There's also a Rebel NPC slaughter mode in which you can play as Vader or Palpatine storming into the Hoth base and laying waste.Īll of these mini-games - to give them a more accurate title - have one thing in common. You get to be in an AT-ST Scout Walker, an X-Wing, on a Speeder Bike on Endor, or in a Snowspeeder on Hoth.

No mucking about and chasing distractingly unreal icons on foot: you're straight into the craft of your choice, with plenty of AI attackers to battle against. The training sessions are a chance to take some of the most recognisable Long Time ago vehicles out for a test drive, free from the main game's breathless competition for spaces in the driver's seat. The latter I almost skipped over entirely, before realising that, actually, these were the best singleplayer bits, mysteriously hidden under an unappealing and inaccurate name. There's also the option to play the latter as a 'hero' character, and some training missions.

And what do you get from that 'Missions' section? Either wave-based survival against AI attackers, or a simpler bot match reinterpretation of the core team deathmatch multiplayer mode. 'Missions' - which can be undertaken either alone or with a co-op chum - are given equal billing to multiplayer. It's my favourite main menu of the year, but that's another story). (The main menu also looks like a beautifully minimalist coffee table book about the art design of Star Wars. botfights - but tries to carry itself as though there's something more substantial, because some portion of its audience is 30- and 40-something Star Wars old hands who don't want to dance a dance of sweary online ganking with unblinking teenagers. It's shipped with only the barebones of a singlepalyer mode - i.e. Blast 'em! Blast 'em! Top that leaderboard! Unlock a new hat! In the rudimentary but oddly front-and-centre of the main menu singleplayer modes, the robotic behaviour of AI baddies mixes with the simplistic shooting leading to an end result that feels hollow and repetitive.Ĭlearly, it's no surprise that a series - and a studio - whose lineage is almost entirely in multiplayer team shooters wouldn't be boasting the most fleshed-out solo play around, but I do feel as though Battlefront is trying to have its cake and eat it. In multiplayer, this works to at least some degree. Battlefront isn't just nostalgia for the 70s and 80s, but for the turn of the millennium too. Of course, that's partly the intention: the original two Star Wars Battlefronts were well-loved on console, even if they didn't quite measure up to Battlefield in the eyes of PC players. The confusing thing about Star Wars Battlefront - in any mode, though I'll be writing about multiplayer separately in a day or two - is how it looks like the newest, fanciest, prettiest game around, but feels like some PlayStation thing whose name you can't remember that you played with college mates in a boozy haze fifteen years ago.

Star wars battlefront part 1