Better Narrative, Lower Playability: Destiny 2 Evolves While Fixing What Wasn't Broken To Begin With!

The Good: Graphics, Story/concept
The Bad: Forced multiplayer experience, New shader concept and weapons mods lower the playability
The Basics: The saga of Destiny continues with Destiny 2, which elevates the Cabal, adds new planets and makes it harder to make weapons and armor work efficiently.


I came to Destiny (reviewed here!) comparatively late. Despite that, it did not take me particularly long to get into Destiny and enjoy the worlds, weapons, and adversaries of the game. As rumors swirled about the content of the first sequel to expand the Destiny universe, I was apprehensive. The early release presentations hyped up how Destiny 2 would increase the community aspect of the game. The community aspects, which forced a player to play with others after initially featuring a story that players could play entirely on their own.

I loathed the forced community aspect of Destiny. Of course, by the time I got to Destiny, most of the players were seasoned, arrogant and bored with trying to shepherd newer players through the climactic story adventures that required full six-person fireteams. So, the idea that Destiny 2 would increase and highlight that was not a big selling point for me. Despite the hype of one of the aspects that did not thrill me from the first incarnation of Destiny, I eagerly bought Destiny 2 only a day or two after its official release and I've been playing it for the past two months.

I got Destiny 2 for the Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) and daily play of the new game has illustrated to me that the creative forces behind Destiny created a far more problematic game with Destiny 2, despite there being a stronger narrative for the video game.

Basics

At its core, Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter game in a science fiction warfare setting. The game is broken into three essential modes: Story, Co-operative missions, and player vs. player combat.

The story mode is a single-player experience that has the player portraying a Guardian, one of the last surviving people in the solar system tasked with protecting the remaining human population. The player makes a journey from The Last City on the Traveler to ruined sections of Earth before the player progresses out to Io, Titan, Nessus and then later to the Leviathan, a new massive ship out near the edge of Earth's solar system. As in Destiny, in Destiny 2, the player fights little rogue aliens (The Fallen), massive armored warriors (the Cabal), mindless alien robot drones (the Vex), a race of killer humanoid insects (the Hive) and a sinister race invading the solar system that absorbs entities from all those races and makes them into shadow warriors (The Taken). In the main story mode, the player has to flee The Last City, which comes under attack by the Cabal's elite Red Legion. In a wounded state, the player slowly recovers their light and rescues the leaders of the Guardians from the planets they have scattered to before confronting the leader of the Red Legion to try to rescue the Traveler and The Speaker.

The multiplayer mode allows players to team up to do specific missions that involve bigger bosses than one player could reasonably handle. Players work together to perform complicated story missions that cannot be done by one player and do mini-strikes that allow them to work together in variations of other story adventures. There is also a very basic combat experience where the team of players combats enemies in an arena setting as part of the expanded training.

As with the original, Destiny 2 begins as a single-player game that has the single player moving through the worlds at their own pace, explore aspects of the setting that interest them and accomplish goals in their own desired order. But Destiny 2 includes major events that cannot possible done on one's own. The Leviathan, for example, is a raid that requires multiple players to unlock the puzzle portion that opens the doors that allows the player to progress. There is no possible way to complete the Leviathan Raid without multiple players and completing that raid unlocks several significant things, like the ability for a player to pledge to a Faction.

Finally, there is the player vs. player mode. In the Crucible (player vs. player mode), players either join a randomly assigned team or assemble a team of like-minded murderers and they go out to fight in various settings against other players. The Player Vs. Player modes range from games where the players must collect fallen baubles when they kill ("Supremacy") or take and hold control points around flags ("Control") to free-for-all combat between players. For Destiny 2, there are two new Crucible games - one which involves a four-person team either setting explosives and guarding them (with the opposing team attempting to disarm them) and another one where the players have only a few, shared, lives that they have to preserve before their entire team is irrevocably wiped out.

At the end of virtually every mission or round of combat, players are awarded points, artifacts, and/or weapons and armor to level up their character.

Story

Destiny 2 has a more focused story than the original Destiny. After years of the Guardians re-establishing themselves and protecting Earth's solar system, the Cabal, under the leadership of Dominus Ghaul attacks the Traveler. Ghaul and his Consul abduct The Speaker and enslave the Traveler to tap it for Light. Destroying the power center of the Guardians, the Guardians are forced into retreat while Ghaul interrogates the Speaker.

The Guardian, having lost their Light, crashes down to the abandoned portions of Earth where they slowly begin to regroup. The human survivors of the Last City struggle without a hierarchy and the Guardian (the player) has to protect the humans, rebuild an infrastructure and head out to other planets in the solar system to find the leaders of the Guardians. With their leaders restored and shards of the Light giving them power again, the Guardian has to stop the massive device draining The Traveler before confronting and killing Ghaul!

Game Progression

The main story of Destiny 2 has pretty reasonable progression. The player starts on a map and, while they might explore almost any part of it, there is a pretty linear sense of movement throughout the story. When a player encounters a story node along their current plotline, they begin a well-contained mission, like entering a phantom realm to recover shards of the Light or restoring a communication's device from salvaged parts from a downed colony ship on an outer moon.

The game progression is one of the clear areas where Destiny 2 devolves from its original story. Destiny had a clear, simple, and enduring method of upgrading armor and weapons. In Destiny, one could get shaders, which changed the coloring of one's mismatched armor. It was nice; the player got a cohesive look out of random things they picked up around the many worlds they visited. In a similar fashion, Destiny had a very linear sensibility for upgrading the weapons and the armor, for the attributes and powers they had.

Destiny 2 is a massive step back on that front. First, the shaders are used on each individual piece of armor (helmet, breastplate, gauntlets, leggings, and cloak) and when one upgrades out of the current piece they may have customized, they lose that shader. While this might allow greater customization, it makes creating a look for one's character harder (one must get several copies of the same shader and equip each piece of armor). And once one gets rid of lower-powered armor which the player had shaded the way they liked, they might lose that shader entirely and not be able to get it back. That's annoying, as is not having an overall shader that endures on the character.

The weapons and armor upgrades in Destiny 2 are done with "Mods." Mods are the exact opposite of intuitive; they are supposed to add power and attributes to weapons or armor - equipping to make an otherwise mundane weapon a Solar, Arc or Void weapon, equipping a piece of armor to give the player attributes when equipping a certain type of weapon. These mods, in addition to having the incredibly annoying tendency to reduce the power of certain artifacts (it sucks to finally get an Exotic piece of armor, attempt to equip it with something that should make it more powerful and watch the defensive capacity of the armor actually go down!). As with the shaders, equipping any weapon or armor piece with a Mod becomes problematic in that the lower powered items one equips with them and then later outgrows loses the mod. The upgrade and enhancement process for the weapons and armor in Destiny 2 is needlessly complicated and a dramatic step back from the simple elegance and efficiency of the original game.

