There is always a certain amount of joy and apprehension that accompanies the
debut of the first Star Wars game on a new platform. The joy comes from the
opportunity, as the cheesy saying goes, to experience the saga again for the
first time. The apprehension … well let’s just say that there has been at least
one too many Star Wars games that have not lived up to the quality of the
license. So here we are again. The PSP gets its first Star Wars game in Star
Wars: Battlefront II. Joy and apprehension all over again. OK, deep breath, here
we go…
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| A stormtrooper lets his gun do the talking. |
Battlefront II on the PSP shares a lot with its console-based cousins: you
take part in battles between the Empire and the Rebellion or the Republic and
the Separatists as a foot soldier or as a pilot in space. So far, so good, but
we’re talking about a portable game system that is missing a right stick and
whenever you’ve got a shooter that’s missing the right stick the first thing
that you’ve got to look at is the controls. Battlefront II tries to be
accommodating in this regard by providing you with a few layout options. The
default assigns the left stick to movement and the four face buttons to look.
This scheme is the most intuitive of the three, but the face buttons fall short
of providing you with precise aiming control. You’ll overshoot your target often
and I found it a lot easier to adjust my aiming precision by just moving around
rather than by flicking the aiming reticule back and forth. The next scheme uses
the stick for both aiming and moving, and you need to hold a button down while
aiming. This didn’t work too well for me as it eliminates your ability to move
while shooting. Another scheme uses the stick for aiming and the face buttons
for movement. This worked the best for precision aiming, but it takes some work
to get over the muscle memory burned in by countless hours of shooter play with
move on the left and look on the right. Too much for me at least, so I stuck
with the default and just lived with it. I sure shot a lot of people in the
feet, though.
Alright, now that we’ve gotten that lengthy control discussion out of the way
let’s look at the gameplay itself. There are several modes of play in the game,
but the type action you’ll encounter the most comes in one of two forms:
planetary battles and space battles. The planetary battles center on the control
of specially designated nodes on the map that also serve as spawn points for the
controlling side. The nodes also generate “tickets” which are used to respawn
players after they’re killed. Controlling nodes means more tickets for you and
less for your opponent, and you can win the game by either capturing and holding
all of the nodes or reducing the enemy team to zero tickets. The maps used in
the planetary battles are set on such famous worlds as Hoth, Tatooine, and Endor
and each have their own unique feel and features. For example, Tatooine features
street to street fighting while Hoth is a very open map littered with gun
emplacements. Each map comes with its own set of vehicles that you can hop into
and control, from speeder bikes on Endor to snow speeders on Hoth.
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