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Star Wars Battlefront Released Today

Posted by Zonk on Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:25 AM
from the hardcore-ewok-fraggage dept.
First Person Shooters (Games) Media Movies PC Games (Games) Star Wars Prequels
JimLynch writes "Everybody's jazzed up about the DVD releases but Star Wars Battlefront came out today too. There are reviews at IGN and GameSpy."
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Star Wars Battlefront Released Today 50 Comments More /

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  • And the marketing machine marches on....... Should be a good game though.
  • At least in the US where I am, it was in stores yesterday, haven't had a chance to play it yet as I went to see GiTS2:Innocence last night (I was disappointed with it).
  • oi!
  • So, um, besides requiring the game UT2004, what are the differences between the Troopers: Dawn of Destiny mod and this game?
    • It requires BF1942, but if you have it, you need to check out the Galactic Conquest mod.

      Concidering SW Battlefront is a Battlefield CLONE set in the SW universe, it stands to reason that there's a nice parrallel in the Battlefield MOD set in the SW Universe.

      • I gave up on BF1942 when I realized I was spending more time downloading patches(and having to search for them) and trying to connect to servers, downloading maps, than actually playing the game.

        Then the patches got up to a point where if I connected to any server(if I was lucky) it just booted me out of the game.

        Makes the "lock up when you d/l a new map" in UT2004 seem okay.
    • It prolly won't have terrible character model animation/movements like most mod's on UT2004. The upper bodies of the characters look like they are frozen in time when they run. Not to mention they run around like they have a 3 foot pole stuck up their ass. Some mod's are pretty good and I enjoy playing them, but man, I can't stand it how the character's look more life-like when they are dead than they do alive.
    • See here [ut2004troopers.com] for the Web site.

      From what I played recently and briefly, there weren't any vehicles except the one Death Star space map. Play Galactic Conquest [galactic-conquest.net] mod for BF1942 if you want vehicles too.

  • A word of advice... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2004, @10:44AM (#10319073)
    Being a geek doesn't mean you have to keep giving Lucas your money. You can stop anytime now.

    You're just encouraging him.
      • No, you're supposed to boycott them, which means neither buying nor playing. Pirating the games doesn't tell the publisher (or Lucas) that you think his stuff sucks but that you're not the kind of person to pay for games and therefore not worth catering to. Boycotting means showing the company that you can very well live without their product and that you're willing to do so until they fix whatever it is that you're boycotting. If you pirate it you show them that you cannot live without it and that the only

  • Finally After All These Years... (Score:5, Funny)

    by th1ckasabr1ck (752151) on Wednesday September 22 2004, @10:44AM (#10319079)
    ... we get the chance to shoot an Ewok in the face.
  • These days I want to try before I buy.

  • Bah, who needs it.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MagicDude (727944) on Wednesday September 22 2004, @10:54AM (#10319198)
    Bah, who needs another iteration of the Battle of Hoth? [vgcats.com]

    Actually, I really do want this game, I'm just miffed that it's on every system but the Cube.
    • it's on every system but the Cube.
      and it shows... i'm playing the pc "demo" and the game's graphics aren't all that great. gameplay is good, but very BFlike. cool original SW cinematics though.

  • xbox demo (Score:3, Informative)

    by sw33tjimmy (662009) on Wednesday September 22 2004, @10:58AM (#10319251) Homepage
    included with the bonus disk in the DVD collection is an demo for the Xbox version of battlefront. Most of what I've read says that the console versions of this game are better than the PC version... :/

    • From the IGN review:

      On Xbox and PlayStation, Battlefront offers a distinct style of play that has not yet been exploited or overdeveloped as it has on the PC. On PlayStation 2 and Xbox, all this works extremely well, despite its inherent AI and longevity shortcomings. On PC, unfortunately, the problems are all amplified by an overwhelming amount of competition that simply makes Battlefront look a bit simplistic.