Effects

The effects in Destiny 2 are homogeneously amazing. The visuals for the environments look fantastic and the animation is usually clean and flows exceptionally well. Destiny 2 is remarkably glitch-free on the visual effects and it creates an impressive setting that looks great. The fires throughout the Last City, for example, look amazing!

As an older player, it is worth noting that while the speed of the graphics are good and the rendering of adversaries is excellent, the scope, scale and lighting are frequently problematic. To see and, usually, to aim, I almost constantly had to engage the scope on whatever weapon I was using. This has the unfortunate consequence of removing the radar, which informs players where the enemies and goals are! That said, Destiny 2 has superior directional information. Enemies in Destiny 2 can shoot players from a decent distance, outside the effective radar range; the on-screen graphics that indicate where a player is being hit from attacks are excellent.

Arguably the most impressive effect in Destiny 2 is the quality of the voice acting. Bungie employed genre favorite actors like Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Lance Reddick, Lennie James and Bill Nighy to voice non-player characters who pop up during the movie portions of the game. The actors create distinctive characters for the Ghost and the leaders of the surviving factions within the Last City, making for an exciting sense of flow and continuity through the different story elements.

Replayability

Destiny 2 has three different styles of character a player may create - Titan (essentially brute soldiers), Hunters (more mobile and precise operatives, like bounty hunters) and Warlocks (essentially magic-users) - that each have different strengths, capabilities and forms of attack. As a result, players may play through the story portion of the game multiple times and have very different experiences with each run through. Going back through the game, for example, reminded me of one of the irksome aspects of the environment that allows multiple people to be playing in the same spot at the same time; when one is playing their own personal mission and when other players are playing around you, they might might poach your kills to make your goals more difficult to achieve. In areas where there are very few enemies, the game gets bogged down by several people all trying to kill the same enemies to accomplish their goals!

The player vs. player portion of the game changes with each and every attempt. That said, the new player vs. player event that seems like the Trials Of Osiris for Destiny 2 is problematic in that there are not enough players on the platform actually playing to give players access to that new style of game.

Overall

Destiny 2 foreshadows well how the Destiny franchise will continue to expand. This expansion fleshed out the Cabal and made them a lethal enemy to the last of humanity. Perhaps the next expansion will find the Vex traveling through time to undo humanity and make the player into a time traveler or the Taken will possess the leaders of the Guardians and the player will have to find a central controlling power source for the Taken to free all those who are under their influence from them. But the creators of Destiny 2 illustrate the dangers of tweaking a system that was well-made in the first place. Destiny 2 is less player friendly and compelling than the original. While the idea of the Light being corrupted and the Traveler being menaced is an interesting one, players quickly overcome the complications that creates and end up in a world that is partially familiar, somewhat annoying. The result is a game that is quicker to get through and harder to want to stick with afterwards than the original Destiny.

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Star Wars Battlefront
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

6/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Rise And Fall Of A Great Video Game: Destiny: The Collection

The Good: Graphics, Playability, Story/concept
The Bad: Story becomes dependent upon multiplayer mode
The Basics: Destiny begins as a compelling solo video game that decends into an unfortunate social exercise that makes it impossible to finish as one began it.


I have, only as I reached middle age, gotten into playing video games. I found I actually enjoy the reinforcement of little goals and playing games that have intriguing stories and good graphics. I never would have guessed that I would have gotten into first-person shooter games, but when the stories are interesting, I find I can get captivated by them. While going through my year of playing Star Wars: Battlefront (reviewed here!), one of my real-life friends recommended that I try Destiny. As Star Wars Battlefront became more of a repetitive exercise for me, I decided to take her advice and my wife picked me up Destiny: The Complete Collection.

I got Destiny: The Complete Collection for the Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) and I have been playing it for the past nine months on that system.

Basics

At its core, Destiny is a first-person shooter game in a science fiction warfare setting. The game is broken into three essential modes: Story, Co-operative missions, and player vs. player combat.

The story mode is a single-player experience that has the player portraying a Guardian, one of the last surviving people in the solar system tasked with protecting the remaining human population. The player makes a journey to Earth, the moon, Mars, Venus, and a massive alien ship embedded in Saturn's rings (the Dreadnaught) to fight little rogue aliens (The Fallen), massive war robots (the Cabal), mindless alien drones (the Vex), a race of killer humanoid insects (the Hive) and a sinister race invading the solar system that absorbs entities from all those races and makes them into shadow warriors (The Taken). In the main story mode, the player explores the remaining habitable portions of Earth and its colonies within the solar system to protect the Visitor and the remaining humans from the invading forces, while collecting artifacts and weapons to level up.

The multiplayer mode allows players to team up to do specific missions that involve bigger bosses than one player could reasonably handle. Players work together to perform complicated story missions that cannot be done by one player and do mini-strikes that allow them to work together in variations of other story adventures. There is also a very basic combat experience where the team of players combats enemies in an arena setting as part of the expanded training.

Unfortunately, this is where Destiny goes horribly wrong. Destiny begins as a single-player game that allows players to move through the world at their own pace, explore aspects of the setting that interest them and accomplish goals in their own desired order. Where I wrote "allows" at the top of the paragraph above, the terminology was imprecise; "compels" is a far more accurate word. Players begin the game and can make the journey as they see fit and take their time. But, at the end of every major map, there comes a point where the player cannot play on their own. Bungie, the makers of Destiny, force players to connect with other players and form a six-person Fireteam to accomplish important story points like killing every major Big Bad. It's like Bungie is the stereotypical doting parent, concerned that their kid is playing too many video games and forces playdates with other children. As a forty year-old, that's pretty shitty to me.

The multiplayer story modes are not labeled and are not intuitive. So, players who come to the game on their own will suddenly get to an important story point (like killing the leader of the Hive or eliminating the Taken King) and find themselves locked out of progressing . . . not through any clear mechanic, but rather taking the next labeled step in the game and finding it impossible to progress. So, for example, after spending hours and hours trying to get to more than three checkpoints on "Crota's End" (called Lanterns) without being blown up, swarmed by so many Hive that no single combination of weapons can thin the herd enough to survive or fall down pits in the darkness, players who have started the game on their own are likely to just give up.

