Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005)

Star Wars: Battlefront II is a 2005 science fiction action shooter game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by LucasArts, while the PlayStation Portable version was developed by Savage Entertainment. It is the sequel to the original Star Wars: Battlefront. It is considered to be one of the best Star Wars games ever made, as well as one of the best multiplayer titles on the sixth generation consoles.

Story
NOTE: Due to Disney now owning Star Wars, the story of this game has now been classified as non-canon.

In the story mode, players take control of a soldier in an elite squadron of clones known as the 501st Legion. In the beginning of the story, the clone team is sent to Mygeeto to assist Jedi Ki-Adi Mundi in an assault against a Separatist energy generator. At the end of the assault, they troopers are told to get a sample from the destroyed reactor, which (unknown to them) will later be used in the construction of the Death Star. Many battles are fought afterword, including taking part in the battle over Coruscant from the beginning of Revenge of the Sith and assisting the Wookiees on Kashyyyk.

After the victory on Kashyyyk, the 501st is sent to Utapau to to assist another clone battalion led by Obi-Wan Kenobi in capturing a Separatist stronghold and General Grievous. Shortly after the battle, Order 66 is sent out, which falsely brands all Jedi as traitors to the Republic and orders their summary executions. The clones are now led by Lord Darth Vader and storm the Jedi Temple to kill all Jedi that are there and most of the remaining Jedi that flee are killed by Clone Troopers they led to battle. Afterward, the Clone Wars essentially ends and the rule of the Galactic Empire begins. The 501st is now part of the Empire's legion and goes on missions to solidify the rule of the Empire. These assignments include assassinating the queen of Naboo, destroying the droid facility on Mustafar, and eliminating the Kaminoans' newly created rogue clones, with the help of Boba Fett. After the Kamino incident, the creation of clones is halted and clones are replaced by stormtroopers. The 501st, however, remains as one of the few surviving clone legions.

Nineteen years after the destruction of the Republic, the Galactic Empire is firmly established as the ruling force of the galaxy and the galaxy is seemingly at peace, the 501st are stationed on the new planet-killing battle station, the Death Star. During their watch, a prison break is initiated and a group of Rebel prisoners manage to escape with the schematics of the battle station. The 501st is tasked with recovering the plans of the Death Star and are sent to various planets to find them and track them down to a rebel blockade runner known as Tantive IV, where they capture Princess Leia, but fail to find the plans to the Death Star. The schematics are delivered to the Rebel Alliance and using them, the Death Star is destroyed. In retaliation, the Empire destroys the rebel base on Yavin IV, which the 501st captures.

Three years after the capture of Yavin IV, the Empire discovers the rebel base on Hoth, and the 501st is tasked with wiping out the forces there, led by Darth Vader himself. There, they capture the base and destroy most of the escaping transports. The story ends with the narrator stating that the Death Star was eventually rebuilt and the Empire is continuing the rule the galaxy unopposed, thanks to the efforts of the 501st.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) As explained in the reasons below, this game improves over everything that was introduced in the original Battlefront and adds many new features such as:
 * 2) *The biggest change is that the game doesn't allow you to just play as a normal foot-soldier. While in the original you may be fighting side-by-side with Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, you wouldn't be able to play as them. In this game, you can play as these heroes and villains from the Wars universe.
 * 3) Just like the original, the gameplay is very addictive. In standard battles, you control as a standard soldier and fight against the enemy teams. As you eliminate enemies and complete objectives or what is called for to complete a mission, you will gain Hero Points.
 * 4) The command post system is still well designed, as they help determine victory or defeat in battle. Players control command posts to use them as respawn beacons and to use them to change their class mid-battle without dying.
 * 5) Many player archetypes to chose from during gameplay, with four starting classes and two special classes that are gained by Hero Points, which are earned by killing enemies and completing objectives.
 * 6) The starfighters used in space maps are also varied in ways similar to the soldiers.
 * 7) In relation to the above pointers, the vehicle types also have a lot of variety that is similar to the soldier classes, with players being able to control AT-STs and Landspeeders.
 * 8) The weapons the vehicles and soldiers have are insanely fun to use on your enemies and are greatly varied. All of the guns have different magazine capacities, different damage output, and rate of fire so anyone can find a character class to suit their needs.
 * 9) Unlike the original game, this entry has a proper story mode. Rather than just taking part in battles in the order the where the locations appeared in film with increasing difficulty, the story mode in this game puts you in control of a clone trooper from an elite clone trooper squadron known as the 501st. It tells the story of how the clones went from fighting for the Republic to becoming part of the New Galactic Order and following Order 66.
 * 10) The graphics look a lot better than the past game, with more detail on the faces and clothing of the characters and adding more minor details on the vehicles, as well as lighting effects like laser bolt light reflecting slightly on the walls.
 * 11) Great sound design. The game uses sound effects from the films in the Star Wars series in the game as well as original sounds that fit what is going on. In addition, the voice acting the pretty decent and the yells of soldiers in the battlefield and the narrator telling you what is going on helps bring home the power of the situation.
 * 12) As expected for a Star Wars game, the music is fantastic. It consists entirely of the score of the films composed by John Williams and perfectly matches the action that is happening in battle. Hearing "Into the Trap: Fight in the Dungeon" from Return of the Jedi while battling Imperial forces on Endor never gets old.
 * 13) The game controls very smoothly and each soldier and vehicle plays differently. For example, as mentioned above, each fighter craft and vehicle plays differently from one another and have somewhat different controls based on how they are designed to be used. However, they all have the same basic controls so it is very easy to figure out what you need to do to use the character or vehicle.
 * 14) A nice upgrade and achievement system that is well appreciated. For example, when controlling a character, if you gain a certain amount of kills using the same weapon without losing a life, you will gain an upgrade to that weapon, such as the infantry's rifle gaining a burst shot ability.
 * 15) Just like the original, there is also online multiplayer. In fact, it is still supported to this day in the PC version and will keep you playing the game for a long time.
 * 16) There are tons of new maps to play on, 24 in all and each unique in design to distinguish them from the rest. Most of the maps from the original return, some with the same layout like the Geonosis map and some with a new layout like the Tatooine map.
 * 17) More power-up types to collect on the map. Whenever you kill an enemy, they will drop some kind of power-up most of the time. Two of the power-ups return and are the ones you will be finding the most: a red box which restores your ammo and a blue bacta tank which restores health. The three other power-ups are red bacta tanks that increase your attack power, yellow ones that restore your stamina, and green ones that restore your defense.
 * 18) The game is endlessly replayable and is great to play when you are bored. With the many maps, game modes, ways to play Galactic Conquest, online multiplayer, and the many different upgrades and awards you get from playing, you will be playing the game for a long time. Plus, the game sports a large fan community that still supports the game to this day. There are tons of fan-made mods available for the game that add lots of new content to the game.
 * 19) Great cutscenes in the story mode to tell the plot of the campaign. These cutscenes include scenes from the Star Wars films as well as original cinematics that use the game's assets.
 * 20) Excellent presentation in the menus that give the game a good first impression. In the PC version, the menus are shown with blueprints of the vehicles in the Star Wars universe. However, in the console versions, we are given action-filled clips of all of the films that show us what we are about to experience in the game.
 * 21) Despite being inferior to the other versions of the game, the PSP port does have some features that are not in the other versions. The biggest change is the new "Challenges" mode, where players can complete small challenges and minigames. The text box that displays what is going on in the battle also has some different messages, such as displaying the status of the Command Posts, which is really helpful.
 * 22) All in all, the game was made for the fans and features many different references to the movies that make the game a lot more enjoyable, such as including rooms in maps that appeared for a little bit in the film, such as the place on Mustafar where Vader killed the Separatists from Revenge of the Sith.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some of the hero and villain characters are not fun to play as and some feel like slightly better versions of a certain soldier type. A good example of a not fun hero is Chewbacca, which feels basically the same as an Engineer class character.
 * 2) Hero points, while a good and well designed system, don't have much of a purpose once you have enough points to play as a unique unit like a Dark Trooper or Destroyer Droid.
 * 3) The A.I. of both your team and the enemy, while all around well designed, can occasionally be stupid. A good example is when you are shooting an enemy when it is facing you and it doesn't shoot back. Sometimes, you can get up in an enemy's face and it won't attack you for a few seconds. Another problem with the A.I. is on the Naboo map, where both friendly and enemy forces get stuck in the geometry of the level.
 * 4) While it's awesome that there are dedicated maps for flying starfighters, there are a lot of them that feel like reskins of one another, mostly in the case of maps with empty space between the two flagships, such as the standard space map.
 * 5) A few maps from the original game don't return, such as the Tatooine: Dune Sea map and both of the Bespin maps.
 * 6) On the subject of maps, unlike the original Star Wars: Battlefront, most planets/iconic locations only have one map for that planet rather than having multiple. For example, there where two different maps for Naboo in the first game, but that was reduced to only one for that planet. The only exception to this is Jabba's Palace and Mos Eisley, which both represent Tatooine.
 * 7) The game can be quite unfair sometimes, mostly in the case of the standard Conquest mode. A few times, no matter what you do, the enemy team will have a lot more remaining soldiers than your team, although this is mostly the case on the Elite difficulty mode.
 * 8) There are some odd design choices in the game, such as the Rebel Alliance being able to use Republic Gunships from the Clone Wars era in space battles, rather than using something like the stolen Imperial Shuttle Tydirium from Return of the Jedi.
 * 9) In the original versions of the game, lag somewhat plagued the game's online multiplayer, mostly in the original PC version. Thankfully, it isn't much of an issue today.
 * 10) The PlayStation Portable version of the game is nowhere near as good as the PC and console versions, although most are due to the restrictions of the console hardware. These include, but are not limited to the following.

