Star Wars: Battlefront II

Star Wars: Battlefront II is a first-person shooter/third-person shooter video game developed by Pandemic Studios, and published by LucasArts. The game is the sequel to the successful Star Wars: Battlefront and features new vehicles, characters, game mechanics, maps, and missions. The game was released on November 1, 2005 on the PC, Xbox, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation 2 platforms. It was later updated to be backwards-compatible for the Xbox 360. It was also released on the PlayStation store on October 20, 2009 for download on the PSP.

Unlike its predecessor, Battlefront II features a more narrative-based campaign, retelling portions of the Star Wars storyline from the point of view of a veteran Imperial Trooper, reminiscing about his tour of duty in service of both the Galactic Republic and as part of the Galactic Empire. Gameplay additions over Battlefront include the use of Jedi and the chance to fight in space while piloting starfighters. Battlefront II was fairly well received, with the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions scoring in the mid 80s at aggregators GameRankings and Metacritic, respectively. The PC version scored slightly lower at both sites, scoring a 76 at GameRankings and 78 at Metacritic. The PSP version was the worst received, scoring 71 at GameRankings and 69 at Metacritic. Reviewers generally praised the narrative-based story, however some felt that the upgrades from the original sequel were not enough to merit the price.

Gameplay
Battlefront II is fundamentally similar to its predecessor, albeit with the addition of new gameplay mechanics, units, and vehicles. The general objective in most missions is to eliminate the enemy faction. Besides simply killing enemies, players fight for control of 'Command posts', where units respawn after death. Most command posts can be captured, by killing nearby enemies and standing by the command post for a period of time. Controlling a majority of the command posts results in the faster depletion of enemy forces, and allows the player to respawn in more locations. If all command posts are captured, the losing team has only twenty seconds to recapture one before the game ends in their defeat, regardless of their reinforcements count.

There are two eras from which to choose; Galactic Civil War, or Clone Wars. Each era features two opposing factions; in the Galactic Civil War the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire vie for control, while the Clone Wars features the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) and the Galactic Republic. While most character classes are similar to classes of the other factions, each faction has two unique classes, which are unlocked gradually.

Players have the ability to choose between six classes throughout the game. Four class types common to all factions are Regular Infantry (Grunts), Heavy Troopers, Snipers, and Engineers. All have different specialties as well as certain weaknesses. In addition to the four standard classes, each faction has two special classes. The Confederacy of Independent Systems has the IG-100 Magnaguard and the Droideka for their special classes, the Rebels have a Wookiee Warrior and a Bothan spy, the Old Republic has a Clone Commander and a Jet Trooper, and the Empire has the near-equivalent Imperial Officer and Dark Trooper.

Battlefront II also features a special class referred to as "heroes", which are found sporadically throughout the game. The hero each faction receives is entirely dependent on the map. In addition to having un-lockable heroes on the normal Conquest maps, there is an additional Game Mode on Mos Eisley called "Assault." Much like Space Assault, each team is given a number of points to reach before the other team, but all of the Unit Classes are now the heroes. Some examples of heroes include Boba Fett, Mace Windu, Luke Skywalker and Yoda.

Campaign
Whereas Star Wars: Battlefronts campaign featured missions spanning both the prequel and original trilogy, with the player assuming control of all four factions, Battlefront II contains only one campaign, called "Rise of the Empire", which is found in every version of the game except the PSP version. This set of missions is presented as the narration of a veteran of the 501st Legion, known as "Vader's Fist", beginning with an attack on the planet Mygeeto during the Clone Wars and ending with the assault on Hoth as depicted in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. This Campaign includes battles on the surface of Geonosis (as a tutorial), surface of Mygeeto, space of Coruscant, surface of Felucia, space and surface of Kashyyyk, surface of Utapau, surface of Coruscant, surface of Naboo, space and surface of Mustafar, surface of Kamino, the interior of the Tantive IV, the interior of the Death Star, surface of Polis Massa, space and surface of Yavin IV, and surface of Hoth.

Galactic Conquest
Like its predecessor, "Battlefront II" includes Galactic Conquest. In this mode, players have the ability to play as the Empire, Republic, CIS, and the Rebellion. The player commands a fleet and goes throughout the galaxy conquering and protecting planets. Battles take place in space and on land. Players gain credits by capturing or defending planets, and over time from income made by captured planets, these credits can be used to buy new character classes, a new fleet, or bonuses such as "Enhanced Blasters" which increases blaster damage for the player's faction, or "Leader", which adds a hero character to the battle. Bonuses are only available in Galactic Conquest and once depleted must be purchased again. Players can hold up to three bonuses at a time, and one can be used per battle.

