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Star Wars Battlefront Released (giantbomb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday marked the release of Star Wars Battlefront, EA DICE's attempt to resurrect a Star Wars video game series that had great success a decade ago, but gradually petered out over the course of several years. Early reviews for the game are mixed. Games Radar's video review gives it a lot of credit for being incredibly faithful to the feeling of Star Wars. Polygon's review praises the game's accessibility and its broad variety of PvP options, but acknowledges that it had to trade complexity to get there. Giant Bomb's review is much more blunt: "Slick production values, solid controls, and tons of fan service can't make up for mediocre progression and a lack of content." Many reviews rate the graphics highly, and performance is solid even on consoles. It's worth noting that user ratings on Metacritic come in significantly lower than critics' ratings, with the most common complaint being about the dearth of content.
>> user ratings on Metacritic come in significantly lower than critics' ratings...lack of content
And yet, someone will still buy this shiny plastic turd of a game.
The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired of Star Wars. I'm half hoping JJ will "Star Trek" the franchise, deep-sixing it in a way not even Jar-Jar or the racist "trade federation Asians" could do, and clear off some shelf space and mindshare for something new and creative.
That is what the paid DLC is for!
It is basically Unreal tournament with a star wars theme. I was on the beta test and even then it was filled with bunny hopping 13 year olds making it annoying.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Last night I ran around on Endor as Luke Skywalker and slaughtered 20 Stormtoopers, allowing my fellow Rebels to call in a Y-Wing attack that eventually destroyed the Imperial AT-ATs that were threatening our evacuation route.
What's missing?
I have a feeling everyone is going to be starwars'ed out by new years. Disney needs to earn that 4 BILLION back.
It will be a very star wars christmas, It also should be noted that they own more than half of the radio and tv broadcast stations.....sometimes I really do feel like I live in the movie "They Live" with Obey, Conform, Consume messages everywhere.
Been too busy counting my caps to notice.
It's a multiplayer only game (ok, ok, you can play against bots, but that doesn't count), selling for a price that is, if anything, slightly higher than the average, where the developers have been quite open to quickly divide the community between those who are willing to pay an extra large sum on top of that for the DLC/season pass, and those peasants who just want to pay for the basic game.
In a game with a proper single-player campaign and a season pass for multiplayer content (eg. Tomb Raider, Call of Duty), I can happily ignore the season pass. In a game with a proper single-player campaign and a season pass for single-player content (eg. Fallout 4, The Witcher 3), I can make a situational call on whether to pay extra for the additional content, knowing that the original game isn't diluted if I don't want to splash out. But in a multiplayer-only game, I know that if I don't spend extra for the season pass (or buy each piece of DLC piecemeal), I'm going to get rapidly shunted into an online ghetto.
Battlefront's season pass is a particularly expensive one.
The game is pretty but looks like a rip-off. The better reviews have all highlighted that while fun for a short period of time, there is little depth to the gameplay and it gets old very fast. There have been a huge number of quality releases in the last few weeks that I have barely scratched the surface of (StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Disgaea 5, the expansions for Witcher 3 and Bloodborne and, flawed though it is, Fallout 4). On that basis, I am happy to pass up this particular rip-off.
I'm absolutely SHOCKED that EA would deliver a game that is marketed towards a fan base that will purchase absolutely anything with the franchise logo on it, and then skimp on content so that they can then double / triple / quadruple dip into that fan's wallet behind the disgusting practice of paid-for-DLC.
Won't even take a look at this thing with EA's logo on it. I'll continue playing games from publishers that don't have a Bill Cosby-esque relationship with their customers.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Ahem. Is everybody listening? Good. Watch this -- the hand is quicker than the eye.
I knew stormtroopers were actually terrible shots!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Just more EA garbage.
Sanctuary could be infiltrated at any minute by super Mutants. Must get Gun Nut 2 to build Shotgun Turrets.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
A really good Star Wars game would be a shoot 'em up - Rebel Alliance vs. Gungans.
Oh, the rush of just blasting Jar Jar away over and over and over again gives me the warm fuzzies.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
I was on the beta test and even then it was filled with bunny hopping 13 year olds making it annoying.
Is there a playable species that looks like a rabbit, like Lepi? I ask because if done right, "bunny hopping" could be a way to bring in the furry fandom.
I'm most intrigued by this game's graphics. To me, this has a Crysis like element to it where this is next generation graphics.
It makes sense that they were able to generate this kind of detail in a game that doesn't have a supreme amount of content. But because of this, it interests me. I can't name another game that looks quite like this.
I haven't purchased a $60 dollar game in a long time so I'll likely pass on it. However, I do want to get my hands on a demo at some point.