Reception
Star Wars: Battlefront II sold fairly well. It was the sixth highest-selling game of 2005. The PSP version sold over 500,000 copies. The game was the second and third most played original Xbox title of 2007 and 2008 respectively. Sales totaled over 6 million copies by 2007. The PlayStation 2 version of the game was given the "Platinum" sales award, indicating over 300,000 copies sold in the UK.

Similar to the original Battlefront, the second game received positive reception from game critics but received critical acclaim from gamers and Star Wars fans. The game was praised not only for having an engaging single-player storyline and options, but also for fixing many of the issues that the original game had. However, some critics felt like the game wouldn't be worth the price if the online functionality wasn't there. It is considered to be one of the best games based on the Star Wars license. The game has aggregated scores of 84, 83, 78, and 69 out of 100 on Metacritic for the respective PS2, Xbox, PC, and PSP versions. The game has scores of 9/10 and 4.5/5 on Steam and GOG.com respectively.

Retrospectively, Star Wars: Battlefront II is hailed as one of the best multiplayer titles of the console era and is called one of the best Star Wars games ever made. In 2018, Game Informer placed it number 273 on its "Top 300 Games of All Time" list, stating "Star Wars: Battlefront II was an outstanding multiplayer title" and "provided the ultimate Star Wars fantasy of taking part in large scale battles across iconic locations ". On Google, the game has a score of "97% liked this game" and 4.9/5 stars based on user reviews.

Game Tips

 * 1) Know when to use which of your units. While the Infantry type character is best for any situation, you may need to use different kinds based on the action. On a large and cover-less map like Hoth, a Sniper class is best, as they can easily pick off any force from a distance. On a crowded map like Tantive IV, use an Engineer due to their main weapon having spread shot. And on maps with lots of available vehicles like Naboo, use an Assault class character, as they can destroy those vehicles easily.
 * 2) When using a hero character, your health will slowly go down as you play. You also take damage like normal characters and you can't heal yourself using power-ups. You can stay alive for longer by eliminating multiple enemies.
 * 3) In Galactic Conquest, it is a good idea to buy at least two kinds of power-up in the beginning of your playthrough, as the game can be quite difficult in the early game. Once you gain enough credits to buy one or two new soldier types, the game becomes as little less brutal. It's still a good idea to save up on power-ups later on as well, as once you and the enemy are evenly matched, you will need some kind of advantage.
 * 4) "Garrison" is one of the most useful power-ups in Galactic Conquest and is very helpful in the early hours. Having an extra boost of soldiers can mean the difference between life and death, especially in the earlier turns where you are likely to fail a lot. "Sabotage" is another useful power-up, as it damages the vehicles of the enemy at the beginning of a battle. This one is best used in space battles, as those are entirely starfighter focused.

Trivia

 * The European release of the game released on Halloween.
 * The game released less than a year after the original Battlefront.
 * By the time the original Xbox Live service shutdown, Battlefront II was the second most played game on the service, behind Halo 2.
 * The game is one of the most popular games on Moddb.
 * In 2014, the online service for the PC version of the game had shut down after EA had shut down their extended support on the game, but would continue using GameRanger . Thankfully, official multiplayer support came back in 2017 with the release of the GOG.com and Steam versions of the game.
 * The Xbox version of the game had a few exclusive DLCs that are only on that console and have never been added to the re-releases. The first allowed the Hero Assault mode to be played on the Kashyyyk map and was available for free . The second added a new hero and villain character, Kit Fisto and Asajj Ventress, plus the Yavin 4: Arena, Bespin: Cloud City, Rhen Var Harbor and Rhen Var Citadel maps from the original Star Wars: Battlefront. Hero Assault was also added to the Coruscant, Mygeeto, and Naboo maps. It was sold for $4.99.

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