Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Star Wars Battlefront Released (giantbomb.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the has-a-death-sentence-on-three-systems dept.

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.

14 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >> 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.

    1. Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by Frigga's+Ring · · Score: 4, Informative

      Lacking robust content doesn't make it a turd; it just falls shy of my expectations of a $60 game. I purchased it despite knowing it had limited content because it serves as a nice change of pace from the other game I'm playing right now. Plus, the lack of gore makes it a nice shooter that I can play with my 12 and 8 year old niece and nephew.

      Without some nice, free content, I doubt I'll still be playing it in three months. But I can say that about a lot of games I own.

    2. Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Interesting concept of "deep sixing" you have there, if you consider that his first Star Trek film was the first ST film to win an Academy Award, as well as winning numerous other awards, was financially successful and received very positive reviews. His second Star Trek film was even more financially successful than his first, received very favourable reviews and has been the spring board for the first Star Trek TV series in over a decade.

      I only hope the new Star Wars films fail as badly!

    3. Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No you won't.

      First- this is EA, and they will keep pushing Origin. If you play this on PC, you need to have Origin installed. If you play it on consoles, you need to have an Origin account (the game walks you through this, of course). This means they won't launch it on Steam unless their whole model falls apart.

      Second- this game has almost no solo pve content- that is, the entire game is player versus player, with the exceptions of a few training missions. The training missions are actually pretty rad, but there's only a few of them. This means that if you try to play it in three years, your opponents will be both RARE and SUPER GOOD at the game- you'll be playing with and against the people who have, for whatever reason, decided that THIS game is the one that will stand the test of time for them, despite a bunch of new and shiny options, so they will love the mechanics, the guns, the powerups, the maps- and you'll be a babe amongst wolves.

      For what it does, it's an excellent game- a pvp fps with extra options and strong Star Wars theme. If that doesn't motivate you to buy it within the first year of launch, you'll likely be much better served by other entertainment options for your dollar- and your time.

    4. Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you play this on PC, you need to have Origin installed. If you play it on consoles, you need to have an Origin account

      And this is why I will stick with my old XBox 360 with no network connection.

      I have no interest in having to be online, or have a bloody account to play a video game.

      I miss old school gaming without the network. And when my 360 dies, then I guess I'm done with gaming for good.

      I don't want to play against some kid who has put 10000 hours into a game. I don't want ads in my games. I don't want to have to sign up for a damned account, and fork over my credit card or any other personal information.

      For some of us, video games are intermittent undertakings, and don't involve networking or people who aren't in the same room.

      Have we completely lost the old school concept of console gaming as a standalone thing? Because that's all I really want.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're not nostalgic for the bygone days of gaming -- you're nostalgic for life before 1993.

      In some ways, yes ... the longer the internet is around and becomes attached to everything, the less I want it to be attached to everything.

      Because the internet is largely now taken over by marketing assholes and analytics.

      I want a fucking video game, not yet another vector to have these clowns track everything I do.

      For the same reasons I don't want my TV or my toilet connected to the internet -- because it's pointless and doesn't offer me any added value.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    6. Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by orgelspieler · · Score: 4, Informative

      Leave it to Disney to take a franchise and license it for everything from toothpaste to cell phone ads. They really know how to whore out a movie. Long gone are the days when the worst you would see was a Happy Meal and some action figures. At least the Lego sets are still awesome.

    7. Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired by cfalcon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Every EA game is Origin now- it's fair to hate Origin, but it means you hate EA. Which is also fair.

  2. Not touching this one by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. If it was from any other publisher... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
  4. Re:Too little content? by Zephyn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Pray they don't alter the deal any further.

  5. Re:Even though I got preview night tickets... by Zephyn · · Score: 5, Funny

    It will be a very star wars Holiday Special

    FTFY

  6. Re:Even though I got preview night tickets... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Disney needs to earn that 4 BILLION back.

    To put it in perspective, Blizzard paid $5.9bn for King, the developer of Candy Crush Saga and many other mobile pay-to-advance games.

    Must be kind of annoying for the developers of games like this, and the people working on the movies. They put in all that effort and a shitty mobile game cloning factory that specializes in extracting your money through boredom and your nagging kids is worth more than all their efforts combined.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. Starwars: BattleNot Fallout 4 by netsavior · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.