My Year of Gaming: ‘Star Wars Battlefront II’
My Year of Gaming: Star Wars Battlefront II
I purchased a Playstation 4 at the beginning of 2017 and it is the first time I have had a console since Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword came out on the Wii. Naturally, I have a lot of catching up to do and my backlog is incredibly massive. During the course of a year, I played my way through 23 games, and I figured I would take the time to share a little bit about each game. Perhaps you’ve played them and want to hear another opinion, or maybe you’ve been holding off on investing in a particular game. Either way, it’s never a bad time to spread your love of gaming.
Let me preface this game with a couple of things: I never played the 2015 game. I don’t have multiplayer so I can’t really comment on any of those features. I am terrible at shooters.
Having said all of that, the reason I invested in Star Wars Battlefront II is because the campaign’s story sounded really interesting. You play as Iden Versio, the commander of the Inferno Squad, as she leads her team following the Battle of Endor. The Empire is in disarray as a power vacuum opens up due to the deaths of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. Iden’s father, Admiral Garrick Versio, assumes command of the Empire and is trying to pick up the pieces and stop the Rebels once and for all. The campaign features a mixture of ground and flying missions and lets you take control of not only Iden, but some familiar Star Wars faces.
The story is really great. It was a whole lot of fun to pick up on Endor right after the battle. You see all of the destruction on the ground and then you instantly take to space where you are maneuvering through the wreckage of the Death Star. The campaign (and free DLC) does a great job of setting things up for Force Awakens and Last Jedi. Probably the best mission of the game is the Battle of Jakku. You get to see how the landscape of the planet came to be and that’s pretty neat.
Along with the campaign mode, there is a battle mode where you are thrown into different scenarios spanning from Phantom Menace all the way to Force Awakens. Here, players can choose either the light side or the dark and assume control of characters like Luke, Chewbacca, Rey, Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, etc. These are really short missions, most not lasting more than five minutes. They were pretty cool and allowed you to explore some different maps than were in the regular campaign.
As far as single player stuff goes, that was about it. I’ve heard from friends that the multiplayer is a whole lot of fun, but can be really challenging if you don’t know the maps.
Star Wars Battlefront II got a lot of flack for its loot crate system in which players could pay money to open crates that feature characters and combat upgrades. The issue became that it would take like six months of solid gaming in order to unlock everything in the game because the crates are random, can contain duplicates, and aren’t easily earned. For this reason, a lot of people boycotted the game.
Star Wars Battlefront II is a lot of fun (even though some of the missions were a pain because I don’t play shooters or flying games ever), has a great story, and looks amazing. It’s really creepy how good the game looks at times because it feels so real. The loot crates really only effect multiplayer as all the solo missions can be completed without any of the upgrades and you have access to all characters. For this reason, I would say that if you can pick up the game for cheap (which the price keeps dropping because it’s not selling well) to do so and play through the campaign.
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My Year of Gaming: ‘Assassin’s Creed II’
My Year of Gaming: ‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’
Covering superheroes, anything dark, horror, and more! Lead writer for Fan Fest
