Star Wars: Battlefront

[Solo4114]

Yeah, that part was nice. In Battlefront 2 it was less of an issue, since you could play offline mode and pretty much just "give" yourself the hero to play with for a bit. On the whole, I never felt like they were that great, but that may have been because I always ended up getting them and then not being able to get near enough enemies to kill. They looked impressive, but you had to keep killing to get more time to use them, with the health bar constantly running out (replenished by killing), so if you suddenly killed everyone around you and had to run too far to find more people, you'd just go back to being a regular grunt. So, ultimately, I never really used them in Galactic Conquest mode.

Hero duel was fun as a lark, but I found a lot of the heroes to be kinda "meh" as implemented.

 

[ghostryder]

 

[The Terminator]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQJQn-zctY&feature=youtu.be&sf42349416=1

Very nice trailer. LOVE Williams' score. Amazing how it still can give you goosebumps.

 

[StevenBills]

You can hit the aircraft with all the weapons. I've even seen a video where Vader took out a snowspeeder by throwing his lightsaber, significantly leading the target, of course.

I once spawned quite a ways from the action, so, just wanting to see how far you could throw a grenade, I looked up, threw away, and followed it with my reticle, when lo and behold, a snowspeeder flew right into its path and exploded! Needless to say, my brother and I were quite shocked, and it leveled me up!

Yes, I know it was a fluke accident, but it was still a cool game experience!

SB

 

[The Terminator]

I once spawned quite a ways from the action, so, just wanting to see how far you could throw a grenade, I looked up, threw away, and followed it with my reticle, when lo and behold, a snowspeeder flew right into its path and exploded! Needless to say, my brother and I were quite shocked, and it leveled me up!

Yes, I know it was a fluke accident, but it was still a cool game experience!

SB

Something similar happened to me during the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. My very first match and I push a mongoose(small two man vehicle) into a man-cannon(sort of like a mix between a giant fan/catapult) the thing flies far away... lands on a dude's head killing him in an instant. After the game ended I saved the reply(LOVE this feature) and watched it dozens upon dozens of times. Tried to repeat it more than a few times, even with buddies of mine standing still.... nope, definitely a fluke!

 

[Solo4114]

I shot down a plane with a tank once in BF1942. That was fun. But I also had the experience of shooting a plane with a Defgun in BF1942 and the plane somehow f-ing survived. That's DICE for ya.

 

[ghostryder]

http://www.ign.com/videos/2015/11/1...eplay-in-star-wars-battlefront-at-1080p-60fps

 

[ghostryder]

http://kotaku.com/star-wars-battlefront-impressions-skimpy-singleplayer-1742249840

 

[The Terminator]

******** the game looks great. Too bad it lacked in the "fun" department

 

[Mektar]

it will prob be fun but i do hear that it lacks in alot of content. I will def get this and then see...

 

[Solo4114]

I will definitely wait to get it at about $30 or below and then see, myself.

 

[niennumb1]

I'm having a VERY conflicting relationship with this game, which is a VERY strange feeling because you either like it or don't.

The game atmosphere and visuals are absolutely second to none. They nailed every visual and audio aspect that will make this super cool to navigate around....
.....but it got boring quick in the beta.....
(and this thought keeps circling back after every good point I try to make about the game experience)

.....but I get to roam around the Star Wars universe in amazing detail and rich environments......
.....but it was boring......
.....but I want to ride a speeder bike so bad.....
.....but it was boring.....
.....but I can play as Vader and Fett and do crazy stuff.....
.....but it was boring.....
.....but I get to play the battle of Jakku before the movie arrives....
.....but it was boring.....
.....but it is amazing!!!!
.....but it's not complete and they want you to pay $50 more for a season pass....
.....but I can -----
.....Alright fine spend the money on the deluxe and regret it later, you idiot. I tried to tell you.....
.....I know....

 

[Solo4114]

See, here's the thing.

If you liked the gameplay, awesome! Buy it! I know there are a lot of people who really enjoyed the game.

BUT

If you thought the gameplay was shallow or boring or poorly implemented, I've got news for you:

It's not going to get any better.

DICE doesn't fundamentally alter their games post-release. They'll add some stuff on to it, but the gameplay is the gameplay at its core. The beta was, in my estimation, a pretty accurate representation of what you can expect to get in the game. The servers will run a little more smoothly now that they've been load tested, and some of the graphical bugs and minor balance tweaks will be dealt with, but for the most part, the gameplay is exactly what you've experienced. It will not change.