Instant Action
Instant Action contains all levels and characters, and any level can be played instantly. It includes Hunt mode, Capture the Flag, Conquest Mode, and Space Assault. In Hunt mode players take on the role of the indigenous species, or a faction opposed to that species, present in the place in which the battle is fought and are tasked with attacking the enemy. In capture the flag sides have 1 or 2 flags. In 1 flag mode both teams run to the middle of the battlefield and try to return the flag to a set destination. 2-flag mode tasks the opposing sides with entering the enemy's base, taking their flag and return it to their own flags. First to capture the specified number of flags is the winner. In Conquest mode, whichever side can capture all predefined command points on the battlefield, or wipe out all the enemy reinforcements wins. Space Assault allows players to control a starfighter of their choice in order to destroy critical systems on the enemy's capital ship or destroy other enemy starfighters. There is also another assault mode, playable only on Mos Eisley. In this mode, the rules are the same as assault, but it is played with no vehicles. Instead, every troop on the battlefield is a hero.

Setting
Like most other Star Wars games, Battlefront II takes place on many of the worlds featured in the films. In addition to visiting locations such as Endor, Naboo, and Hoth, which were seen in Star Wars: Battlefront, the second installment features new locales such as the Death Star, and Tantive IV. The game also travels to locations seen in the last film in the prequel trilogy, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, such as Mustafar and Utapau.

Online History
Star Wars: Battlefront II began its humble beginnings on November 1, 2005. Though the community of players has always been small in comparison to other competitive games, it was one of the best communities. The community first started out using the tournament/ladders site known as Sonic Army. Through this site clans would challenge each other, compete in ladders, and take part in the lovely "Flame On" section. This brought rise to the SA Outpost room that only members of Sonic Army had the password to. In this room you could find most of the now know Battlefront 'Legends'. As time went on the community continued to dwindle due to competition of other games like Socom and the approach of the next generation Xbox 360 and its competitors. In fact the day of 360 release, there was a noticed decrease of players in the community, which happened again on PS3 launch, though this happened later on. After the Sonic Army site decided to drop Star Wars: Battlefront II support in pursuit of next-gen Xbox 360 players the Battlefront Community needed a place to go. It was a few months after the drop of Sonic Army support that WarZone-Online was given rise thanks to DSF's AKilleZ. This new site brought the somewhat second generation players together with brand new tournaments and ladders. During this time the clans seemed to die out even more due to PS3's release. After a while it was decided we were "beating a dead horse" by continuing to support Star Wars and Warzone was shut down. It took several months until a somewhat new generation of players started either just playing or coming back from the unknown of the first or second generations. During this time the currently ongoing community, The Battlefront Community(BFC), was created by Delta. This site has brought together the remainder of the Battlefront Community, to this day, with tournaments and ladders.

Development
Developer Pandemic Studios used their in-house engine, known as Zero to develop Battlefront II. The engine was used in Pandemic's other two Star Wars titles, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the game's predecessor, Star Wars: Battlefront. The game built on the gameplay of the original Battlefront by adding additional game modes, character classes, and vehicles. Battlefronts "Historical Campaign" was replaced with a proper story-driven campaign which follows the 501st legion through many major Star Wars battles. On February 15, 2006, a patch was released for the PC version, which included support for additional maps.

Reception and sales
Battlefront II was praised not only for having a much more engaging single-player storyline, but also for fixing many of the issues that plagued the original, for example improving the intelligence of AI units and adding more varied objectives for victory. Computer and Video Games argued that the strengthened single-player aspect was "unrelenting" and always a good challenge.Publications found the inclusion of space battles a welcome addition, however Gamespot argued that the addition of Jedi, though looking "good on paper", didn't end up "feeling as epic" as expected. Game Revolution argued that if the multiplayer was taken away, even the new campaign was not enough to make Battlefront II worth the buy. IGN claimed that the game suffers from problems remaining from the original Battlefront, such as a lack of challenging AI characters in single player mode. Computer-controlled opponents and allies tend to run headlong into gunfire, wander off ledges, and walk into walls. IGN felt that this, along with redundant use of planets featured in previous Star Wars settings, were problems carried over from the original. A related criticism from Electronic Gaming Monthly is the longer load time needed between boards, which is also caused by more detailed graphics and larger maps than the original Battlefront. Battlefront II placed sixth in overall sales for 2005, according to the NPD Group.