Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Star Wars Battlefront II


Now the second review of Star Wars Battlefront.

The same developers have worked together again to make this game happen. It's available for PC, PS2 and Xbox. This time, a version for the PSP was released.

This time, a good campaign was put together. In the campaign you play as a soldier of the 501st Legion. This was an elite unit of clone troopers. These troopers were one the most well-known and feared Legions in the Star Wars galaxy. This Legion was also the part of operation Knightfall where they've helped Darth Vader taking down the Jedi’s. From that moment on the 501st was under control by Darth Vader. And with this Legion you play'll from the beginning of the Clone Wars to the end of the Galactic Civil War.
The difference between SW B and SW BII is that you are given commands during the missions and a limited amount of reinforcements and/or time, where in SW B you only had to survive and annihilate the opposition.

They added a number of features to SW BII, and one of these are space battles. In this mode you begin on your mothership where you can choose your character and space ships that are stationed in the hangar. You're able to choose between the marine and the pilot. Marines are used to board ships and carry a missle launcher. The pilot is able to drop supplies, repair and has the ability to auto-repair a spaceship while flying in mid-space.
The all famous X-Wing and Tie Fighter are once again available to you. Next to fighters, you can also fly scout-fighters. These starships are real fighter and bomber killers if used correctly, because their armor is very weak and can't withstand more then two shots. And finally the developers have added assault ships. Thes bulky ships are the strongest in space but they lack the speed to be very effective in space fights/dogfights. The primary purpose of the ships is to board the enemy mothership. When the ship has landed in the enemy’s hangar, it serves as a forward command post. The AI plays a downside when boarding the enemy’s ship, because only a few troops spawn at the assault ship and they almost die immediately. So most units you'll have on your side when boarding, are the units you've commanded to enter your ship.
This new feature of space fights uses no longer reinforcement points but assault points. To earn these points you and your team have to take down the enemy’s starships, the enemy frigates (these ships accompany the mothership and depending on the map you have one or two frigates) and hardpoints on the enemy’s mothership. You can destroy four hardpoints from the outside which are the engines, life support, the communications array and the bridge. But before destroying those hardpoints ,you'll have to take down the mothership’s shields and that can take a while. Destroying those things from the outside is one way to do it, you can also board the ship and there you can destroy the shield generator, the engines and life support (bridge and communications array must be destroyed from the outside). This sounds easy but the mothership has some defences of its own and isn’t totally depended of fighters to defend itself. On the ship’s hull there are some auto-turrets and turrets that you can control. And when entering the ship’s core, you better watch out, two auto-turrets will await you and every enemy soldier spawns there. In the ship’s core there’s a mainframe that you can destroy, that controls the auto-turrets on the ship’s outside.
The only things that are repairable, are the shield generator and the auto-turret mainframe.

New special units have been added to SW BII and all units and vehicles have been redone. But to unlock these new units you first have to earn a number of points. These points can be earned by killing enemy soldiers and capturing command points. The Republic has next to the Jettrooper, the Clone Commander. The CIS has the Magna Guard. The Empire has the Imperial Commander. The rebels has next to the Wookiee Warrior, the Bothan Spy. I'd like to make a comment on this class: This has to be the most annoying class of them all. These units can cloak themselves and suddenly appear in front of you with their incinerator. This weapon blinds you in a grey cloud of damage.
But when you play as the spy and run around cloaked, the cloak doesn’t seem to have any effect. The AI soldiers know that you are there, and even worse, they know the exact spot where you are standing.
But back to the review, now your units can run and roll to all directions. And when a grenade lands beside you, you wont roll the other end of the map. The command units in SW BII give bonuses that for example strengthens the defence of other units. But to balance the power in the game, they’ve put a unit limit for the special units.

The Galactic Conquest mode has been redone. This time you have to fly from planet to planet with a carrier, which has to be done in a galactic overview. At first you can only choose the normal soldier. The other classes are bought with credits that every planet that you own produces at the beginning of every turn. So you fly from planet to planet to defeat the enemy. Before starting the battle you can choose a bonus that you can buy the same way as the different soldier classes. However, you can only use bonuses once and there is a limit in how much bonuses you can have at any given point, three points to be exact. There are two planets in Galactic Conquest that'll give you a big credit boost, but only once. These planets are the faction's home planets. So keeping them out of enemy hands prevents them getting a big cash bonus. But you don’t lose the war when you lose your homeplanet, unlike in SW B. At the start of Galactic Conquest you'll have to choose the starting location of your first fleet. And why am I saying first fleet? That’s because when you earned enough credts, you can buy a second fleet or even a third. There are two different kinds of battles, space battles and land battles.
Space battles occur when a fleet is already positioned at a spot in the galaxy and another fleet moves to the same spot. When the battle is on an empty spot in space then the losing fleet will be destroyed. But when this happens over a planet and the defending teams loses the space battles, then the attacker can immediately attack the planet below.
Land battles speak for them selves. When the attacking team loses a landbattle, then it's fleet is fleet is destroyed.

New maps have been introduced to SW BII, like Dagobah and Felucia. Tatooine and Naboo haven’t changed much, only the graphics of the maps are better. And finally the homeplanets of the factions have been redone. Kamino, Endor and Hoth are now bigger and the CIS homeplanet Geonisis has a completely new map.

Have you ever wanted to be Luke Skywalker or the mercenary Boba Fett? Now’s your chance. A new feature is the hero assault mode. In this mode you can choose the dark or the light side. But in this mode you don’t work with reinforcement points, instead you'll work with assault points, similar to the points you earn in the spacebattles.
When you have killed enough enemies with a certain weapon or in general, you will get a bonus, such as an improved rifle or damage bonus. When you get a certain amount of points in one life, you will be granted the option to play as a hero.

In the end a lot of improvements have been made to SW BII. The only bad thing I have to say about SW BII is that the AI has pretty much remained the same, its still pretty stupid but still can ruin your day. But good graphics, good gameplay, new maps, new features etc. out weight the bad thing. So I would really recommend this game.

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