Star Wars Battlefront Released (giantbomb.com) 126
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday marked the release of Star Wars Battlefront, EA DICE's attempt to resurrect a Star Wars video game series that had great success a decade ago, but gradually petered out over the course of several years. Early reviews for the game are mixed. Games Radar's video review gives it a lot of credit for being incredibly faithful to the feeling of Star Wars. Polygon's review praises the game's accessibility and its broad variety of PvP options, but acknowledges that it had to trade complexity to get there. Giant Bomb's review is much more blunt: "Slick production values, solid controls, and tons of fan service can't make up for mediocre progression and a lack of content." Many reviews rate the graphics highly, and performance is solid even on consoles. It's worth noting that user ratings on Metacritic come in significantly lower than critics' ratings, with the most common complaint being about the dearth of content.
The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:5, Insightful)
>> user ratings on Metacritic come in significantly lower than critics' ratings...lack of content
And yet, someone will still buy this shiny plastic turd of a game.
The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired of Star Wars. I'm half hoping JJ will "Star Trek" the franchise, deep-sixing it in a way not even Jar-Jar or the racist "trade federation Asians" could do, and clear off some shelf space and mindshare for something new and creative.
Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:5, Informative)
Without some nice, free content, I doubt I'll still be playing it in three months. But I can say that about a lot of games I own.
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Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:5, Insightful)
No you won't.
First- this is EA, and they will keep pushing Origin. If you play this on PC, you need to have Origin installed. If you play it on consoles, you need to have an Origin account (the game walks you through this, of course). This means they won't launch it on Steam unless their whole model falls apart.
Second- this game has almost no solo pve content- that is, the entire game is player versus player, with the exceptions of a few training missions. The training missions are actually pretty rad, but there's only a few of them. This means that if you try to play it in three years, your opponents will be both RARE and SUPER GOOD at the game- you'll be playing with and against the people who have, for whatever reason, decided that THIS game is the one that will stand the test of time for them, despite a bunch of new and shiny options, so they will love the mechanics, the guns, the powerups, the maps- and you'll be a babe amongst wolves.
For what it does, it's an excellent game- a pvp fps with extra options and strong Star Wars theme. If that doesn't motivate you to buy it within the first year of launch, you'll likely be much better served by other entertainment options for your dollar- and your time.
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Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:4, Informative)
Every EA game is Origin now- it's fair to hate Origin, but it means you hate EA. Which is also fair.
Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is why I will stick with my old XBox 360 with no network connection.
I have no interest in having to be online, or have a bloody account to play a video game.
I miss old school gaming without the network. And when my 360 dies, then I guess I'm done with gaming for good.
I don't want to play against some kid who has put 10000 hours into a game. I don't want ads in my games. I don't want to have to sign up for a damned account, and fork over my credit card or any other personal information.
For some of us, video games are intermittent undertakings, and don't involve networking or people who aren't in the same room.
Have we completely lost the old school concept of console gaming as a standalone thing? Because that's all I really want.
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It exists. You just happen to be commenting on a story about a game that is designed to be exactly what you don't want.
Duck Game [steampowered.com] is a good example of what you'd like.
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And yet ... I'd still need a network connection and an online account.
Does anybody know what the current status of the XBone wrt networking? Does it still need a 24x7 or at least weekly network connection?
Or should I just buy a spare XBox 360 and stock up on a few older games.
I just want a console which never connects to the internet ever.
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Not to say it won't try to connect and pop up the occasional warning, but turning it on and just playing games will work fine.
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The Wii U probably qualifies, but it'll be the last one.
The PS4 works well enough offline, but it really wants to go online at least once.
It won't play Blu-Ray movies until it goes online once, but that is a one time thing.
Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:4, Insightful)
In some ways, yes ... the longer the internet is around and becomes attached to everything, the less I want it to be attached to everything.
Because the internet is largely now taken over by marketing assholes and analytics.
I want a fucking video game, not yet another vector to have these clowns track everything I do.
For the same reasons I don't want my TV or my toilet connected to the internet -- because it's pointless and doesn't offer me any added value.
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There are tons of Indy games that don't track you- executables you download (or, in your case, maybe psplit across 50 floppies, eh? EH???) and play and that's that. A really good one is Rogue Legacy (side scroller adventure), and I'm pretty sure you can play it on Linux. It's also on Steam, but like many games, that's not the only way to get it.
Remember some people LIKE Steam, and PREFER it- they like the idea that they can log into their steam account anywhere, put the game library there, etc. To them,
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Har har ... the last (and only) time I ever used that many floppies was when I installed my first Slackware.
