PC Advisor

Reviews
£44 inc VAT
GAME
Star Wars Battlefront
Contact
• starwars.ea.com/en_GB
System requirements
PC; Sony PlayStation 4;
Microsoft Xbox 360
We’ve largely come to terms with
Star Wars Battlefront. It’s not like
Battlefront II, but it’s not what we
wanted from Battlefront III either.
So what is it? Well, it looks
great, for one, and it sounds good,
too. Neither of those facts should
surprise you at this point. It was
developed by DICE, and this is
what it does. Battlefield has always
been (at least audio-visually) a
technological marvel, and that talent
makes it over intact to Battlefront.
Whether you are tromping
through the glistening snow of Hoth
or the sun-dappled redwoods of
Endor, Battlefront looks and sounds
like Star Wars, to an incredible
degree. Red and green laser beams
fire through the air, and old-school
sparks erupt wherever they hit.
AT-ATs awkwardly shuffle back
and forth around the battlefield.
And perhaps most delightful of
all is the Wilhelm scream you’ll
occasionally hear from a fallen foe.
Indeed, in many ways, Battlefront
feels even more faithful to the look
and feel of the original Star Wars
trilogy than George Lucas’s green
screen-heavy prequel films.
At its best, this is your lovinglydetailed
toy box brought to life
– Darth Vader and Return of the
Jedi-era Luke Skywalker striding
out into the middle of Hoth for a
climactic engagement, while Y-Wings
strafe overhead and an Imperial Star
Destroyer bombards the ground
from its lofty perch in space.
Lack of substance
Unfortunately, the game itself
is surprisingly thin. Just three
modes feature large-scale conflict:
Walker Assault, Supremacy and
Fighter Squadron. These allow
for the full 20 versus 20 battles,
vehicles and hero units.
Other modes include Death
Match, Drop Zone and Hero Hunt.
These make for a fun break from
the bigger modes but they’re light
on spectacle and none feels like
something you’d sink an afternoon
into. Especially since, as a shooter,
Battlefront has some nasty issues,
including awful spawns (especially
on Hoth), grenade spam, and
overpowered one-shot weapons
on extremely short cool downs.
So you end up returning to the
larger game types and the 12 maps.
They are beautiful and four of
them are enormous – the remaining
eight are smaller. With EA selling
its usual £40 season pass with
(we assume) more maps, the whole
thing feels cynical at best.
And let’s return to the fact the
game is limited to 20 versus 20
even in its largest modes. DICE
does a good job disguising this,
mostly by clever use of sight lines
66 www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews February 2016