But, alas, to continue playing the game where the single player was the hero in their own story, players must log onto Bungie's message boards on the internet, find a fireteam and join it. I came to Destiny late - the game was released at least two years prior to me even hearing about it - and people who continued to play the multiplayer story modes have, generally, become an intolerant bunch. Whatever process of discovery existed in the early days of Destiny gameplay by which players figured out what the team members had to do in each of the forced team play story adventures - where people had to stand, when they had to move, what order to accomplish things in, etc. - has long since passed. As a result, players who play the multiplayer story modes are (by a vast majority) made up of people who know what they are doing and have very specific goals to accomplish with continuing to play those modes. As a population, as a player community, they are not overly tolerant of newbies or those who have different skill sets. So, for example, I am not a professional player and one of the aspects of gameplay that I tend to have difficulty with jumping. I am not a strong jumper in video games. So, on a multiplayer mission that requires all of the players to cross a massive chasm within the Dreadnaught while avoiding getting knocked into said chasm through well-timed jumps . . . I am a clear liability to the team. One need not possess much imagination to guess how a team of five players who are ready to confront a Big Bad might react to being held up for an hour while the sixth player attempts to jump across a chasm that everyone else has already crossed.

This style of gameplay is incredibly frustrating for new players and players who are not social. The most common result is that the Fireteam leader, fed up with the team's weak link, will simply jettison them from the game. So, a player might begin one of the story missions they require to advance and conclude a level, but will end up entirely at the mercy of other players and their impatience. It's a sucky way to design a game and it is not at all player friendly. Any game that requires solo players to rely upon the kindness of strangers and live up to their standards to conclude the game is poorly designed. It's a system that invites bullying, so it was utterly unsurprising to me as a non-professional player that I would have numerous portions of gameplay where I was unable to complete the story and would be made to feel terrible by other players who accepted my presence on a team for a portion of the story's gameplay, but then threw me off the team because I was not as good as the rest of the team.

Emotionally, the only real recourse a player has is in the player vs. player mode. In the player vs. player mode, players either join a randomly assigned team or assemble a team of like-minded murderers and they go out to fight in various settings against other players. The Player Vs. Player modes range from games where the players must hold control points to "ignite a rift" using a "spark" (it's essentially Capture The Flag with massive casualties when the flag is destroyed) to free-for-all combat between players.

At the end of virtually every mission or round of combat, players are awarded points, artifacts, and/or weapons and armor to level up their character.

Story

To its credit, Destiny has a pretty cool story. Opening in the present day, astronauts reach Mars. There, they uncover and encounter the Traveler, a massive satellite that reinvigorates and inspires humanity. Humans spread out throughout the solar system and enter a new golden age. After eons of expansion, The Traveler's enemy finds it and virtually wipes out humanity.

The solar system is overrun by Taken, Vex, Cabal, Hive and Taken forces. But, one day, the little mechanical device known as a Ghost resurrects The Guardian (the player) and helps them to escape the Fallen-infested Cosmodrome. The Guardian is then reunited with the leaders of Earth, who work with the Traveler to retake the solar system.

Game Progression

The main story of Destiny has pretty reasonable progression. The player starts on a map and, while they might explore almost any part of it, there is a pretty linear sense of movement throughout the story. When a player encounters a story node along their current plotline, they begin a well-contained mission, like having to climb up one of the remaining rockets on Earth to recover computer codes for one of the surviving military leaders or bring the Queen in the Rift the head of one of her enemies in order to prove loyalty and competence to her.

In general, the story mode follows a linear progression from Earth to the moon to the planets Venus and Mars before the solar system is invaded by the Taken out near Saturn.

That said, Destiny, at least in the form of The Complete Collection, is severely weakened in its progression by its open format. Destiny has "social areas," where players go to store excess weapons, decrypt found blueprints into weapons and armor and meet with non-player characters who assign missions and goals. Unfortunately, there is no linear progression to the types of missions or goals that the non-player characters give. So, for example, a player who meets with the Titan Leader Zavala and sees that there are missions he has to help one level up might accept them . . . without any indication that a low player-level character cannot possibly accomplish, much less enter, them. So, for example, Zavala has goals pertaining to Nightfall Strikes that a Level 1 player might take on . . . not knowing that Nightfall Strikes are not accessible to anything but the highest-level players. In a similar vein, players might easily pick up weapons from the weaponsmith that are well above their player level to use or involve targets the player does not yet have access to (like a weapon that is to be used exclusively against the Cabal before player has access to the Mars map). Going through the game a second time as a different type of character, I was instantly miffed that in the first group of goals my character was given, two required high-level characters, requiring me to either hold the quests for considerable time before I could attempt them or forcing me to abandon/decline them.

Similarly, Destiny goals are often neither intuitive nor self-explanatory. So, for example, one is given a speeder to move around on and the mechanic in the Last City can assign the players goals. I have had a goal of "Overcharge 3 Reached." I have no idea what "Overcharge 3" is. I've tried many different things; I could find the answer easily enough by looking it up, but the game should not require players to go to a completely external source just to learn about the goals they are supposed to accomplish!

That said, weapons and armor upgrades are entirely intuitive and well-executed. Players are given a lot of direction at the game's outset for how to acquire and upgrade weapons and armor, so as the game progresses, that becomes intuitive pretty fast. . . as does collecting resources so one has the continual ability to upgrade one's weapons and armor.

Effects

The effects in Destiny are homogeneously amazing. The visuals for the environments look fantastic and the animation is usually clean and flows exceptionally well. Destiny is remarkably glitch-free on the visual effects and it creats an impressive setting that looks great.

As an older player, it is worth noting that while the speed of the graphics are good and the rendering of adversaries is excellent, the scope, scale and lighting are frequently problematic. To see and, usually, to aim, I almost constantly had to engage the scope on whatever weapon I was using. This has the unfortunate consequence of removing the radar, which informs players where the enemies and goals are! That said, Destiny has superior directional information. Enemies in Destiny can shoot players from a decent distance, outside the effective radar range; the on-screen graphics that indicate where a player is being hit from attacks are excellent.

Arguably the most impressive effect in Destiny is the quality of the voice acting. Bungie employed genre favorite actors like Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Lance Reddick, Erick Avari and Bill Nighy to voice non-player characters who pop up during the movie portions of the game (Peter Dinklage was originally in the game, but apparently got edited out when the expansions began). The actors create distinctive characters for the Ghost and the leaders of the surviving factions within the Last City, making for an exciting sense of flow and continuity through the different story elements.

Replayability

Destiny was, at least until today when Destiny 2 was officially released, constantly adding challenges, weapons and events to Destiny, so the game appears to have incredible replayability. As well, there are three different styles of character a player may create - Titan (essentially brute soldiers), Hunters (more mobile and precise operatives, like bounty hunters) and Warlocks (essentially magic-users) - that each have different strengths, capabilities and forms of attack. As a result, players may play through the story portion of the game multiple times and have very different experiences with each run through. Going back through the game, for example, reminded me of one of the irksome aspects of the environment that allows multiple people to be playing in the same spot at the same time; when one is playing their own personal mission, they might have specific goals, like "make ten headshots" and when other players are playing around you, they might have similar goals. In areas where there are very few enemies, the game gets bogged down by several people all trying to kill the same enemies to accomplish their goals!