Yeah, I'm kinda stuck with my XBox 360 ... the wife likes her Kinect games, and it comes handy in winter to kill some time.
Given what I'
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You're telling me they put ads in a game that costs sixty dollars?! Sorry, I haven't played on any of the most recent generations of consoles, so I find this a little appalling (if not surprising). Or are you speaking in generalities?
If I pay $0.00 for a game, I have no beef with ads. Somewhere between free and 99c I go from "sure why not" to "holy motherfucking christ why are these cocksuckers wasting my life with ads!!!!" I suspect it's somewhere around 3.2 cents.
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You do realize that you posted this comment online using a registered account, right?
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> And this is why I will stick with my old XBox 360 with no network connection.
> I have no interest in having to be online, or have a bloody account to play a video game.
Let me be blunt: this game is a multiplayer online shooter and almost nothing else. If you have "no interest in being online", then the dual-classed bloatware/spyware Origin is NOT why you aren't buying the game.
You aren't buying the game because you aren't the market, full stop.
It is absolutely impossible to play a 40+ man pvp game
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Don't give up on gaming, just give up on EA, and perhaps on consoles. Good Old Games is waiting for you: everything guaranteed DRM-free, and many classic PC games there (plus a world of shitty games, of course).
I'm perfectly happy with Steam, but I do wish Origin would die in a fire: there are several EA games I'd like to play, but just won't if Origin is there.
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Most Origin (or uplay nowadays) games only require you to be online for installation AFAIK.
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The problem here is, why do all these games only work in Origin? EA games are universally saddled with this requirement, and Origin is an adware / malware / spyware guy. Sandboxie prevents it from scanning your drive if you configure it for hours, and the current versions claims not to do this but... ugh, why would they have EVER done that in the first place?
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I don't play online, mostly because internet connections suck in my country and i prefer single player games (i like the stories, for me videogames are movies with gameplay). Having said that, i game without internet connection on my pc, and i guess you can do the same on consoles. You can play new games such as Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Call of duty (campaign) by yourself. And for those single player games that require an online check, well, there are methods to bypass them...
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This is a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke.
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You know I'm reading it, and I don't know either.
I will say that EVERY console has demanded a massive update for me. Launch Wii-U needed a gig download, when then ended up, once decompressed, taking up a sizable portion of my tiny built in space (I got the white Wii-U, not the larger black one- it was easy enough to grab a cheap USB hard drive and has been no problem, but still). Many games require multigig updates for themselves, and usually require a system update. Everything always requires some dumb
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To today's generation, no, it isn't a joke...
Yes, I remember the launch of NES, I had one of those robots they sold the first year (and only ever had 2 games, blah!).
No, games didn't "update", they had to work well enough at launch.
But today, game companies expect to be able to update their games, many games are not finished at launch and need months of patches to get finished.
I'm not saying it is good, I'm saying it is what is. If you never connect your XBox One or PS4, you're missing out on various game
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Day one patches are a thing, even on consoles. Should they be? No. But they are.
There does seem to be a reliance on day one patches, but I think you're making the problem out to be worse than it is. Plenty of games were shipped with game crippling bugs before the last few generations of consoles: from ET to Superman 64. And the complexity of games has only increased dramatically.
Additionally, just because a game company can update their game doesn't mean they can do it cheaply. Up until 2013, Microsoft charged thousands of dollars [arstechnica.com] to certify a patch for a 360 game.
Re: The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:2)
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Diablo 3 was Blizzard. Hell, they're still running the Diablo 1 servers. This is EA. In two or three years, there won't be any servers, and no multiplayer. Roll of the dice as to whether you'll be able to play it all without the servers.
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You'll be able to play the offline content, which includes splitscreen multiplayer. That's a fraction of the total game- it is an online FPS, after all. The odds are good that a game of this magnitude will be supported for years, at the very least.
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I'm not against DLC or against releasing a game early with only a few levels, as it gives me a chance to see if I like the game without paying full price. But at $60 I feel like I'm already paying full price for a fulll game
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$60 game? Maybe I see the prices in CAD, but it's showing me $80 for the base game on PC.
$160 for the ultimate edition? You can keep it EA.
Without some nice, free content, I doubt I'll still be playing it in three months.
Oh, Don't worry EA has you covered. Only $70 for the season pass :)
Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting concept of "deep sixing" you have there, if you consider that his first Star Trek film was the first ST film to win an Academy Award, as well as winning numerous other awards, was financially successful and received very positive reviews. His second Star Trek film was even more financially successful than his first, received very favourable reviews and has been the spring board for the first Star Trek TV series in over a decade.
I only hope the new Star Wars films fail as badly!