      It's not that the PC version is worse, it's just that the PC already has Battlefield 1942, Viet

  • Battlefield 1942. (Score:5, Informative)

    by HaloZero (610207) <protodeka@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 22 2004, @11:06AM (#10319338) Homepage
    The game is almost exactly like Battlefield 1942, almost tit-for-tat. Battles are fought on the ground. There are two sides, obviously, with a possibilty of a third party indigenous to the area stepping in. Vehicles are sometimes available, but those who are flight-capable are rather... shifty, and difficult to control. Each battle, infact, is based on a ticket-counter-system (Thank you, BF1942).

    The game is riddled with _major_ balance issues, from the five classes of warrior you can choose and their respective weapon configurations, and weapon lag. (Weapon lag is sighting a target, firing your weapon, and somehow, the target having enough time to SIDE STEP OUT OF THE WAY OF YOUR SHOT, even after it's been fired). I do have to respect the way the game is modeled, giving the player the ability to experience almost any battle, in sequence, throughout any generation of the Star Wars galaxy. That's neat.

    Final opinion: The game needs serious polish, and rebalancing. If you've played Battlefield 1942, and liked it, give this a shot. 4/5? Yeah, that'll do.

    On a side note: the version of DirectX that came with the game was MASSIVELY BROKEN and lead to SERIOUS STABILITY ISSUES with Windows XP. Downloading the (allegedly) same version of DirectX (9.0c) from the Microsoft website seems to have fixed the problem.
    • Keep in mind that many of the issues you describe existed in BF1942 1.0 as well. After a couple point releases, I'm sure the game will be more than up to par.
    • sighting a target, firing your weapon, and somehow, the target having enough time to SIDE STEP OUT OF THE WAY OF YOUR SHOT, even after it's been fired

      Hello? That's how Star Wars works. You remember some 50-plus Stormtroopers blasting away at Han Solo as he ran around the Death Star?

      "Sorry Lord Vader, we just can't hit the Rebel scum! It's weapon-lag!"
  • ...Georgie is so uptight about Han looking like a scoundrel that we now have THREE versions of the Cantina scene, yet LucasArts drops a little Ewok-toasting humor into some of the Battleground ads?

    Does George not imperially seal everything that comes out of his studios? Where's the consistency?

    For the record, I thought the "Shoot" bit was funny and appropriate. And I don't think I'll be rushing to buy the DVD boxset anytime soon... Perhaps I'll spend that money on Battleground!

    GTRacer
    - Using the Ligh



  • There was talk of a Linux port. Anyone have an update?

    http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/news/article .p hp?storyid=430
    • maybe they will pull a "Bioware" and we will see the client after they release several expansions..

      Or maybe they will pull a "idsoftware" and they will release it "soon".. AKA months after

      Any way.. i have as much faith in starwars battle front port as i do seeing hl2 released this year..
    • There was talk of a Linux port. Anyone have an update?

      The developers gave absolutely no suggestion of a Linux version, aside from the dedicated server that all PC multiplayer games get. Anything more is just over-optimistic speculation.

      Slashdot posted an incorrect headline [slashdot.org] on the subject- the actual article [linuxgames.com] had zero mention of a Linux client. Only server.
  • I'm not much of an FPS guy; I bought this for the Star Wars aspect. I really was stinking up things single player until I got to play the droids vs the Jar-Jars; suddenly the kid gloves came off, the sniper rifle came out, and we won that battle by a mile.

    You're not buying SWBF, you're buying "Kill Jar-Jars".

    -Jeff

    P.S. Storming through Mos Eisley with my buddies in white shooting chewbaccas is a close second. :-)

    P.P.S. Anybody know what good Chewbacca is over the standard issue rebel guy?

    • If you go through the little training movies, it gives most of the differences. I think for Wookies, the biggest is that the weapon can be charged to do a spread show if you happen to be facing more than one person. I think there is a droid that has the same ability. On the XBox, I think you just hold down the right trigger to charge and then release. Sort of like some of the MechAssault weapons.
  • ... But I have much higher hopes for this game than I do for Episode 3.