The player vs. player portion of the game changes with each and every attempt and events like the Iron Banner insure that there is always something for a Destiny player to do in the game environment!

Overall

Destiny is an excellent idea for a video game for those who want a role-play first person shooter game. Unfortunately, the forced community quality of it - the way the game abruptly transitions from a solo-player game to one that absolutely forces player interaction without any way to complete the story or have the full player experience without having to join an online community and interact with other people is a serious detraction to casual players and solo players alike and ruins the overall experience of Destiny.

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

7/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Nice Improvement, Annoying Glitches: Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass Is Still Worth It!

The Good: Cool new game styles, (Mostly) Impressive graphics, Amazing variability in the multiplayer mode
The Bad: Some terrible glitches, Lack of a narrative, Some sloppy character renditions (Chewbacca!)
The Basics: Star Wars: Battlefront gets more complex and fun to play with the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass which expands the character, map and weapon base beyond the original game!


Not very long ago, I finally got around to reviewing Star Wars: Battlefront (that review is here!) and as I am preparing to commit 2017 to an entirely different immersive video game, it makes some sense for me to review the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. Since DICE and EA began expanding Star Wars: Battlefront with the Season Pass's four expansions early in 2016, I have been avidly gaming my way up the Star Wars: Battlefront ladder. I never thought that I would be a gamer who would put in thousands of hours on a single video game, but the stats section of Star Wars: Battlefront does not (presumably) lie! Much of my time on Star Wars: Battlefront for the past six months has been spent on the maps and special new games from the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass expansions.

Despite my daily gameplay on Star Wars: Battlefront, I still do not consider myself a professional game player. This is very much a layman's review of Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. For the purposes of this review, it is worth noting that I play using a Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) and because the Season Pass is entirely composed of expansions to the online multiplayer portion of Star Wars: Battlefront, in order to play the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass, one playing the game on a Playstation 4 requires a subscription to the Playstation Network.

Basics

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is a video game expansion, much like the Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Season Pass (reviewed here!) that is downloadable content (DLC). The four expansions that make up the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass are entirely part of the online multiplayer version of the game. Like the basic game, the Season Pass expansions are set in the Star Wars Universe and allow the player to play as Rebel soldiers, Imperial soldiers and heroes (or villains) from the classic Star Wars Saga and Rogue One. The four expansions for the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass are The Outer Rim (Jabba's Palace on Tatooine and Sullust), Bespin (various portions of Cloud City), Death Star, and Rogue One: Scarif.

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is a first-person shooter video game, both for ground-based forces and fighter vehicles. The expansions in the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass continue to not have gore; shot adversaries simply fall, there is no carnage in the game.

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass allows the player to play as a common soldier or as one of the heroes of the Star Wars Saga for most of the styles of game within the broader game. The Season Pass allows players to progress from the previous cap up to a Player Level of 100, which unlocks for players new skins for their soldier appearance. The Season Pass also introduced new characters to the hero and villains lineup of character. By Rogue One: Scarif, players have the ability to play Nein Nunb (much cooler than one might guess!), Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, and Jyn Erso on the hero side or Greedo, Dengar, Bossk (incredibly cool!) and Director Krennic on the Imperial side.

The Season Pass introduced a new mechanic for delivering weapons and Star Cards to players in the form of Hutt Contracts. Hutt Contracts are specific goals that a player must complete to unlock the new weapons or tools they pay into the contract for. New firearms include things like an incredibly powerful targeting rifle that can deliver a lethal shot at a great distance (and finally has a scope that older players like myself can see characters who are far away!) but has a fairly long reload time to a six-shooter to a new blaster rifle that delivers a shot almost like buckshot! One of the other cool weapons is a blaster pistol with a night vision scope, which allows players to see any adversary, including Imperial characters wearing black who hide in the shadows on Sullust!

The Star Card weapons and tools added to the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass include dioxis grenades (a poison gas cloud that damages and kills anyone within its radius until it dissipates!), a scatter gun (which allows players to fire through personal shields), light grenades, and laser trip mines! DICE shot its wad early on the Season Pass as the Dioxis Grenade and Scatter Gun seem to be the most consistently useful weapons to come out of the Season Pass and weapons like the Stinger Pistol, which is such a minor inconvenience as a weapon and so underused by players that I was shocked last week when I was, in a weakened state, actually killed by someone playing with one!

Gameplay for the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is essentially done by equipping a player with a firearm and three Star Card weapons/tools and then going into one of the maps to run around and shoot. Each of the four expansions from the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass creates a new style of gameplay for the multiplayer mode from Star Wars: Battlefront. While the expansions continue to utilize familiar game modes - Blast, Heroes Vs. Villains, Walker Assault, Cargo, Droid Run, Fighter Squadron, Drop Zone, Turning Point and Supremacy - the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass creates the new play styles: Extraction, Sabotage, Battle Station, and Infiltration. In fact, the only style of gameplay from the original Star Wars: Battlefront that was not added into the Season Pass was Hero Hunt.

For The Outer Rim Expansion, DICE created Extraction. All of The Outer Rim expansion maps were ground-based and Extraction is available on all of the new maps for The Outer Rim! Extraction finds the Rebels trying to get a whole palate of cargo from one end of the map to the other. Rebel forces must set the palate in motion and guard it from the start point, through two checkpoints to a final point where a Rebel ship comes to take the team to safety. The Imperial players must work to stop the Rebels and deactivate the palate to prevent the Rebels from getting to the final checkpoint. At the beginning and first checkpoint, hero tokens appear for the Rebel players; at the first and second checkpoints, villain tokens appear for the Imperial characters. Originally, the Extraction games had specific hero characters who players were transformed into when they activated the tokens, but with the release of the Rogue One: Scarif expansion, Extraction characters were changed into any of the heroes/villains, which makes for even more diversity in the game.

Sabotage is a two-phase game style that was introduced for the Bespin Expansion of the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. Bespin had one airborn map that allowed players to play Fighter Squadron among the clouds, but the new game - Sabotage - was a ground-based game. In Sabotage, Rebel players must activate explosives on three Tibana Gas generators, scattered around the map. When the explosives are activated, there is a countdown and after a minute, the explosives explode. During the first phase, Rebels have four hero tokens that pop up around the map to allow Rebels to use greater firepower to defend the explosive points (or overtake them if the Imperial players actually play a decent defense!). If the Rebels are successful in destroying all three gas generators within the allotted time, the second phase begins. During the second phase, the Rebels must fall back to an extraction point to wait for a Rebel transport to come and get them off-world. The extraction point is like a control point in Supremacy or Turning Point and Rebels must maintain a dominant presence within it to win the game. Imperials - who are granted four villain tokens in this phase - must penetrate and gain supremacy over the extraction point before the time runs out.