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It won because it was a good movie, not because it was a good Star Trek movie.
Re: The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:1)
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Abrams ST films were garbage, because he made them as if they were SW films (he says as much in the DVD commentary). Much as I hate what he did to the ST franchise, it doesn't in any way suggest he'll make a bad SW movie. Basically everything that sucked in Trek will work great in Wars.
Re:The movie's not out yet and I'm already tired (Score:5, Informative)
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Long gone are the days when the worst you would see was a Happy Meal and some action figures.
I see the effort to purge the Star Wars Holiday Special from our cultural memory is coming along nicely.
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And yet the new SW movie carefully avoids any white male leads (except perhaps the villain). I fear we won't escape the preaching, but I expect the movie to be entertaining nonetheless.
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Yep, you've got your white female and black male lead, shocking...
That being said, I'm interested to see Rey kick some butt... Daisy Ridley apparently worked out for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, to get into shape to be able to do most of her own stunts.
If they are going to make all that money, I like it when they can handle it, and it is much more fun to watch her do it than some stunt double.
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Prepare to be pressured into subscribing to their stupid season pass.
Re:Too little content? (Score:5, Funny)
Pray they don't alter the deal any further.
It's meh. (Score:2)
It is basically Unreal tournament with a star wars theme. I was on the beta test and even then it was filled with bunny hopping 13 year olds making it annoying.
But are there bunnies? (Score:2)
I was on the beta test and even then it was filled with bunny hopping 13 year olds making it annoying.
Is there a playable species that looks like a rabbit, like Lepi [wikia.com]? I ask because if done right, "bunny hopping" could be a way to bring in the furry fandom.
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Is there a playable species that looks like a rabbit, like Lepi? I ask because if done right, "bunny hopping" could be a way to bring in the furry fandom.
Jar Jar was a cartoon rabbit, and everyone loved him, right? Just like everyone loved the cartoon rabbits in the Hobbit film?
I think we need a Constitutional Amendment banning cartoon rabbits in prequel trilogies. Future generations will thank us.
Even though I got preview night tickets... (Score:2)
I have a feeling everyone is going to be starwars'ed out by new years. Disney needs to earn that 4 BILLION back.
It will be a very star wars christmas, It also should be noted that they own more than half of the radio and tv broadcast stations.....sometimes I really do feel like I live in the movie "They Live" with Obey, Conform, Consume messages everywhere.
Re:Even though I got preview night tickets... (Score:5, Funny)
It will be a very star wars Holiday Special
FTFY
Re:Even though I got preview night tickets... (Score:4, Funny)
Disney needs to earn that 4 BILLION back.
To put it in perspective, Blizzard paid $5.9bn for King, the developer of Candy Crush Saga and many other mobile pay-to-advance games.
Must be kind of annoying for the developers of games like this, and the people working on the movies. They put in all that effort and a shitty mobile game cloning factory that specializes in extracting your money through boredom and your nagging kids is worth more than all their efforts combined.
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What's left of Blizzard, if anything, hides deep in the bowels of the building, retaining the authority to decide between 92,500 and 92,750 damage for an attack.
I can't imagine much more than that can possibly be left. If there is, it certainly doesn't show in WoW.
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What's left of Blizzard, if anything, hides deep in the bowels of the building, retaining the authority to decide between 92,500 and 92,750 damage for an attack.
I can't imagine much more than that can possibly be left. If there is, it certainly doesn't show in WoW.
It was a sad day when the Blizzard "not WoW MMO" project was cancelled. I would dearly love a new MMO that didn't remind me of WoW in any way. After a generation of WoW clones, it seemed like only Blizzard would have the balls to develop a MMO along very different lines, but nope, not them either.
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The fact that they were willing to cancel project Titan shows balls, though. The art assets seem repurposed into Overwatch, but it's still a lot of game they were willing to throw away after years of development.
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Oh I doubt that. Activision killed Titan and repurposed the art. I'd bet a dollar on that.
I'll bet two dollars they used the term 'leverage' in the meeting.
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I loved WoW, and still miss it terribly. I would have loved to see WoW developed into everything it could have been. 12 million was it almost breaking into the mainstream. They were so close to the perfect game...
Here's a scenario: WoW does so poorly that Activision sells it off to a private investor, who once was a feral druid...
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good. good. let the hate flow through you.
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I knew when I heard that Disney had bought Star Wars that they were going to run the franchise into the ground, then run it deep into the earth, then through the earth's core, then keep going until they were in orbit above China. They'll only stop when the UN is sentencing them for crimes against humanity.