I would normally look forward to a bunch of the games coming out, such as:
Starwars: BattleNot Fallout 4
Starcraft Legacy of the Not Fallout 4
Halo 5: Guardians of the Not Fallout 4
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Not Fallout 4
Rise of the Tomb Not Fallout 4 Raider
But all of these top games seem to have one thing in common.
it's starwars.
"Slick production values, solid controls, and tons of fan service can't make up for mediocre progression and a lack of content."
Are you sure they weren't talking about the prequels?
Expensive? Yes, but Star Wars.
As for it being light on content I don't know what people are expecting, since they have to hold back a bunch of stuff until the new movie comes out. What's there has a pretty good variety, looks great and has worked well for me with no bugs to date... more than I can say for some other games.
I can see where more hardcore gamers might fight it a bit light but for those of us not playing ten hours a day I can see playing this for quite a while.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is no way any review of this game is valid after this little time. I played the demo and preview (after playing BF extensively since BF1942s demo) and have yet to make up my mind. Most if the mechanics are still locked inside toys that they can't have unlocked.
It can take weeks, months, or even years to get content in a game to a working, playable state. Not just the basic storyline, but game mechanics, programming, art assets, etc.
And players, especially the most rabid ones, will chew through it all in a couple days.
And, as games get more complex (visually), less and less time gets budgeted to the actual content development.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
posting to remove an erroneous mod.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I've been playing for about 10 hours, and I love it. That said, what the Giant Bomb review said about the lack of content will probably become an issue soon.
First and foremost, the game is a LOT of fun. The game plays exactly like if you were in one of the battles in the movie. I was really skeptical of the game play trailer they released that looked so awesome, but the game really is that cool. It is probably the most immersive and satisfying game universe i've played in. They have an amazing core of a game, nailing the graphics, game mechanics, balancing, atmosphere, controls and pace. More than anything else, it always FEELS like you're in a huge epic battle with things (both players and atmospheric) happening around you.
The downside is, the unlock system is a bit meager, and there's not a lot of levels. The levels are huge, and detailed, but even with the randomness of some of the modes, there's still only so many of them. The Walker Assault is really cool (and hopefully expanded on in DLC, maybe a death star assault mode?), but you can only replay the battle of Hoth so many times. The unlock system is a bit of a kick in the balls to new players, as you literally start with a single blaster and that's it - no cards at all. It takes 2-4 matches per level up, and you generally only unlock 1-2 cards/weapons a level up, so it can take a bit before you have anything useful.
I'm fully planning on buying the season pass/DLC. While i'm generally opposed to buying half a game and then having to get the other half in DLC, I don't really feel like that's the case here. There is a LOT of content here, it's just spread a bit thin over what feels like 25 game modes. The game is an absolute blast, so I have no problem shelling out a bit more money for more levels (and hopefully some new game modes and card/weapons). Considering how they absolutely nailed the mechanics, it's a bit disappointing that they didn't include a true single player mode, but now they they have the engine and the assets, I feel like it might be more a matter of 'when not if' they release something else. If the Force Unleashed used the same engine/mechanics, it would've been a game of the year candidate - it would be nice if DICE or a modder made that sort of experience a reality.
If they gave you content, how are they going to sell you the DLC?
... because then I would think this was so rad. Seriously, if my 12-year-old self had this game, he would have been in heaven. All I got back then was Rebel Assault, which blew my mind at the time because it came on a goddamn CD-ROM. Sadly, my older self does not share this enthusiasm. But to all you 12-year-olds out there, have a ball driving around in AT-STs.
Isn't this an EA game? I am sure they have plenty of additional content in the works to be released as DLC in time for Christmas.
Well after playing the first two the of BF looks like it has lost the LAN player capability and has become a delivery mechanism for EA.
It looks great, similar gameplay, but the load out is different from the first two. A bit sad, for pure fun, the first game was the best. I really just want to play the game with my mates on a lan, not over the net where it is slow.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
LOL! I agree!
Having made that complex point, I'll make two more:
1) Not X-Wing VS Tie Fighter! Jerks! Make that game already! The only two SW games that came close to the enjoyment of that game was perhaps SWKOTOR, and Jedi Knight 2 multiplayer (if only to force choke someone over a bottomless pit and drop them).
2) Battlefront of old really sucked for one important reason. The AI bots were the dumbest bunch of morons ever. You could play a game, and genocidally wipe out billions of AI, and still lose. Conversely, you could do nothing, and somehow win. After awhile once the theme wears off, it kinda makes you wonder why you bother to play the game in the first place (other than the fun of picking of Storm Troopers for a period of time). I have no doubt the reason why the AI sucked so bad was the limited computational resources of the consoles it was built for.