Star Wars: Battlefront II (PS2) Review
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (PS2) 8/10
Hello everyone and welcome to one of the classics from the PS2 era. Star Wars Battlefront II was released on October 1, 2005 for the PS2, Xbox, and PC. The game was developed by Pandemic Studios and Savage Entertainment (RIP) and published by EA, Activision, and Lucasarts. This game was a major part of my childhood as I’m sure a lot of you too. This game is so very iconic (and genuinely good) that it’s still regarded as one of the best multiplayer games of all time, with people still playing it today and being more well regarded than EA’s Battlefront 2 that came out in 2017 (even with the recent surge of players). This game helped cement my love for Star Wars and I still regard it as one of my favorite games ever. Today, I’ll be going over the PS2 version of the game and seeing as the PS2 servers aren’t up anymore, it is impossible for me to go over online multiplayer. Let’s begin.
The game has many different modes to keep you entertained for a while. Campaign follows a member of the 501st Legion through the Clone Wars and the time of the Galactic Empire. The campaign starts at the Battle of Geonosis (skippable tutorial) all the way to the Battle of Hoth. The campaign will also go into some cool concepts such as The Empire taking down Gizor Delso before he brings back the Droid army on Mustafar as well as the Empire fighting their own Clone brothers on Kamino. The Clone missions can get very repetitive with the objectives until you reach Mission Knightfall (Order 66 at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant). To help spice up the campaign, the game will also throw in some space battles (which are also skippable). You can participate in the Battle Over Coruscant from Episode III as well as breaking the Wookie blockade on Kashyyyk. The Imperial missions on the other hand are much more difficult with fewer reinforcements and longer stretches between checkpoints. Also I find it weird how there are infinite Rebels on the Death Star mission while the Stormtroopers have limited numbers. Like you’re on the Death Star; shouldn’t this be switched? I found The Death Star, Polis Massa, and Hoth missions to be the hardest missions of the campaign. Naboo was also a pain to get through (especially at the beginning, but once the ball gets rolling it’s not too bad). Quick shout out to Temuerra Morrison for narrating these missions. Really puts the Clone’s perspective into another light.
In multiplayer, there are many different ways you can play. First, there's Instant Action where you can have a playlist of maps of your choosing in the order that you choose with different game modes per map. These game modes vary between Conquest, Capture the Flag, Hunt, and Hero Assault. If it's a Space Battle, you only have Assault and Capture the Flag. Hunt is where you can play as a species of that planet and fight it out (such as for Tatooine, there's Jawas vs Tusken Raiders). Let me just say, playing as a Gungan and demolishing Super Battle Droids is lowkey satisfying. Although some of these Hunts are rigged (such as Jawas will always win against Tusken Raiders and Ewoks will always win against Imperial Snipers).
Hero Assault is where you play at Mos Eisley and it is Heroes vs Villains. This mode is so much fun and I wish this game mode was available on other maps. However, this mode is rigged. 95% of the time, the Heroes will win. Like it’s literally rigged and I tested it myself. One time I booted up the mode and I did literally nothing. I hid in a corner and I waited to see what would happen. Heroes won. I tried this a couple of times and even played on the villains team several times. Getting the villains to win is very difficult to do. Because of this, I like to have some fun. What I would do is play as Chewbacca, hide at a specific command post and crouch next to an ammunition droid. Chewbacca has homing rockets that you can control like it’s a starfighter. One of the greatest sights ever is watching Palpatine, Dooku, or Vader just fucking skyrocket from a random explosion. When I first started doing this, I was crying from laughter. This mode is also an excellent way to test out all of the special characters. I do find it weird that whenever the AI plays as Palpatine or Dooku, they’ll only spam Force Lightning, which gets very annoying. Also shout out to Yoda for being so tiny that it’s very difficult to hit him. Final shout out to the music that plays here. The map will loop through like the same 5 songs or so. Two of these being the Cantina music and the other being that music performance from Jabba’s Palace from the Special Edition of Episode VI. I don’t mind the repetition one bit as the music is just genuinely great.
Space Battles are great, but there are a few problems. Limited maps is what really kills these battles. You have all these planets for ground battles, but there's only 6 space maps. However these are still fun and you can approach your victory in a couple of different ways. I always went after destroying key parts of the enemy ship as this usually grants the most points. You can also hunt down enemy starfighters like an actual dogfight. Lastly, you can board the enemy ship and attack from the inside. If you grab a specific cruiser you can create your own spawn point in the enemy base. These space battles were so fun but I wish there were more maps to play on.
