Star Wars: Battlefront II is my current poison on the Xbox. As I was
discussing with Ben (last night at Trivia, but we'll get to that
later) the shooter is not without its problems. Its three major flaws
are AI, Visibility in maps and voice bugs in Xbox Live. (stop reading
now if you don't' really care what I think of the game)
The least offensive of the three is the visibility in some of the
environments. Maps like Dagobah and Felucia are some of the worst
offenders. This is not so much of an issue when you're playing only
against human opponents but it seems that the AI controlled players
can "see" just that much better than you can. The main problems come
from the maps that try and recreate the ambience of the planet. They
really give the impression of a dense alien forest clouded in mist.
The lack of visibility ensures every movement you take on the map is a
measured one, tearing around the map (not unlike most of the AI
controlled players) almost guaranties walking straight into a member
of the opposing team. The City based maps have none of these issues
and feel just like a frantic urban battle with shots flying from every
angle and high losses from friendly fire.
AI is the chief complaint of many reviews of the series and although
your AI allies are hardly your most valuable asset they do aid to the
frantic nature of the battles. The most noticeably flaws are the
running headlong into a fire fight and standing next to an enemy
completely oblivious to any other dangers around them. (This is often
quite amusing to watch, provided you a fair way away preferably
perched high away from the fire fight watching from a sniper scope).
An extension of this is the need they often have of laying a few more
rounds into a corpse. It seems to happen more in battles with Rebels
and the Empire. Your team is pushing forward down a corridor, enemy at
one end you at the other. One of your soldiers pushes ahead of the
rest of the team and takes down an enemy trooper, then in triumph he
bends down lays 5 or 6 more shots into the now lifeless corpse
shouting "Die Rebel Scum!" (Ok I've been playing the bad guys)
completely oblivious to the rest of the fire fight and 9 times out of
10 dies. It does often result in corridor fights ending with one man
standing (or kneeling shooting at a corpse). The other thing I find
annoying is their innate ability to walk perfectly into your cross
hairs just as you pull the trigger of the sniper rifle. Maybe it's
just my luck or poor timing. You can get around some of this AI
stupidity with using the squad commands (Up on the D-Pad, by default),
by putting a member of your team in your sights pressing the squad
command you can cycle through "Follow Me" and "Move Out". Follow Me
basically gets them to fall in behind you, shoot at your targets and
other things that shoot at you. Move out sends the back to their own
sadistic devices. Oh, my last AI quibble is with the enemy bots.
Doesn't matter what they are doing you take one shot at them (even if'
it's from across the map through a sniper scope and they have a
shotgun) they will turn in your direction and start shooting at you.
Handy if you are across the map with a sniper rifle.
Last rant: Voice in Xbox live. So far I've only managed to get this
working once for about half a map. Problem one, by default the system
is set to "Voice through TV" which actually doesn't turn the voice on
until your toggle it. Then there is options for who you talk to and
who you listen to. These are found in the Player list (pressing start
in the game then selecting from the Player List in the menu), by
selecting your name in the player list you can select options for
talking and listening. (these are toggled using left and right on the
D-Pad) the options are Everyone, My Team, Other Team, Friends, None.
Even after all of these options it often results in a reset of the
Xbox to get it working. Then it's still not fault less, and sometimes
randomly stops working. I have since downloaded updates from Xbox live
so I will post any other solutions or progress once we try that out a
bit more.
Other than those (which really aren't that bad) I find the game
completely addictive in the "Just one more round" sort of way.
Admittedly the stats collection aspect of the game really doesn't hurt
that. I'll just see if I can get one more of those medals, etc, etc.
One thing that makes the battles enjoyable is the multiple selection
of soldier types when you spawn into the game (some of which are
unlockable based on your progress in that round) the Standard Trooper
is still my current favourite although the Engineer (with the ability
to dispense ammo and health, so you can heal yourself) and the
Commando with the unlimited ammo chain gun are moving up the ranks.
At full price this game was probably a little flawed for it to feel
like great value for money. Now it's on the "Classics" list and is
under $50 it's definitely something you should have a look at if you
A. Like Star Wars B. Like Battle Style Games. Really how could jumping
into an X-Wing flying over to the enemy's hanger, jumping out,
slaughtering a few enemy pilots on their way to their fighters whilst
on your way to blow up their Shield Generator from the inside not
sound like fun??
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