For the Death Star expansion in the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass introduced Battle Station, a three-point game that alternated between ship-based combat and "ground based" (it's inside the Death Star) combat. Rebel players first must launch an assault on a defensive Star Destroyer (which is only vulnerable intermittently, much like the AT-ATs during Walker Assault), while Imperial players must try to destroy the Rebels and their Y-Wing bombers before they can blow up the defensive points on the Star Destroyer. When the Imperial players fail, Battle Station moves into a second phase, aboard the Death Star. On the Death Star, Rebel players must go from one end of the map to the deepest point, where R2-D2 is being restrained. Rebel players must then activate R2-D2 (who becomes a playable character to the player who liberates him!) and bring him to an extraction point (which is a simple "cross the finish line" style goal, as opposed to a control point that must be held). Throughout the Death Star interior are hero tokens which may be picked up by Rebel or Imperial players and can vastly change the outcome of the game. If the Imperials successfully defend R2-D2 and keep him from getting to the extraction point, they win and the game ends. If the Rebels manage to keep activating R2-D2 and get him across the finish line, the Battle Station game enters the Trench Run phase. In the final phase of Battle Station, Rebels try to fly through a prescribed series of checkpoints to a final point from which they may launch a proton torpedo that destroys the Death Star. Imperial teams that prevent the Rebels from getting to the final checkpoint and destroy the Death Star win, while Rebel teams that blow up the Death Star win.

For the release of Rogue One, the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass included new maps of Scarif from Rogue One and a new game style: Infiltration. Infiltration, interestingly enough, is based upon the original ending to Rogue One, which had Jyn Erso and other Rebels physically running the Death Star Plans to a ship that got them off of Scarif! Infiltration is another three-phase game that only progresses when the Rebels complete each of their missions, while Imperial players attempt to block them from accomplishing their goals. Infiltration opens with the Rebels attempting to get a U-Wing troop carrier through the planet shield surrounding Scarif. Rebel players randomly are chosen to be a U-Wing and when the first few attempts with one U-Wing fails, Rebels get multiple U-Wings at a time making the attempt. Once a U-Wing gets to the shield point, the second phase begins. On the ground of Scarif, Rebels must plant explosives on one of two grounded cargo ships for a distraction. Rebel players who manage to activate the explosive and keep it active through a successful detonation win the round and progress to the final phase. The final phase of Infiltration is extraction where Rebel players start in a common point where the Death Star Plans are being held and three players may pick up the plans and attempt to run them across the map to an extraction point. When a player carrying the plans is killed, the plans remain where they fall for a set amount of time, which gives other Rebel players the chance to pick up the plans and continue the run. If the time runs out on the plans, they return to the phase's start point. Imperial players that prevent a carrier from crossing the extraction point line win, whereas a Rebel player with the plans that runs to the waiting U-Wing on the ground will win the Infiltration game.

Story

There is no cohesive narrative to the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. Sabotage, Battle Station and Infiltration have phases, but there is no actual narrative to them, just progress points that must be reached to enter the team into the next phase.

Game Progression

Just as the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass lacks a coherent narrative, there is no real progression to the game. Players begin at the same point in each round and the games end at generally solid points (like the destruction of the AT-ATs, timing out as one defends the control points or getting R2-D2 to a Death Star hanger).

Effects

The graphics for the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass are generally incredible. I played Star Wars: Battlefront on the Playstation 4 connected to a Sony Bravia HD (reviewed here!) and it looked and sounded immaculate. . . for the elements that were so created. The detailing on the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass maps is absolutely incredible. From costuming aspects - there are scratches in the gloss on the Stormtrooper helmets! - to character expressions, Star Wars: Battlefront's Season Pass expansions looks amazing. Players are very easily distracted by running around shooting and preventing themselves from being killed, but DICE clearly worked to make the worlds of Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass look and feel real.

While most of the characters move with lifelike realism in the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. The notable exception on Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is Chewbacca. Chewbacca's fur looks matted and pixelated and terrible. It is amazing that DICE got Bossk (who had virtually no screentime) and Dengar (who is voiced on the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass by Simon Pegg!) to look and sound amazing, but they could not nail Chewbacca!

Replayability

Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass has generally impressive replayability based on the fact that each game has different players, different potential weapon and goal combinations and no coherent narrative. This game is exceptionally easy to jump back into at any point.

Unfortunately, the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is painfully glitchy in points. For example, it took me two games of Infiltration to recognize that Rebel players may easily get through the first phase by simply taking the U-Wing straight up for two bursts of the speed burst at the start point. From that point, the enemy TIE fighters cannot possibly catch the U-Wing before it gets to the shield point because they lack the speed or positioning on the map to interact with the U-Wing! This is a pretty obvious flaw that makes it impossible for a seasoned Rebel team to actually lose the first round and be blocked from progressing!

Even more problematic is the Lando Calrissian flaw. One of Lando's special attacks is a Power Burst. Some players (possibly cheaters who have downloaded something, if the message boards are to be believed!) play the Power Burst constantly (with no recharge time and no diminishing of the firepower), which makes Lando invincible. I've played against people who play using this exploitative problem and have been at the opposite end of a map, playing The Emperor or Bossk and shot once at the outset of a game by Lando and killed! I've played Lando and cannot activate the Power Burst in a similar way, so it's a known flaw or cheat point that seriously undermines the game.

Outside the glitches, the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass games are eminently replayable. In fact, since any hero can be played now in Extraction, I have enjoyed going back and playing it with all of its new permutations of heroes and villains!

Overall

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is a decent investment for those who truly love the expanded Star Wars Universe and are comfortable with the gaming style of Star Wars: Battlefront. As a casual gamer, I certainly enjoyed the content of the Season Pass far more than I enjoyed trying to learn other video games while I was hooked on Star Wars: Battlefront!

Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass utilizes settings and characters primarily from:
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return Of The Jedi
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Angry Birds Star Wars
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

7/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Enter The Battle! Star Wars: Battlefront Is Worth The Time!

The Good: Exciting, Amazing graphics, Awesome variability in the multiplayer mode
The Bad: Still some glitches, Lack of a narrative
The Basics: Star Wars: Battlefront is an exciting and engaging first-person shooter game set in the Star Wars universe that allows fans to enjoy being a part of the action.


