Star Wars: Battlefront

Well, one time I was real sick and didn't have much to do but try to beat Suikoden IV. I didn't want to get stuck in the rut of trying to beat one game at a a time; I wanted to experience several different games at once. So I went to Blockbuster Video and rented Star Wars: Battlefront. Normally I don't play any Star Wars games, simply because I just can't bring myself to play them and try to get the same experience from them as I would the game. The same goes for many other movies turned into video games(the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Spider-Man, Hulk, etc.) I broke down one time and decided to try SW: Battlefront out on faith. What I found is that I have missed out on quite a bit.
The game Star Wars: Battlefront is nothing more than a rehash of the original Star Wars trilogy and Episodes I and II. Then the game tries to spruce it up by offering different ways to play the planets and it doesn't work. Oops. Many of the ships from the movie are in the game, as well as the weapons. No surprise there; it's not Star Wars without the ships to fight against the backdrop of the stars. Thankfully, the creators of the game have limited the use of Jedi and Sith masters to computer control ONLY. The madness that would've been trying to control a Jedi in a battlefield situation while commanding troops would have been lopsided. Additionally, you can do that on Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Seen the madness secondhand, folks, and it ain't pretty.

In the game's defense, I will say this: fighting for the Empire is a breeze. It has to be the sweetest job in the galaxy. You're tools of evil, sure, but you are the best equipped fighting force in the known galaxy--and that has to count for something! Oh, and JETPACKS!
On the flipside, fighting as the Rebellion is a chore. Not only are you fighting against the odds, but everyone you work with has to be mentally challenged to some degree. I'm not going to point any fingers (*ahem*WOOKIE*koff*), but they all need remedial tactics training.
Case in point: I'm trying to take downtown Cloud City as the Rebels and I'm leading the charge--as a female sniper--down a hallway. I took a turn into a window slit and took aim over the courtyard. I'm taking my potshots at the stormtroopers, yet I know that my back is exposed. I give the command for any nearby soldiers to get over here and cover my back. No one has arrived yet, so I wait a little bit and I hear footsteps approach. Thank God, it's reinforcements…
NOPE. Stormtrooper puts two in by back and I die. Looking up at my killer, I can see two Wookies and a Rebel pilot looking on. Do you know what happens next? The fucking pilot throws a health pack at my dead body.

Holy moley frijoles.

Above: I don't give a good goddamn if you hate losing at Holo-Chess, you still suck! Fucking wookies.

Foolish Rebels asides, there are good missions and then there are ass-poundingly hard missions, namely the battle on Geonosis from Attack of the Clones. You'd think that a bunch of guys cloned from the best bounty-hunter in the galaxy would be able to hold down a single command post. Shitfuck no: they're out there mulling about, trying their best to find the nearest battledroid to be killed by. That's how I ended up losing 5 men to a single battle droid--THE LAST BATTLEDROID ON THE FIELD--and losing the battle. The good missions--like the Cloud City Docks, the Kashyyyk Docks and the Rebel base on Rhen Var--more than make up for the mind-numbing difficulty with intense firefights in open hallways and up ramps. The number of times I've told my men to hold the line aloud, I'll never know.
The game is technically perfect, but like all games involving squad-based combat using AI, your partners always smoke a bag of weed before spawning. The music is really good and the sound effects get stuck in your head. I truly wish the game would allocate more grenades to PC, if only to sate my natural skills as a grenadier. Star Wars: Battlefront gets a ReViews rating of 7.

UPDATE(2005/4/11): In the wake of the mania surrounding Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, LucasArts is putting together a sequel to Star Wars: Battlefront. The sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront II, contains a missing element from the original, that of an interactive version of Episode III. Be on the lookout.

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