So, if you loved that, awesome! You're in for a treat because that gameplay can now be experienced over multiple different modes. But if the gameplay didn't hook you, if you're really just wanting the gameplay to be better, because you're swayed by the superficial qualities of the game (look and sound), here's my advice: save your money. Or at least, get the game at a steeply discounted price.

For me, this game is in no way, shape, or form worth anything over $30. Even with the Season Pass included.

How do I know? Because I found the gameplay itself kind of shallow and unsatisfying. I LOVED the visuals and the audio stuff. It's as close to being in the OT films as I've gotten in any game except, maybe, the old X-wing series. But I know that however much I want the game to be "better" or more satisfying, the core gameplay is set in stone at this point. The guns pretty much work how they work. The unlocks are the same. The map layout, the gameplay speed, all of it is what it is. And what it is ain't worth $100 to me to get both the core game and the season pass.

I've also played DICE games before a-plenty, and they have an absolutely godawful track record at product support. Bugs -- sometimes glaringly obvious bugs -- will take months to fix. Battlefield Bad Company2 at one point had such bad rubberbanding on the X360 after a patch that it made the game fundamentally unplayable...and it still took DICE 3 months to fix it. Not a hotfix, not a quickly released patch. 3. F-ing. Months. That's been true across every DICE game I've ever played, from Battlefield 3 all the way back to BF1942. They're AWFUL at game support. And no, this game being tied to the Star Wars brand won't matter in terms of speeding up support. This is an EA/DICE product, and it will be supported exactly the same as they always have.


I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, core gameplay really, really, REALLY matters. It's the thing that keeps me coming back even after the graphics have aged, after I've played the maps and modes a gazillion times, and after I've gotten frustrated with having to wait THREE. F-ING. MONTHS. for what should've been a hotfix. If the core gameplay is solid, I'm there for hundreds of ours. But if it isn't, I'll get bored and leave. And that's pretty much what I expect to happen with this game. Adding game modes won't make me stay. Adding maps won't make me stay. It may delay the time before I get bored and move on, but my gut tells me that this game is not a "keeper" in teh sense of one that I will play for hundreds of hours. I won't love this game. And as a result, I'm unwilling to pay full freight for it. I don't really care what the going rate is out there for other games. I have my own price point for gameplay, and it's got nothing to do with developer efforts, marketing costs, or whatever else affects the price tag a publisher decides to affix to a game. To me, that's their "asking price," not my "buying price."

I'll buy this game if and when it drops to my "buying price." Hopefully there will still be folks playing by then, but I wouldn't be surprised if this game is played intensely after release...and then dropped as soon as the "next big thing" comes along.

 

[eifion]

I remember playing Shadows of the Empire in 96 or 97 and being blown away when I could manualy fly a snowspeeder around an ATAT's legs to bring it down with a tow cable. In 2015 we get an awful "keep the marker in the middle" minigame and absoltely no control of the speeder to down Walkers - sums up this game and gaming in general these days.

 

[The Terminator]

I remember playing Shadows of the Empire in 96 or 97 and being blown away when I could manualy fly a snowspeeder around an ATAT's legs to bring it down with a tow cable. In 2015 we get an awful "keep the marker in the middle" minigame and absoltely no control of the speeder to down Walkers - sums up this game and gaming in general these days.

Wut? U actually had 2 play the game in order 2 play da game? But thats like working, I just wanna have sum fun!!

I loved, loved Shadows of the Empire. There wasn't many games where you could both fly a starship and run around in 3rd person, fly speeders and FLY A JETPACK
It wasn't that pretty but it felt very dark and scary. Battlefron 3 just feels like a pretty and real boring gem. Nice to look at but in the end meh.

 

[streetjudge79]

Wait, what is this season pass nonsense? Does that mean I can't play online without forking over another 50 bucks for that?

 

[Solo4114]

No, no. Let me explain how DICE/EA season passes generally work.

The game -- the base game, that is -- will let you play online. There's really not much of a singleplayer component to this game. It's more like offline versions of an online mode. I think I read that there are two modes playable offline: horde/survival and something else. Oh, and training, but whatever. Anyway, everything else is online.

The season pass is more like pre-purchasing all of the DLC that is scheduled to be released. With a game like, say, Battlefield 3, you could buy a season pass that would give you access up front to all of the DLCs they'd release, when each was ready. The season pass tends to be something like $5-10 less expensive than buying the DLC individually, too, but more in total. So, if each DLC individually is $15, and there are 4 planned DLC, the season pass saves you $10 total (4x$15 vs $50). DICE benefits because they get cash up front. You benefit (in theory) because you save money on DLC you'd otherwise buy individually, and then sometimes you get some extra little doodad like an extra skin or emote or whatever. Or earlier access to the game and such.