Like most Star Wars fans, I have been eagerly looking for something to keep my enthusiasm for the franchise high while waiting for Rogue One (check out my trailer review of the film here!). Over the past year, I have kept my interest in the space opera franchise with Star Wars: Battlefront. I am not a big video game fan, but a year ago when I got a Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) for my family to replace our failing Blu-Ray player, I got it with the Star Wars: Battlefront bundle and I've been playing the game for almost an entire year.

Almost every day, I play Star Wars: Battlefront and after almost a year of game play, I figured that it was time to review the game.

It is important to note that this is very much a layman's review of Star Wars: Battlefront. Professional video gamers might have a very different interpretation of the game, but as a Star Wars fan and one who came to the game without any experience with first person shooter games, I figured there would be value in reviewing Star Wars: Battlefront for those who want to know how the game is for non-professionals/non-gamers.

Basics

Star Wars: Battlefront is a video game that is broken down into the standard and online multiplayer versions of the game. Set in the Star Wars Universe, Star Wars: Battlefront allows the player to play as Rebel soldiers, Imperial soldiers and heroes (or villains) from the classic Star Wars Saga. Players play on iconic Star Wars worlds - Tatooine, Hoth, Endor - and expanded universe planets like Sulust. Even The Force Awakens is represented in the video game environment with missions on Jakuu. While there have been expansions (the Season Pass will be a future review as they are very different games in some ways!), noticeably absent from any incarnation of Star Wars: Battlefront are any adventures on Dagobah or in the asteroid field from The Empire Strikes Back.

At its core, Star Wars: Battlefront is a first-person shooter video game. I have never been a fan of shooter games, largely because I have no experience with such things and the ones I have seen footage of have not only been violent, but they have had quite a bit of gore to them. Star Wars: Battlefront does not have any gore; shot adversaries simply fall, there is no carnage in the game. That, along with my predilection for the Star Wars universe, was very appealing to me and helped me to get into the game. Regardless of the style of game within the Star Wars: Battlefront platform, the games basically involve running around shooting enemies.

Star Wars: Battlefront allows the player to play as a common soldier or as one of the heroes of the Star Wars Saga for most of the styles of game within the broader game. The core game features Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and Boba Fett (the only hero voiced by an actor who played him in the films, in this case Temuera Morrison, who redubbed all of the Fett lines for the Star Wars DVDs) and each has special abilities and attacks that cannot be duplicated by the common soldiers. So, for example, the Emperor moves very slowly, but can set off a chain lightning attack that kills everyone within a close radius, which no other character can do. Luke Skywalker covers massive amounts of ground very fast, uses the Force to push characters to their death and wields a lightsaber, making him predictably powerful. Boba Fett's jet pack has a far longer duration and quicker recharge than any soldier's jump pack.

For the bulk of Star Wars: Battlefront, players play as common soldiers both as Rebels and Imperials. The player can play as first-person and third person. It did not take me very long to discover that the third person option was very difficult to use to hit adversaries with, whereas the first-person option had a much clearer targeting ability. Players may play with various skins that have no functional playable difference. As a result, Imperial players may play as standard Stormtroopers, Snowtroopers, Sandtroopers (with various regimental colors on the shoulder pad), Shadowtroopers (essentially TIE Fighter pilots). As DICE, the game's creator, has expanded the Star Wars: Battlefront platform, players have been able to play Imperial officers. Somewhat problematic on the Imperial side is that, just as with the Rebel side, players can play unhelmeted Imperial soldiers and while the films have had homogeneous soldiers for the Empire, but as one runs around as a Rebel, one needs to be attentive to the uniform/armor as opposed to seeing a flash of white on (for example) Tatooine and shooting. On the Rebel side, players may play with Rebel soldier or Rebel officer outfits, but with various heads, including alien heads like Twi'lek, Rodian, and Quarren.

Players have over a dozen firearm choices and over a dozen specialized weapons and tools that are activated through Star Cards - which recharge slowly after they are used - and some that require tokens found throughout the various maps to allow the player to use. The firearms range from blaster pistols shown on screen - like the style used by Han Solo and Imperial Stormtroopers - to various blaster rifles and snub blasters. Players can use guns much like were used by the Jawas - which have virtually no range, but kill with a single shot - or the EE-3, the blaster rifle utilized by Boba Fett. As a middle aged person, Star Wars: Battlefront got me hooked when I found the T-21B, a targeting rifle, because it is the only weapon with a scope that allows me to see enemies before they see me and kill me. As a novice gamer, having range and the ability to see adversaries before they kill me is a real asset.

The Star Card weapons and tools include things like jet packs, grenades, and personal shields. When one is outfitted with a Scout Pistol, they may focus for a single shot with the Star Card weapon to deliver close-range, lethal kills. Homing Shots are essentially heat-seaking rockets and the Cycler Rifle is a long-range projectile weapon that can be used to shoot through personal shields. Star Card tools like the Scan Pulse allow players to see where adversaries are within a decent radius, even if they are crouched down, hidden. In the multiplayer mode, there are goals, which might necessitate players to mix up what Star Cards and firearms they use to achieve those goals. So, for example, if one has a goal of "10 Headshots With A Blaster Pistol," the gamer might want to arm themselves with a Scout Pistol Star Card and Focus Fire, as opposed to simply utilizing one of the several blaster pistols as a primary firearm to achieve the goal. Some of the Star Card weapons - like the pulse rifle and homing shot - require the weapon to charge in order to deliver the shot, which can be irksome as the player is very easily killed while the weapon charges.

Gameplay for Star Wars: Battlefront is essentially done by equiping a player with a firearm and three Star Card weapons/tools and then going into one of the maps to run around and shoot. The Star Wars: Battlefront platform encompasses two essential styles of play: the base games that are played by a single person (or with shared play with one other person) or multiplayer modes. The modes might be very different, but they boil down to running around and shooting (or flying a starship and shooting).

The Single Player version of Star Wars: Battlefront is fundamentally broken into Battles, Survival, and Skirmishes. Battles are (generally) one player running around fighting against AI adversaries who are simply there trying to kill the player. The AI can provide allies to aid the player who is running around killing enemies. The Battles, which allow for a very limited multiplayer mode in that another person may join the battle for split-screen play as either an ally or enemy of the primary player, have the essential goal of reaching a score of 100 before the enemy team does. The points are achieved by picking up tokens that are left (for a limited time) above the corpse or a killed enemy. The difficult aspect of Battles is that collecting tokens often puts players in mortal peril and the AI allies do not collect tokens for the player; only the player may work to achieve the 100 score, whereas the enemy forces seem to be able to collect tokens at a comparatively accelerated rate.