They're going to milk Star Wars until all that's left is a very, very, very fine powder. Their relentless merchandising, and sequelizing, and prequelizing, and serialization, and marketing EVERY SINGLE THI
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That times 1000.
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I mean, they'd like to, sure, but Disney knows how to play the long game.
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$4 billion is nothing, that was so cheap I'm shocked that is all it sold for...
King Digital, the company that makes Candy Crush, sold for $5.9 billion to Activision...
Star Wars has far more chance of being around in 30 years than Candy Crush does, IMHO...
It is a long term play, a brilliant purchase, Disney will be just fine...
Not touching this one (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a multiplayer only game (ok, ok, you can play against bots, but that doesn't count), selling for a price that is, if anything, slightly higher than the average, where the developers have been quite open to quickly divide the community between those who are willing to pay an extra large sum on top of that for the DLC/season pass, and those peasants who just want to pay for the basic game.
In a game with a proper single-player campaign and a season pass for multiplayer content (eg. Tomb Raider, Call of Duty), I can happily ignore the season pass. In a game with a proper single-player campaign and a season pass for single-player content (eg. Fallout 4, The Witcher 3), I can make a situational call on whether to pay extra for the additional content, knowing that the original game isn't diluted if I don't want to splash out. But in a multiplayer-only game, I know that if I don't spend extra for the season pass (or buy each piece of DLC piecemeal), I'm going to get rapidly shunted into an online ghetto.
Battlefront's season pass is a particularly expensive one.
The game is pretty but looks like a rip-off. The better reviews have all highlighted that while fun for a short period of time, there is little depth to the gameplay and it gets old very fast. There have been a huge number of quality releases in the last few weeks that I have barely scratched the surface of (StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Disgaea 5, the expansions for Witcher 3 and Bloodborne and, flawed though it is, Fallout 4). On that basis, I am happy to pass up this particular rip-off.
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Rainbow 6 due to release soon utterly kicks the crap out of this. I also beta tested that and it requires tactics and thought. No bunny hopping and blasting away randomly like this star wars battlefront is like.
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Yeah, I just don't play these types of games any more. There is no point, 5 years down the road there will be no more servers and the game will be unplayable.
I loved BF2142 but can no longer play it for this reason.
I found it fun (Score:2)
Expensive? Yes, but Star Wars.
As for it being light on content I don't know what people are expecting, since they have to hold back a bunch of stuff until the new movie comes out. What's there has a pretty good variety, looks great and has worked well for me with no bugs to date... more than I can say for some other games.
I can see where more hardcore gamers might fight it a bit light but for those of us not playing ten hours a day I can see playing this for quite a while.
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The big problem with EA shoooters, other than the uninspired game play that I experienced in this beta, is that.... they will sell DLC, you will buy DLC, you will get to play the DLC for about 1 week before all the servers are back to
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I imagine here's where many would disagree. I personally do not have the time to spend endlessly researching, reconfiguring and play testing thousands of weapon/loadout combinations that many of these FPS's gameplay structure has become (BF4). I generally have time to jump online, and spend 20 -30 minutes duking it out with Imperial forces for control of a few droids or control points. The card structure is perfect. I can go in choose my simple loadout and go right into battle.
Planetside 2, Red Orchestra 2/Rising Storm, Insurgency. All 3 are games you can easily jump into for 30 minutes, have somewhat limited loadouts (sure, you can spend money in PS2 to open up the weapons selection but you really don't need to), and are much cheaper than SW:Battlefront (PS2 being completely free). Graphics on all 3 are pretty decent as well. Unless you have to have a Star Wars game, there are plenty of viable alternatives.
If it was from any other publisher... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm absolutely SHOCKED that EA would deliver a game that is marketed towards a fan base that will purchase absolutely anything with the franchise logo on it, and then skimp on content so that they can then double / triple / quadruple dip into that fan's wallet behind the disgusting practice of paid-for-DLC.
Won't even take a look at this thing with EA's logo on it. I'll continue playing games from publishers that don't have a Bill Cosby-esque relationship with their customers.
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I'm at the point where I assume any of the games made with this model will cost around 100 bucks over the first year, and then be mostly over. The entire gamer community seems to sort of understand this, and some are angry, others just shrug and go to other games, and others are like "what's prob bro?" and buy them. They even talk about it like this "expected obsolescence"- every streamer I've seen compares the gameplay to some older games (a favorable comparison in the cases I've seen). But it is implic
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That's why I stopped playing Battlefield games. I was tired of having to buy a new version and upgrade my graphics card to support it every 2 years. Plus when they started tracking you online and giving you upgrades with huge advantages over new players, it became obvious if you didn't buy it when you came out, you'd never enjoy it.
