 | | Battlefront mixes settings and units from all six films into one giant Royal Rumble |
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This won't be a full length review as I already delved into this game on the consoles. If you want some more specific details on the underlying game itself, I'd advise you to check out
that article first. Today I'm here to talk specifically about the PC incarnation though, and right off the bat I can say that without a doubt this is a much better game than it was on the consoles.
The graphics are improved first of all, with a richer and more lavish feel to the foliage among other things. They appear to be capped at 30 frames per second, but if nothing else this puts all players on an even playing field, and it also leaves the game running at a constant smoothness, with no highs and dips.
The controls also benefit hugely from a keyboard and mouse rig. In fact, the vehicles are actually pretty damn ferocious when in the hands of the right player now, and you can completely dominate the map in some of the bigger ones.
Some may call this unbalanced, but I kinda like it myself - the vehicles are now something to be truly feared. There's a great thrill to be felt charging down the beaches of Kashyyk as a rebel trooper only to spot imperial walkers closing in from a distance and completely soiling yourself.
The Movies Brought to Life
 | | Anyone who doesn't get an adrenaline rush at times like this needs a solid slap |
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I've grown to love the maps a fair bit more than I originally did as well. Each one seems to have a different style of play to the next, thus even though you probably won't love all unconditionally, everyone will have their favourites for their own reasons.
As previously noted, for the more epic and open ended war experience, you can't beat Geonosis or Hoth. The latter is perhaps the most fun map in the game for me, a cunning mixture of open plains and back door tunnels. The way the game ties in the film's use of the speeders, the shield generator and those ugly taun-tauns is rather inspired. One of my greatest moments was manning an AT-AT walker as an imperial, blasting the rebels to hell and back, then suddenly hearing a lightsaber ignite as Luke Skywalker ran beneath my legs. Uh oh!
 | | Jump down that small hole in the middle for the secret hidden bonus weapon. Honest |
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Then for the dogfighters there's Bespin Platforms. A terribly small map to be fair, but great fun never the less. And for the more troop orientated hand to hand warfare there's Theed, Mos Eisley and possibly the best of the bunch, the old carbon freezing chamber from Empire Strikes Back. All of these look great and run very smoothly on my slightly above average rig.
The Dark Side
On the down side, this PC version lacks voice communication, but this can be overcome with third party software such as TeamSpeak. Perhaps it's my imagination, but the AI also seems a lot less impressive than on the consoles. This I can't explain.
Never the less, I'm falling in love with this one rather rapidly. Some of the niggling problems mentioned in the earlier review still stand, but this is definitely the platform of choice for Star Wars Battlefront. The variation in gamespy styles between each map lends a great amount of variety to the game when played in lengthy sessions, and I think it's bound to please Battlefield 1942 players and Star Wars fans alike.
I'll end this by noting a patch was released recently that fixed up the many pain-in-the-shitter connection problems which plagued the game on launch, which you can find by following the link below. See you guys on the battleground!
ActionTrip - 1.01 Patch
This review/report was created by the great team at TPSreport.co.uk:
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