Survival is a cool concept that is unique to the single-player portion of Star Wars: Battlefront. The primary player (and up to one other, playing in concert with the primary player) is part of a mission to Hoth, Sullust, Endor or Tatooine, when their mission is compromised. Fifteen waves of enemies (some with Imperial vehicles like AT-STs) are set against the player and they have only a handful of lives to attempt to survive the onslaught. For the first two (out of three) levels of difficulty, players are assigned Star Cards to try to use in their survival attempt. As a casual gamer, the Master level of difficulty has proven to be cripplingly difficult for me. Regardless of the map, the forces decimate me whenever I try to play the Survival on Master difficulty, which was very frustrating for me; it has become impossible for me to achieve all of the game's goals as a result.

Skirmish is the latest type of gameplay for the single-player mode of Star Wars: Battlefront. Skirmish is a one-person recreation of the multiplayer modes Walker Assault and Fighter Squadron. Skirmish is a weird rehashing of the two multiplayer modes where the player plays against (and with) virtual enemies and teammates to achieve the goals of destroying AT-ATs or shooting down enemy fighters with a fighter of one's own.

The multiplayer mode is what keeps me interested in Star Wars: Battlefront. The multiplayer mode requires an online subscription (like the Playstation Network) and a decent internet connection in order to play against others worldwide. Players play as part of an eight to twenty person team (depending on the game type) against an opposing team of approximately the same size to achieve an objective specific to the game type. The multiplayer modes for Star Wars: Battlefront include: Blast, Hero Hunt, Heroes Vs. Villains, Fighter Squadron, Walker Assault, Supremacy, Turning Point, Cargo, Drop Zone and Droid Run.

Blast is essentially the same as the single person battles where the whole purpose is to run around as part of a kill or be killed scenario. There is no strategy, just two teams of people running around an environment killing one another and respawning until one team reaches 100 kills first. Blast has no subtlety or strategy to it; it is simply players running around shooting. Fortunately, the game objectively counts the kills, so players do not have to risk their lives to collect tokens to beat the opposing team.

Similar to Blast are Hero Hunt and Heroes Vs. Villains. Heroes Vs. Villains infuses the teams with three to four (depending on the map) heroes or villains (heroes for Rebel players, villains for Imperial players) alongside the standard soldiers and the players run around killing each other. Each three minute round ends when one side manages to kill all of the opposing team's heroes or villains.

Hero Hunt is like the single-player Battles where one person plays a hero (or villain) character and is attacked by all of the other players. Hero Hunt rounds allow players who inflict the most cumulative damage against the hero characters to become the hero themselves and fight for survival. Hero Hunt is the only multiplayer game that has a "mercy rule;" if the hero makes 50 kills, the game ends. Hero hunt has two fundamental glitches. The first is that players who play Hero Hunt for multiple rounds will easily note that DICE chooses the initial hero player in the most problematic possible way. I have played Hero Hunt a ridiculous number of times and the sheer number of times where a player has been selected as the initial hero player in a new round was a player who achieved victory using the mercy rule in the prior round has been insane. If a player can slaughter a whole team of people so that they reach fifty kills first, odds are they are not going to be easily stopped the next round! And often they are not, making for stifling, unpleasant game play. The other glitch that DICE does not seem to ever quite fix is that periodically during Hero Hunt multiple heroes will be in play at the same time. A team of people stands no chance against The Emperor and Bossk (for those who move on to the expansion and experience this glitch!) playing in concert at the same time (as the Emperor has the ability to heal allies and Bossk has decent range for his weapons) or against two Luke Skywalkers!

Fighter Squadron is essentially Blast for starships. Rebel players play as X-Wing or A-Wing fighters (or, with the Hero token, the Millennium Falcon), while Imperial players play as TIE Fighters or TIE Interceptors (or, heroically, as Slave I) and fly around an aerial map shooting each other down. Like Blast, there is no strategy to Fighter Squadron; it is a simple kill or be killed scenario that ends when the game either times out or one side manages to get 400 kills.

Cargo is essentially "capture the flag" where teams have five cargo packs each. Each side attempts to get the cargo backpack from the opponent's base and run it back to their own side. Teams have to effectively guard and retrieve the cargo backpacks. Cargo is wonderful for those players who like playing defensive games, as guarding the cargo can be an essential path to victory.

Droid Run is similar to Cargo in that two six-person teams have to gain and maintain control over three gonk droids that are moving in limited patterns on a given map. Players have to find the gonk droids, run over to them, take control over them and then keep all three of the gonk droids under their influence without the control being broken by the other team! Drop Zone is similar to Droid Run in that escape pods drop periodically on the field of play and each team must try to claim it, much like they have to claim droids. After a set amount of time while the pod is "claimed," the team that claimed it gains its contents. The game is resolved by one team managing to claim five pods first.

My favorite game in the multiplayerStar Wars: Battlefront is Walker Assault, arguably because of my love of AT-ATs from The Empire Strikes Back! Walker Assault places the two teams on a massive field, with one or two AT-ATs in play. Over the course of three rounds, the AT-ATs move to shooting range of a Rebel transport that is poised to escape the planet. Rebels have to activate (and maintain the activation) of beacons that call forth Y-Wing fighters that bomb the hell out of the AT-ATs during each of the three vulnerable periods in the round. The AT-ATs are vulnerable for a limited period of time based on how many Y-Wings are summoned. Imperial forces have to try to take the uplink stations off-line and keep the AT-ATs from being destroyed to win the game. Walker Assault allows imperial players to play as the AT-AT for a minute at a time, which is a wonderful way for those who grew up on the Star Wars franchise to live out the fantasy of decimating Rebel forces as an AT-AT.

Turning Point and Supremacy are very similar games, also on massive maps like Walker Assault. Both games involve the teams having to gain control over specific areas of the map the game is played upon. Supremacy has five points and opens with both teams in control of two control points each, competing for the centralmost control point. When one side asserts dominance over the central control point, they gain momentum and have to fight for control of the first control point for the (now) defensive team. The team that ends up with three control points or takes control of the fifth control point wins.

Turning Point is a similar style, but is one-sided; the Empire starts with three control points and if the Rebels manage to take control of any one of the control points, the Empire is pushed back to a secondary set of control points until they are pushed back to a single, final, control point. Turning Point victors are determined by either the Rebels taking the final control point or the Imperials preventing the final control point (or any of the subsequent levels of control points) from falling to the Rebels.

The diversity of maps, gameplay styles, daily goals and online adversaries makes for an infinite combination of games.