In my experience, the season pass is...not always worth it. I bought "Premium" for Battlefield 3 (which is basically the same concept), and I stopped playing the game after the 2nd DLC came out. There were some major balance issues on release, and I was mightily unimpressed. So, DICE got to keep about $20 from me that I never saw the benefit of. I could go back and play now (if the servers aren't ghost towns), but if I'm just done with the game, oh well, I paid my money up front.

My point about the season pass thing is that future DLC (what you'll get with the season pass) probably won't change the core gameplay. You'll get new maps, maybe a new hero or two, maybe a new gun or two. There's a possibility you'd get a new game mode or that existing maps will be made compatible with different game modes. But the core gameplay is the core gameplay.

So, if you dig it, go ahead and buy. But don't buy in the hopes that you'll "grow to love it" or that it will change. It'll be tweaked at the edges, but it won't change at the core.


I get it, though. I get the allure. I WANT to love this game. I WANT the experience of playing it to live up to the quality of the visuals and sound. But from the beta, it just...doesn't.

 

[eifion]

The game -- the base game, that is -- will let you play online. There's really not much of a singleplayer component to this game. It's more like offline versions of an online mode. I think I read that there are two modes playable offline: horde/survival and something else. Oh, and training, but whatever. Anyway, everything else is online.

Singleplayer doesn't even qualify as an offline version of online because you cannot play modes like Walker Assault and Supremacy (the core modes of the gamne) alone against bots. This is a huge ommission and a disgrace in my opinion. Battlefront 2 from 2005 let you do this with a wealth of options.

The game is so barebones it's unreal. It's just a glorifed tech demo - a appealing Star Wars paintjob is not enough.

 

[Solos blaster]

No, no. Let me explain how DICE/EA season passes generally work.

The game -- the base game, that is -- will let you play online. There's really not much of a singleplayer component to this game. It's more like offline versions of an online mode. I think I read that there are two modes playable offline: horde/survival and something else. Oh, and training, but whatever. Anyway, everything else is online.

The season pass is more like pre-purchasing all of the DLC that is scheduled to be released. With a game like, say, Battlefield 3, you could buy a season pass that would give you access up front to all of the DLCs they'd release, when each was ready. The season pass tends to be something like $5-10 less expensive than buying the DLC individually, too, but more in total. So, if each DLC individually is $15, and there are 4 planned DLC, the season pass saves you $10 total (4x$15 vs $50). DICE benefits because they get cash up front. You benefit (in theory) because you save money on DLC you'd otherwise buy individually, and then sometimes you get some extra little doodad like an extra skin or emote or whatever. Or earlier access to the game and such.

In my experience, the season pass is...not always worth it. I bought "Premium" for Battlefield 3 (which is basically the same concept), and I stopped playing the game after the 2nd DLC came out. There were some major balance issues on release, and I was mightily unimpressed. So, DICE got to keep about $20 from me that I never saw the benefit of. I could go back and play now (if the servers aren't ghost towns), but if I'm just done with the game, oh well, I paid my money up front.

My point about the season pass thing is that future DLC (what you'll get with the season pass) probably won't change the core gameplay. You'll get new maps, maybe a new hero or two, maybe a new gun or two. There's a possibility you'd get a new game mode or that existing maps will be made compatible with different game modes. But the core gameplay is the core gameplay.

So, if you dig it, go ahead and buy. But don't buy in the hopes that you'll "grow to love it" or that it will change. It'll be tweaked at the edges, but it won't change at the core.


I get it, though. I get the allure. I WANT to love this game. I WANT the experience of playing it to live up to the quality of the visuals and sound. But from the beta, it just...doesn't.

I LOVED battlefield 3, it was my first foray into the BF franchise and I completely stopped playing COD because I enjoyed it so much. I got it when it first came out and also ended up paying for the full DLC "Premium" package later when that came out. This and that when all the DLC came out you could pay full price for the complete game PLUS all the DLC for the same price that I paid just for Battlefield 3 and had to pay full price to get all the DLC. That's right, I paid twice as much for the same abilities as my friends who later bought it...


I loved Shadows of the Empire too! I could never really wrap the legs of the AT-ATs very well and often I crashed or just failed completely lol, but I loved just being able to do it.

 

[Wolfsburg]

I was fairly set on buying this but I'm just seeing too much commentary that while immersive, it isn't that much fun and not worth 60 bucks. That's a real shame.