS folks. Hell, not even then. I was just being nice because a lot of folks here like it. 

[Azazel]

I guess we'll just have to disagree on the merits of the Star Wars licence. BTW your Germany-Poland metaphor made no sense at all.

The argument that SW BF is just WW2 dressed up in a shiny cover is true enough, but for the most part so would a 40k BF clone (which I'd also love to see, done right, not the consolized-crap that was last year's Tau game, Fire Warrior or for that matter, the consolized crap that was SWBF1. )

The basic theme of these things is pretty much the same from the first team-based deathmatch or team fortress game after all. The wrapper gets shinier and the details get tweaked, sure, but it's all the same in the end. BF was the first big mainstream hit to add a lot of vehicles to that mix (not the first to have vehicles) and so now after that success a lot of these games now have vehicles as standard. Which fits perfectly into Star Wars, because who doesn't love reenacting the Hoth battle in every game?  :-D

/points behind schild

Look! a PSP!


As far as the movies go, on balance Ep3 was better than RoTJ, despite the fact that I saw RoTJ as a kid. That's not to say that Lucas is a good director, or filmmaker, or that he'll ever stop milking the franchise for every dollar he can get, but I don't see a reason for LA to stop making Star Wars games. It's their bread and butter, really and I can''t see LA asking to licence someone else's IP for games. Doesn't stop others from making their own games or force you to buy 'em. From what I've read, he's not doing more prequels to the existing prequels. It's going to be a 100-episode TV series covering the 20 years between Ep3 and the original Star Wars (ANH).

I enjoyed most of KoTOR1, which I only finished about 2 days ago, except that it was a buggy piece of shit which kept crashing without showing me the ending sequence. Maybe I'll delete the no-cd crack, restore the original exe and try one more time with disc inserted? I'm scared by what I hear of KoTOR 2's bugginess and non-ending though.

GC is okay, but many of the maps are just crappy, there's also not many servers with decent pings where I live. I don't play it much.

Az