For those out of the loop, Star Wars:
Battlefront is a game that released in 2004 for the Xbox and PS2 by the now
deceased Pandemic Studios, and with the newest game in the series approaching,
it seems like the opportune time to look back over the series and see what made
the first game the cult classic that it is, and why so many people are dying to
get their hands on the new one.
In Star Wars: Battlefront, the player takes
the role of a random soldier in several of the key battles in the first five
Star Wars films. The player can play as one of 5 classes for each of the four
factions that where warring in the movies. Using these classes, they
participate in large battles consisting of AI, or player controlled teammates
and enemies. The game consist of one mode called ‘Conquest’ which lasts until
either all objective points on the map have been captured, or until all
reinforcements are killed on either team. Obviously, the team with the
remaining reinforcements, or with all the captured objectives wins the battle.
So why is it that a game with such a simple
premise has become one of the most remembered titles in the 6th
console generation, and is so beloved by fans and gamers in general that its
being remade into one of 2015 biggest game releases?
While at the moment, games like Shadow of
Mordor and Alien: Isolation have been hit games, back in 2004 it was a
different story. Movie tie ins where like suspect chocolate chip cookies, you
where never quite sure if they had chocolate in them, or some dark dried fruit.
That's to say, most movie tie ins where either rubbish, or forgettable. After
all, this isn’t a video on Star Wars:
Jedi Starfighter or the Matrix: Path of Neo. Yet out of this period of
time came Star Wars: Battlefront, a game which many, including myself, claim to
be the best Star Wars game ever made, let alone movie tie in!
How on Earth did a game like Battlefront
gain so much popularity? With the card all aligned for this game to fail like
all the others, how did this chocolate chip cookie ever get the praise it has?
The first is that simplicity mentioned
earlier: Battlefront is a ridiculously simple game for a shooter. You can’t
switch weapons on the fly, the classes are simple, only varying by main weapon
and perhaps an additional buff, if you’re lucky ,and all the weapons handle really
easily. In addition, the game uses a ridiculous level of ridicule lock on, even
for a console game.
For those unfamiliar, weapon lock on is a
system used in console shooters to make it easier to aim with the analogue
sticks. All console shooters use this technique, but some use it more than
others. What it does is make you’re weapon reticule slightly attracted to the
enemies, so it’s easier to aim and track them as they move. Battlefront happens
to use this to extreme levels. In some cases the reticule seem almost magnetized
to the enemy soldiers. While this may seem like a bad thing, this actually allows
the game to be more approachable.
Battlefront was the first shooter I ever played,
and the 3rd game I bought for my Xbox. Anyone who has played a
shooter before can tell you, new players typically suck at aiming at things.
Analogue stick aiming can be a tricky thing to master for the uninitiated, so
for a game to give such a strong crutch to lean on gives the game a very low
level of entry for anyone to play.
Along with that, the game is very sparing
with its use of instructions and tutorials. Battlefront has no tutorial level,
instead only having two 5-minute videos to explain the basics of the main game
mode and explaining how Galactic Conquest works. While most shooters like Call
of Duty or Halo will bore you to tears with extended tutorials, Battlefront
trusts the player to understand the game, which it can do thanks to its limited
controls and simple game play.
The simplicity and low entry level makes it
a very approachable game for anyone, and with a popular licence like star wars,
its exactly what you would want. It's a game that anyone can play and
understand with ease.
The game also doesn't tell you what to do,
giving players the freedom to do what they want in any given game, even if it’s
in the Campaign mode. This freedom does wonders for a game, allowing the player
to find their own best approach to a solution and have a level of freedom and
agency that most single player games don't allow for.
This approach is still something games
today use, but primarily its in the multiplayer component of a game. In recent
years since the release of Battlefront and Halo 2, multiplayer shooters have
grown immensely in popularity. One of the main reasons for this is the
infinitely uncertain nature of a multiplayer game. Because people control all
of the characters, this leaves a lot up to chance, due to the unpredictable way
that people behave. The players having the freedom to do what they choose
allows for a level of personality in the game.
What Battlefront does is that it causes
even a single player game to feel as though it has that level of infinite
possibility, by giving the freedom to the player, as well as to the AI. This
makes each battle feel slightly random and out of the players control. While
one approach may have lead to victory on a map once, this randomness means that
I may not do again. Anyone who has played the game knows what I mean: Each
battle has its own sense of personality and a story to it. This lack of agency
to the player to permanently assure victory also forces a level of realism to
the game, after all, no tow battles in the real world would likely go the exact
same way.
But we’re ignoring the main reason that
Battlefront is the phenomenon that it is, and that's the ‘Star Wars’ bit of the
title. I don't think that anyone who saw this game on a store shelf would have
bought it if those words where not on the title. After all, who doesn't love
Star Wars, and when it comes to Star Wars this game has is all.
From the title screen this game oozes music
and iconography from the classic films! The beginning of each of the two
campaigns stars with the main theme and a title crawl almost identical to that
of the movies! Too add to that, the sound design of Battlefront is superb!
Sound design is often forgotten when it
comes to talking about a game, but Battlefront shows us how important it truly is.
Each weapon in the game sounds like it does in the movies, each of the soldiers
sounds like they do in the movies. You know what? Each map in the game uses
music that is used in that area in the movies! It’s something that most people
would miss, and I missed it until doing this review. It seems like it would be
more practical for the designers to randomise the songs played in each level,
to add diversity, but after noticing the same song playing on Endor near the
end of the game I went back and compared them.
Now even if you didn't notice that while
playing the game, I assure you, your brain did. I’m not a neuroscientist, but
I’m fairly sure that you’re brain associates the music with the scenes in the
movies. This was a genius design choice because it causes each area to be
linked with those classic moments.
Hell, to add to that, each of the levels is
built to replicate things you see in the movie! Watch the Battle of Hoth in
Empire, and then play the Echo Base level! Echo base is the same, the turrets
and their location from the base is the same, everything feels like its part of
the movie and you can identify where thing happen from the movie! Sometimes
they aren’t 100% film accurate, the cantina in Mos Eisley is way to small, but
this kind of thing does amazingly for a games immersion.
Most games based on movies released at this
time failed in a sense because a lot of them felt like an imitation of a story
that had already been told, and the places you went to didn't feel real. This
is something a lot of games use these days: by making areas feel fleshed out
and lived in, you feel a sense of presence in a larger world. This counteracts
the feeling of falseness and helps you’re brain with the suspension of disbelief.
Atmosphere is something a lot of games have
trouble with. Trying to make a fake world that seems real can be incredibly
difficult. But, Battlefront is filled to the brim with this kind of stuff, and
it does wonders for the game.
In a hypothetical situation where Battlefront
isn’t a Star Wars game and instead is a new IP, I doubt it would have done as
well as it did. This isn’t a bad thing, and makes for a very good design
choice.
People don't really love this game because
its got amazing gameplay, or unlocks that keep you coming back for more, or any
of that addictive skinner box kind of stuff. Star Wars: Battlefront has
remained a game that’s popular because it brings something to the table that
most games don't. What it brings is the childhood fantasy to be able to live in
the world of Star Wars, to rekindle that hope that maybe you could be a Jedi,
or fly an X-Wing and save the galaxy from the Empire!
When people talk about the new Battlefront
game, and the features and the modes, I don't think that those of us who buy it
an play it to death will care about that stuff, because at the end of the day
all we want is to be back in that galaxy far far away.
