INTERIORITY
Testing Star Wars Battlefront Beta
I have spent a few hours on Star Wars Battlefront (on PS4), and I must say that I enjoy it a lot. The gameplay is 100% stable in spite of some glitches here and there. The sound and graphics — well it is what you come to expect from DICE: Absolutely brilliant. The levels are well thought out (again a few minor things here and there — it is a beta after all), and there is an excellent balance in the way the battles unfold. You really feel that you are thrown directly into a Star Wars movie.
One thing I am missing though is the ability to spawn on your teammates. I know – I am a long-time die hard Battlefield fan, but okay, I can live with having no classes and you are able to spawn on one teammate in the game. But if you have like 3-4 friends on the same map you still often feel like you are running around all by yourself and have a hard time finding the others in order make some strategic moves. In that way, the gameplay feels slightly chaotic — which I believe is pretty much faithful to the bewildering feeling you also have watching the Star Wars movies. But this is a game after all and having no way to make some strategies makes the it feel a bit like a giant clusterfuck at times (pardon my French). The levels are compensating for this by placing objectives inside buildings or having trenches strewn out in certain ways so you feel obliged to move in a particular direction towards your goal or enemy. But it is all up to the players to take advantage of this. While it is very well thought out it is not always the feeling that there is any strategy at all but to run forward and gun down everything that moves. Which is not bad per se. But I miss the strategies. When you are 5 or 6 team players crammed into narrow hallways, often no one, seem to know what the other one is doing. And then all run around like chickens without heads until somebody from the opposite team throws a grenade…
The controls are almost too simplistic with the most generous aim assist I’ve ever seen. And you have no advantage in aiming down the sights – you even get a penalty in that you move slower when doing so. So playing in third person view without using aim is the most effective way of playing. You can only crouch slightly with your character, making the use of cover a tad cumbersome which actually forces you to run around most of the time without stopping. And again, that eliminates some strategic gameplay which in my opnion makes the game somewhat one-dimensional.
All in all, I believe that Star Wars Battlefront will be a tremendous success. The sensation of being right in the middle of this epic story is smack-on, and it is okay fun to play. But it has no way near the feeling of a well thought out battle like you have it in Battlefield (not Hardline, folks – that’s ‘Battlefield Call Of Duty’ — not my cup of tea). I have cancelled my pre-order so that I can see the reviews when they arrive and then make up my mind. Yet I’m still very much intrigued by this, after all, a potential — albeit very gamewise casual — masterpiece - as of now. I will wait for the final verdict when the game launches.
Here’s another take:
