With all this different stuff to play with, I couldn’t help but feel totally immersed in the action as I fought for control of planets in the game’s offline “Galactic Conquest” mode, but every time I so much as glanced at the game’s multiplayer functionality, I could feel dark thoughts clouding my opinion on the game. On the one hand, the offline mode surprisingly kicks ass, not only because the bots are only partial imbeciles (they’re actually a hell of a lot better than the bots from Battlefield 1942, and I was amazed when they actually tripped an AT-AT all by themselves), but because it’s really a great way to get a feel for the game’s vehicles, character classes, and all the other important stuff, and really is an awesome experience to check out. But on the other hand, Star Wars: Battlefront really is a game that is begging to be played online in a massed multiplayer environment, and it is incredibly unfortunate that the game’s network code inhibits any kind of enjoyment. Even after repeated attempts to find a decent game server, each match I played in still suffered from the same old latency problems that made the game nearly impossible to play – even player movement is affected, which is a HUGE no-no in twitch-based action gaming (trying to maneuver a Droideka around in ball-form when the latency is through the roof is effectively suicidal). Interestingly, the game’s online mode seems more oriented around fighting bots than actual players, as I had a hard time finding any server that didn’t have at least ten bots running around supporting a given team’s war efforts. I guess the bots are necessary given how it seems the game’s online play completely goes to hell when more than eight clients are connected are connected to a server, but I was so looking forward to an all-human experience to really get into the action with. Lack of integrated voice communication, combined with the surprising fact that the Xbox version of the game apparently handles better online than its PC counterpart (this may be due to a reduced per-server playercount) means that console gamers seem to have gotten the larger end of the stick here. But not even the Xbox version of the game is flawless, and it’s obvious that the online aspect of Star Wars: Battlefront could have used a few more months of intensive development and troubleshooting. Dammit, games aren’t supposed to run this shitty online, especially when Battlefield: 1942 has been doing it much better with even more players since day one! What the hell happened?

Unlike the network code, the graphics engine in Star Wars: Battlefront is just amazing, and I was initially blown away at how everything felt and looked after initially booting it up. Running around the snow-laden Hoth level, it immediately dawned upon me how astonishingly authentic everything looked. The character models, terrain, and vehicles all look amazingly true to their movie counter-parts, and hopping into a Rebel blaster turret to look at an incoming AT-AT, complete with the hi-tech HUD covering the screen suddenly make me feel as if I was starring right in a scene from The Empire Strikes Back. Thanks to careful use of pixel shader and bloom effects, the game has a level of artistic flair that is unmatched by any previous Star Wars game I’ve seen to date. I was truly amazed, especially after seeing the laser effects and explosions, but like most things in gaming these days, a few problems hurt the experience a bit. First and foremost, I couldn’t stop thinking that most of the levels were simply too small. Given the limited player count per-server, I suppose there’s a good reason, but on certain levels that contain aircraft (like the X-Wings, Y-Wings, and Tie-Fighters and Bombers on the Bespin Platforms mission) I soon found myself with barely any room to fly or maneuver in a proper manner before I got a warning from going off the map. Perhaps the game’s status as a multi-platform release also contributed to this (I’ve got my blame-ridden eye stuck squarely on the PS2 version of the game), but that doesn’t change the reality of the problem. Several of the maps are admittedly still huge, especially those containing the fearsome AT-ATs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they should’ve still been a lot bigger. The game also got a little unstable on occasion, though that may have just been personal experience (as mentioned earlier, this seemed to only happen when I alt-tabbed out, so I wouldn’t count this as a major issue).

Thankfully, the engine is optimized nicely enough to run great on the average gaming system these days, and I personally had no framerate issues at all with the game’s detail levels cranked up on my XP2500+ / Radeon 9600 Pro / 1GB RAM configuration – and from what I hear, the game also runs pretty great a little further down the scale as well, so provided you at least have a slight lead on the minimum system requirements, the available graphics tweaks should ensure a smooth gameplay experience. The animation system is also very well done (with a hilarious ragdoll physics implementation), although a small annoyance is that the game’s weapon models in first person perspective mode look a little undetailed, and also lack any reload animation (they just disappear off the screen for a second). I also have a complaint about the corpse decay speeds, which were far too quick, and people I killed would commonly disappear before their dropped weapons would even stop moving. Annoyingly, this also applied to vehicles, meaning that gigantic AT-AT I had gone to the effort of knocking down vanished almost instantly. Would it really take up that much memory to let me enjoy my kill for more than two seconds? All things considered however - and especially given the game’s limited development cycle - I have to say that I’m very impressed with how the graphics in Star Wars: Battlefront holds up under today’s standards. You definitely need to see the game in action to notice how beautiful the execution is – it really is just that amazing.

Sadly, an impressive graphical presentation and some surprisingly fun offline gameplay (I would’ve preferred a more storyline-oriented campaign, but the skirmish-styled gameplay is still quite entertaining) just aren’t enough to make Star Wars: Battlefront anything more than an above-average title. Face it; this game is meant for online play, and a grossly flawed network codebase that badly needs improving effectively ruins it as an enjoyable multiplayer title. It’s obvious that plans are in place to rectify some of the bigger concerns (a patch has already been released to solve a few of the game’s minor issues), but whether this game will ever truly be playable in the manner it was obviously meant to be in the future remains to be seen. I’m giving it bonus points just for looking so freaking amazing in motion and for having some great, addictive gameplay ideas, but I’m ultimately left with the kind of feeling I’d get from being given a complete Battle of Hoth action set for my birthday, only to discover it’s actually locked in a glass case with the key thrown away and a “do not touch” sign stuck on the surface, leaving me helpless to do anything but blankly stare at it and daydream at the possibilities. Please Pandemic, fix up the netcode and get this game in a playable state – this game deserves a second chance.