    Though there were a few flops, Lucas has had a great track record with their games. Many of them actually had more depth to their stories than any of the movies.
  • I pre-ordered this game and quickly installed it when I got home from work. One of the first gripes I had about the game was the ATROCIOUS in-game browser. I am not a GameSpy fan (I use ASE, ASE usually releases support the day after a game is released), so I decided to try the in game browser. Forget about a buddy list, searching by server name, or even getting an actual number for pings. None of that. Nor can you stop the servers refreshing. You just have to wait until all of them refresh. Absolutel
    • Isn't the point of the game to play the battles from the movies?
      If so, it wouldn't make sense to make Hoth a fair fight: the rebels
      had no chance of winning, they were just trying slow the Empire down
      to allow the rebel base to be evacuated.

      I'd rather play battles true to the movies than have battles adjusted
      for game balance that are loosely based on the movies.

      • I see where you're coming from, but nobody will ever play the level if it''s always going to come out brutally one-sided. Now if they release a patch that keeps the balance the same, but adds a rebel win condition of, say "survive for x minutes" or "protect the transports for x minutes", that would be a pretty fun and unique break from the other levels...
    • except that when you are contesting a spawn point, enemies still seem to spawn, which is extremely frustrating

      That is really bad, from the perspective of both attackers and defenders. Either the attacker will be swamped by a wave of respawners coming in, or he'll defend himself by camping the spawn and killing them the instant they show up. Neither choice is fun gameplay. Spawning someone close to an enemy should be avoided by the game designers as much as possible: if an enemy is in the forward base,
        • The player classes don't always make sense, either.

          Actually the classes seem mostly taken from Desert Combat [desertcombat.com]. That highly-popular mod gives both healing and vehicle repair abilities to the weakly-armed class called "Support". If you're planning to operate a land vehicle, then you don't actually care about your own weapon strength, but healing the vehicle is important. So Supports acted like the "Driver" class.

          Right now, the closest thing to a demolition unit is the one with the missile launcher, whic
        • It would make more sense if only pilots could get in the pilot's seat of speeders and fighters

          Yes, it would make sense- and also be a bad game (unless something fundamental about the spawning and vehicle-selection interface was changed)

          If only pilots could get vehicles, then all players would spawn as pilots, because they want cool vehicles. But there aren't enough vehicles to go around, so that leaves most of the team stuck as wimpy pilots who can't fight.
    • I had the exact same experience
      I also bought the game for PC and found it is fun, but very lacking in polish.
      Terrible interface, bad AI (even at hardest difficulty), even had little issues with installation (for some reason had to insert Disc 1 back in after installing Disc 2, before I could continue onto Disc 3.
      I have an x800, and the graphics are nice, but not up to what I would expect, and multiplayer is laggy, and movement choppy.
      Playing it is fun, so I'd agree it's a patch or two away from being what
      • Wow, is that like complaining in the Custer reenactment that the Native Americans totally 0wned at the Little Big Horn?

        You're not seriously asking for complaints about Custer's Revenge, are you?
  • I picked up the game for Xbox yesterday (yes, I'm a heretic I know) and I am really pleased with it. I played through some of the solo campaign to get a feel for the controls before embarrasing myself on Xbox Live. But running around killing Jar Jar Binx is a RIOT... thats my new favorite shooting gallery. I can imagine how fun this will be co-oping with a bunch of my friends who will have this game by week's end.

    After hearing about all the problems with other Star Wars games, I have to say that everything
  • My friend and I both picked up the XBox version yesterday. I have to say, it is pretty fun. One of the best parts is shooting Ewoks and Jar Jars. We had too much fun taking them out.

    I'm not too sure about the game types, but the only ones were played were Onslaught (UT2004) style games. They are pretty fun and the maps are huge.

    I had some problems controlling some of the flying vehicles (X-Wings, Ties, etc.), but I'm sure it will get easier. Some of the battle areas seemed a bit too confined for flyi

  • Oh, one other note. I picked my copy up at Target and got a $10 gift card with the purchase. My friend got his at EB and if he got another game they were giving $20 off. He used his on a pre-order so if you want Halo 2 or something, you can get the $20 off then it comes out next month.
  • You can also see a reveiw of Star Wars Battlefront here http://www.mmgn.com/review.php?id=32 at MMGN.com.

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