
So bit of disclosure; The misses and I love Star Wars. I just loved the games (KOTOR especially) but she loves the books and films so Battlefront was a bit of a surprising let down first time around simply being multiplayer battlefield with a nice Star Wars skin. Anyways with the amazing force awakens and rogue one, a new hope was lit, maybe this will be the one that drops the “release a tiny game and fill it later as dlc model?”. The ads seem to say so and John Boyega seems a cool guy! The force could be strong with this one. So once again with an Exp Ops we chart the swampy depths of this beta.

It’s not off to a great start. This is the worlds tiniest text. No seriously. Tiny tiny text. Last time this happened was the 360 original of Dead rising. I worry EA now has the rights to my bank cards and car keys in this EULA because it’s so small I can barely read it.

Oooo my favourite Star Wars music, duel of fates?…. yes I am that guy and yes I know I’m not quite right but it’s definitely prequel material.

Oh the ad again would love it but cards just ruin the woo. Even John clearly isn’t sold on the idea.

Oh look at all this lovely content… oh wait. LOOT CRATES! The cards are just like overwatch again essentially stuff I want from the game locked behind currency and random drops which will inevitably give me stuff I don’t want, horray! Hang on 20 crafting material from a crate… wait it has CRAFTING!? Under a second currency no less. Ok why isn’t this a free to play game then?! No sure, Comment about how this needs to have all this in the game. Bloody hell.

Well anyways onto the actual game I suppose. Ok regardless of the scummy system around it the actual game looks amazing, sounds amazing and that shouldn’t shock because it’s Star Wars Battlefront again but moreish. The content is clearly covering the prequel, original and future stuff nicely.

Net code appears to be better than the first but far too early to comment as it is the beta. Still only a few deaths by lag in galactic battle and those were from flying spaceships above the war zone.

I do say I like the items and supers being like counter strike and bought from spawning with skill points gained from paying, rather than rushing to locations BUT there is a big problem, say you spend all the fight working up to fly the iconic millennium falcon. You finally kick ass enough to get the points to fly it aaaand nope sorry too many in play. “Ok” you think, “I’ll just work to the fancy Poe Xwing”, so you earn a little more, sorry too many in play but hey at least your team won!

That being said I do like how the Star fights are now dogfights, a bit slower but more obstacles and finesse, a bit more weight in them although slight changes like the missile system and lock-on is a bit jarring. That and the x-wings being garbage and the tie fighters being nippy is odd but welcome. The screen is a little clustered with nonsense to but strangely that adds to the feeling of “just making it” in a tie fighter that space battles (in my humble obviously right opinion) need.

At its core for the shooting fps it’s the same old multiplayer battlefield, lots of people running around figuring out objectives, getting tired of objectives and just shooting everyone. The single player arcade stuff is where it’s at. Be sure to have a go on the Darth Maul one especially. If the single player stuff is like this that’s really good news.

Really wish I didn’t like this as much as I did, if only for the singleplayer stuff but oh wait it has the same shady business stuff that just eats away at the fun. Even when opening a lootcrate I accidentally pressed the “I’m done looking at the 3 cards I just got and want to go back” button twice and boom, that’s credits spent on another box. Oh and great more upgrades for the card abilities I don’t use. This one can wait then. I think I’ll stick to being excited for the last Jedi instead.

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