Can a product be judged by its lousy marketing strategy? Battlefront II has not been without criticism for how EA is handling the issue of paying with real money to gain an advantage in online gaming, and there is uncertainty because EA has not made it clear if it will continue with the idea of wanting it to. people used money to get heroes or power-ups, or gave up after the game’s bad beta reception, thus getting the most “dislike” thread on Reddit. But is Battlefront II really a bad game? Or is EA’s greed just making gamers not want to buy it?
Battlefront II is a game jointly developed by DICE, Criterion Games, and Motive Studios. Unlike its predecessor, Battlefront II has a campaign mode which tells the adventure of Iden Versio and her story as a member of the Inferno Squad, the Elite of the Imperial Army.
Unlike the old Star Wars games, Battlefront II is canonical in the new movie trilogy, making it a must-have for any movie fanatic to play, to see if it joins somewhere in the new cinematic universe. It also has a Multiplayer mode, much more varied than the previous version, and above all polished; This can be seen in the “Star Fighter Assault” mode in which you control the emblematic ships of the movies, going through the 3 eras of these (Old Republic, Alliance, New Cinematic Universe).
CAMPAIGN MODE
As mentioned, the game has a story mode developed by Motive Studios, which you control Iden Versio, a member of the infernal squad, which with the help of his companions Gideon Hask and Del Meeko seek to end the rebels definitively, in one fell swoop and so the Empire is the dominant force in the galaxy. Within the adventure you meet well-known characters (and others not so much) which you will face, or in some way help to fulfill your purpose.
The campaign mode lasts around six hours, which does not make it so tedious, and it serves as a good tutorial to learn the handling of weapons and your droid friend with which it allows you to electrocute your enemies, or use it as an active radar . Within your adventure you will also find various weapons and power ups, such as missile launchers, ion cannon, active anti-blaster shield, etc. If you are really a fan of the saga, it is very convenient for you to play the campaign, without talking so much about the plot of this, I will only say that it is quite interesting what Battlefront II presents within the new cinematic universe.
ARCADE MODE
Battlefront II has a mode called Arcade which allows you to play against the AI, choosing both heroes and villains, in which you have to meet some requirements before time runs out. The mode itself is entertaining, but it is the mode you will play the least, unless you want to try the new hero you just bought.
MULTIPLAYER MODE
The main course and developed almost entirely by DICE. Multiplayer mode has five game modes:
Galactic Assault: The star mode of the game. It has battles of up to 40 players, which is divided between two teams of up to 20 players each. To claim victory, Battlefront 2 gives you the option to choose four classes: Assault, Officer, Infiltrator, and Heavy; each with its corresponding perks and weapons (five card upgradable skills and up to four weapons per class). In this mode and in all the others you are divided between Alliance and Republic, which, according to the maps, is divided into attack or defense.
The attacking team has to destroy / deactivate / take up to three objectives to win the game, whereas the defense only needs to deplete the respawn stock of those who attack only once. Each time the attacking team achieves a goal, it recharges 50 to 70 in stock and thus tries to take the second objective. The fun thing about this mode is that as in the other multiplayer modes, when eliminating enemies the game gives you credits, which you can use in your next respawn to use a hero, or a ship and thus have a considerable advantage.
Starfighter Assault: The mode completely developed by Criterion, in which it consists of space battles or “Dogfights” which consist of 24 players, with teams of 12 each. As in the Galactic Assault, here it is divided between attacker and defender, with the only difference that here you choose ships instead of infantry, having for example the now legendary X-wing or the Tie Fighter.
Unlike in the first installment, the ships after a little practice become easy to maneuver, and after a while you will be knocking down players left and right, not to mention that in this mode there will be ships controlled by the AI which will serve you as an excellent shooting practice and thus be able to dominate each ship with which the game consists (Hunting. Interceptor and bomber) which consist, like the infantry classes, with different power ups and equippable cards.
Heroes and Villains: Like the first Battlefront, in this mode you only play with the heroes or villains of the saga, in a team of four against four, at the best of five rounds.
Attack: In this mode based on eight players per side, it is a reduced version of Galactic Assault, in which one team must pick up or destroy only one target and the other team prevents this. It is the ideal way to test some weapons or power ups.
Outbreak: It is the Deathmatch of Battlefront II. 20 players all against all to see who is the best in the galaxy.
Before continuing with the audio and graphics section, the point of contention that EA generated in its beta testing should be mentioned, and that caused a wave of bad comments from many players: The boxes/lootboxes.
Before the launch of the game, EA was clear that everything obtainable in the game is given by the loot boxes, which could be bought with money, therefore, in the lootboxes before the launch they could contain modifiers of weapons, weapons, heroes , cards to equip and improve power up; In a few words, YOU COULD BUY EVERYTHING with money, generating an absurd advantage between someone who spends their good dollars, someone who wants to get the raises in a normal way, that is, playing. What happened? EA had to retract at the last minute, causing DICE to badly fix the progression of the character in multiplayer, resulting in something quite strange, which I will explain now.
The multiplayer progression is divided into three parts:
The problem with all this is that the Loot Boxes still exist, which makes leveling and progression very strange, but it does not take away from the good experience that is Multiplayer.
GRAPHIC AND AUDIO SECTION
The graphics and ambient sound are spectacular. Droids, clone troopers, fighters and heroes are seen in great detail on the battlefield and the sound of blasters and explosions are recreated just like the movies, with that characteristic sound when listening to the firing of your ion cannon. Graphically speaking the game is spectacular, the dynamic lights and shadows look really good in your environment. A separate point are the already classic melodies of this saga composed by John Williams.
To close this review, it can be said that Battlefront II is a game that fully meets, offers many hours of gameplay and is quite well polished, but the problems caused by EA scared many people away and caused a lot of disenchantment with the game, causing neither was even nominated for a category in The Games Awards (It should have been considered in Audio Design). In the end, EA’s greed caused the game to be misclassified for something that it really is NOT: A bad game.