One of the best multiplayer modes to ever be conceived is Galactic Conquest. In Galactic Conquest, you can play in two time periods: The Clone Wars or the Galactic Civil War. Once you pick a time period, you get to pick which side you want to be (Republic vs CIS, Empire vs Rebels). Your job is to conquer the galaxy and destroy your opponent by maneuvering around the galaxy like it’s a board game. You only start off with the basic class (Infantry) and one fleet. As the game progresses, you'll be able to purchase new classes (Heavy, Sniper, Engineer, and two exclusive classes for whatever team you're on) and bonuses (such as health regeneration, more troops, sabotage enemy vehicles, access to your hero, etc). These bonuses are really handy and can win battles for you. I really do wish these modes made a return for the EA Battlefront games as these were one of the major highlights of the original games. There is one thing that always irked me with Galactic Conquest. The AI would consistently, every Goddamn time, invade Naboo without fail. I’ve played this map so many fucking times that I have this map memorized like the back of my hand. They would never attack any other planet. It’s like they NEEDED Naboo. After Naboo, they would go after Dagobah. Another thing I do find weird is how the GC map changed for the Galactic Civil War. Like if you are playing as the Rebels, in order for you to get to Hoth, you gotta go ALL THE WAY AROUND the board and vice versa with the Empire getting to Hoth. One thing I do love about Galactic Conquest is the music that plays when you are overlooking the board. It plays “Across the Stars” from Episode II and it is just perfect. Whenever I hear this song, I immediately think of “select a fleet to command”. So iconic.
From what I remember from the online multiplayer, it was a lot of fun. Duking it out with both humans and AI on some of these maps were legit some of the best memories of my childhood. I believe the PC version still has its servers up with a dedicated player base, which is great to see.
Level design is actually really well thought out. In fact, the Death Star is one of my favorite maps of all time along with Mos Eisley. In some maps (such as Mos Eisley, Jabba's Palace; and Endor) you'll see planet specific creatures walking throughout the map (Endor is bullshit because the damn Ewoks destroy the Empire and it is almost impossible to win there when you play as the Empire). One map in particular I'd like to go in depth is Naboo. Theed is the capital of Naboo and it takes place at night time. The map centers around a plaza and you can go around it through streets and hallways. Problem is, most of the AI is scripted to stay in the plaza and fight it out, trying to capture the command post there. There's this one area of this map in particular that KILLS this almost perfect map. There's this little area in the northeast that's glitched. You yourself are perfectly safe from this glitch, but the AI is not. When the AI walks past this area, they initially go right towards it, running into a wall and they can't do anything about it. So when the game is almost done and you can't find anyone because you've been walking around, taking the command posts, 9 times out of 10, everyone is in this spot. Usually a grenade or a rocket to this corner wins you the game. Quick shout out to Death Star, Mustafar, Coruscant, Naboo, Dagobah, Kamino, Mygeeto, Geonosis, and Mos Eisley for being my favorite maps. However, I do miss some of the old maps from the first game (like Naboo Plains, Rhen Var, and Tatooine Dune Sea).
Another thing I love about the game is the progression system (yes there is one). After every match, you’ll get ranked among all the other players (both humans and bots) and you can see how you did among everyone else. You can also earn medals for each match (such as Deadeye, Bantha Fodder, Tank Destroyer, and others). You can also unlock upgrades for the classes you play. I like to play as the simple soldier, maybe dive into Engineer and Sniper every now and then. The more you use a class, the easier it is to unlock special upgrades for the class. Like for Infantry, if you continuously get kills without dying, you’ll unlock an upgrade to your rifle (which will last until you die). This makes it more powerful and has a better rate of fire (basically turns into Boba Fett’s rifle, which is disgusting). This adds another layer of entertainment and replayability (and the best part? No battle pass or any of that shit).
Surprisingly the game still holds up graphically. Yes it does look outdated to today’s standards, but the game still looks good. I love the designs for all the soldiers from all the different factions. I also love how, depending on what map you’re playing on, the soldiers will have different outfits (like the Rebels will wear their forest gear when on Endor or the Clones will have their Phase 1 armor for Geonosis). All the Easter eggs and homages to both trilogies are outstanding. Like on Coruscant, you can find the star map room that Obi-Wan and Yoda used in Episode II (where Yoda was training younglings). Or on Hoth you can find the Millennium Falcon chilling in the hangar. Or on Tatooine and you can explore the Cantina. Stuff like this makes the game a love letter to the fans.
Music is an essential part of a game. It brings in the mood of a moment and brings the game to life. Sometimes when you're in a space battle, the music glitches into a record scratch for the rest of that song, then it gets dead silent (except for the explosions and your engine). This really ruins the mood. I do love how the game uses a lot of songs from both eras of the series. John Williams really is a god of music.
Overall, this game is a piece of art and one of the best Star Wars games ever made. Tons of replayability and is extremely fun. Despite some of its problems, the game still holds up very nicely and I wouldn’t mind playing a Galactic Conquest match with someone from time to time. If you have never played this, I highly recommend checking it out. I have not played the Classic Collection that came out awhile ago, so I can’t really judge that. But the original release is a classic of the mid-2000’s. Until my next review, watch those wrist rockets!
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.
This is Zorgak, signing off.