The argument is finally ended! (Score:1)
Ahem. Is everybody listening? Good. Watch this -- the hand is quicker than the eye.
I knew stormtroopers were actually terrible shots!
Nothing to see here (Score:1)
Just more EA garbage.
Can't play, gotta build more turrets (Score:2)
Sanctuary could be infiltrated at any minute by super Mutants. Must get Gun Nut 2 to build Shotgun Turrets.
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You should have had gun nut 2 by level 9. but then I also started out with agility of 10 and by level 6 I had 2 ranks of sneak so mines and traps dont matter so I could easily snipe all the big bad guys way over my level.
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Not just Fallout games - basically any game with Bethesda's logo on it.
A Really Good Star Wars Game (Score:2)
Oh, the rush of just blasting Jar Jar away over and over and over again gives me the warm fuzzies.
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I believe that was the Naboo Genocide level on Battlefront 2. I believe there was also one for Ewoks and Jawas as well.
That really was a sweet game made for the fans. Just too bad for the crappy ship battles.
Graphics (Score:2)
I'm most intrigued by this game's graphics. To me, this has a Crysis like element to it where this is next generation graphics.
It makes sense that they were able to generate this kind of detail in a game that doesn't have a supreme amount of content. But because of this, it interests me. I can't name another game that looks quite like this.
I haven't purchased a $60 dollar game in a long time so I'll likely pass on it. However, I do want to get my hands on a demo at some point.
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Yes, I happened to play during the alpha weekend a few months back and was VERY impressed by the graphics.
If you are an eye candy type, I don't think you can go wrong with this game.
Starwars: BattleNot Fallout 4 (Score:5, Funny)
Starwars: BattleNot Fallout 4
Starcraft Legacy of the Not Fallout 4
Halo 5: Guardians of the Not Fallout 4
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Not Fallout 4
Rise of the Tomb Not Fallout 4 Raider
But all of these top games seem to have one thing in common.
Not Fallout 4 (Score:2)
LOL! I agree!
Having made that complex point, I'll make two more:
1) Not X-Wing VS Tie Fighter! Jerks! Make that game already! The only two SW games that came close to the enjoyment of that game was perhaps SWKOTOR, and Jedi Knight 2 multiplayer (if only to force choke someone over a bottomless pit and drop them).
2) Battlefront of old really sucked for one important reason. The AI bots were the dumbest bunch of morons ever. You could play a game, and genocidally wipe out billions of AI, and still lose. Conver
MP games can't be reviewed this quickly (Score:1)
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Why not? 10 hours EA early access on XBox One since last Thursday, so more than a week or 10 hours of play seems ample time to get a good feel for the game.
Re: MP games can't be reviewed this quickly (Score:1)
Content is always going to be a problem. (Score:2)
It can take weeks, months, or even years to get content in a game to a working, playable state. Not just the basic storyline, but game mechanics, programming, art assets, etc.
And players, especially the most rabid ones, will chew through it all in a couple days.
And, as games get more complex (visually), less and less time gets budgeted to the actual content development.
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But this is literally FOUR MAPS on release.
I believe BF4 released with TEN 64-player maps.
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Okay, not saying the divide is THIS big.
But how many maps could you turn out if you were held to this quality standard?
X7 Carena: Quake 2
http://q2c.tastyspleen.net/xat... [tastyspleen.net]
Now look at the size and visual complexity of Battlefront maps.
Building more than barebones maps takes a while.
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Nah, that isn't the problem here. The problem here is simply lack of investment - they've only really made 4 maps (they claim more, but what they really mean is that there are subsets of each of those 4 maps that they class as maps in themselves). I don't buy the difficulty and time of content production being the issue here, this is just a game made on a small budget to maximise profits. It's not like they needed to put any effort into sound and music design given that they're just reusing long established
n/t (Score:2)
posting to remove an erroneous mod.
Silly gamers... (Score:2)
If they gave you content, how are they going to sell you the DLC?
I wish I were 12 (Score:3)
... because then I would think this was so rad. Seriously, if my 12-year-old self had this game, he would have been in heaven. All I got back then was Rebel Assault, which blew my mind at the time because it came on a goddamn CD-ROM. Sadly, my older self does not share this enthusiasm. But to all you 12-year-olds out there, have a ball driving around in AT-STs.
Dearth of Content (Score:1)
Already crashed it (Score:2)
Well after playing the first two the of BF looks like it has lost the LAN player capability and has become a delivery mechanism for EA.
It looks great, similar gameplay, but the load out is different from the first two. A bit sad, for pure fun, the first game was the best. I really just want to play the game with my mates on a lan, not over the net where it is slow.