Story

Outside the Survival in the single-player game, there is no narrative to Star Wars: Battlefront. Survival begins and ends with a brief set up of how the player ended up stranded alone in the environment, fighting for their own survival. None of the other games on the Star Wars: Battlefront have any form of story or narrative to them; they are games where Rebels and Imperial forces fight one another to achieve limited goals.

Game Progression

Just as Star Wars: Battlefront lacks a coherent narrative, there is no real progression to the game. Players begin at the same point in each round and the games end at generally solid points (like the destruction of the AT-ATs, timing out as one defends the control points or getting all five of the cargo packs back to base!). While the games do not progress, players are able to level up and get new skins (appearances), firearms and Star Cards. Within each game, players may progress with an armed Trait - like Survivalist, which after a certain number of kills allows the player to heal from wounds at a faster rate.

Effects

The graphics for the Star Wars: Battlefront are incredible. I played Star Wars: Battlefront on the Playstation 4 connected to a Sony Bravia HD (reviewed here!) and it looked and sounded immaculate. The detailing on Star Wars: Battlefront is absolutely incredible. From costuming aspects - there are scratches in the gloss on the Stormtrooper helmets! - to character expressions, Star Wars: Battlefront looks amazing. Players are very easily distracted by running around shooting and preventing themselves from being killed, but DICE clearly worked to make Star Wars: Battlefront look and feel like a real world. I've taken the time to inspect things like random plants on Endor, snowy hills on Hoth, and the lava flows on Sullust and there are no places I have found in Star Wars: Battlefront that do not look truly lifelike!

Characters move with lifelike realism in Star Wars: Battlefront as well. Star Wars: Battlefront occasionally has glitches on the multiplayer mode where characters will repeat motions and I've noticed dramatic functional differences in playability based on how packed the servers appear to be - like opponents moving faster at some points relative to my motions and times when I am playing as the Emperor and set off the Chain Lightning attack but it does not execute, allowing a single opponent to slay me at accelerated speed! But, even when there are glitches or speed execution problems, the characters and environments all look perfect and consistent!

Replayability

Star Wars: Battlefront has amazing replayability based on the fact that each game has different players, different potential weapon and goal combinations and no coherent narrative. This game is exceptionally easy to jump back into at any point, especially for the multiplayer mode.

Overall

Star Wars: Battlefront might have some glitches and some problems with consistency for the execution of how characters manage to move in it, but for the most part, it is a solid game. Star Wars: Battlefront represents the best chance most Star Wars fans have to run around in the most iconic locations from the Star Wars franchise and pretend that they are a part of the action!

Star Wars: Battlefront utilizes settings and characters primarily from:
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return Of The Jedi
The Force Awakens

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Angry Birds Star Wars
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

8/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Enemies Around Every Corner: Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor Sinks On Playability!

The Good: Good graphics, Some of the gameplay
The Bad: Unclear objectives, Narrative is not linear, AI cheats (seriously), Basic visibility
The Basics: Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor is a good idea for a game, but it is poorly constructed for those who want a straightforward, fair game that makes sense.


I never expected to be a gamer. The truth is, I am not a gamer of any real caliber. I love playing Star Wars Battlefront, but I loathe playing it against stoner teenagers who send hate messages because, well, I'm not great at the game. My brother-in-law thought it might be a good idea for me to branch out from Star Wars Battlefront and based on the type of game and my appreciation for science fiction and fantasy, he recommended Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor. So, I started playing Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor.

I played Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor for one hundred fifty hours and it is worth noting up front that I did not complete any of the stories. Usually, I wait until I complete a game as close to 100% before I review it. However, I came to find Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor unplayable, so I gave up on it. If one hundred fifty hours of gameplay is not enough to sell me on a game, though, I think it's fair to review it without finishing it.

Basics

Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor is a role playing video game set in the universe of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels and the Peter Jackson cinematic adaptations. The video game is split into two basic parts: story points for the linear narratives and free-play. Both styles of game are accessed through maps of Mordor with towers that act as safe points for the player. Free-play allows the player to wander Middle-Earth collecting herbs, pounding spiders, finding runes, upgrading weapons and killing Orcs.

There are also map points that indicate story points. One of the fundamental problems with Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor is that there are three stories going on at the same time and not a single linear narrative one follows. One can begin pursuing the story of Talion and unlocking his memories or figuring out the mystery of Celebrimbor or escalating attempts to liberate the enslaved humans trapped in Mordor. As a result, one story point has the protagonist following Gollum and another has the protagonist aiding the Orc Ratbag in ascending the ranks of Sauron's army. Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor is absolutely jumbled on the story front and it undermines the gameplay.

Story

Set in Middle Earth, Talion is a human ranger when the forces of Sauron sacrifice him and his family to bring forth the spirit of the Elf Blacksmith Celebrimbor. Rather than work with the forces of darkness, Celebrimbor bonds with Talion. Talion seeks to avenge the death of his wife and child, while Celebrimbor wants to uncover the clues to his existence, as his wraith form is suffering from amnesia. To do that, Talion roams Mordor attempting to overthrow Orcs and Warlords in Sauron's growing army while his wraith counterpart gives him access to supernatural powers. To cause chaos in Sauron's army and get clues to the Elf/Wraith's past, Talion enlists Gollum, freed human slaves and ambitious Orcs.

Game Progression

Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor has Talion unlocking new map points for towers that open up new territory for the player in Mordor. Talion is able to wander around Mordor where he encounters squadrons of Orcs and individual beasts. The player is armed with a sword, a dagger (which may be thrown at medium range) and a bow. By transitioning to the wraith form, the player can climb in an inhuman way and survive impossible falls.

The player basically goes through the free play to visit points to collect runes, weapons upgrades (by completing self-contained missions, like shoot 10 Orcs with headshots to upgrade a bow) and kill Orcs. One of the key elements of the game that I came to loathe was that the AI flat-out cheats. The map offers a comprehensive view of a given area, marking the Orc leaders. I cannot count the number of times I would clear a stronghold of all of the Orcs before getting into a combat with the Orc Captain in an area. I would look at the map, kill everything within a 200 foot radius and then go after the Orc Captain. Once combat with an Orc Captain is begun, it either needs to be completed or one must run away, which causes the player to suffer the consequence of the Captain becoming more powerful. The b.s. aspect of the game was that I would kill everyone around a Captain, then initiate combat with the Captain. Within two or three attacks, I would suddenly find more Orcs attacking me. Where the hell did they come from?! It made no sense.

The other severely problematic aspect of Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor involved various forms of combat unique to the Orc Captain. There are event combats like Feasts and Executions, but the goal of those combats is not made explicit right off the bat. Eventually, the player gets to a high enough level where they learn that to succeed at a Feast, one must poison the Orc's beverages. The problem with that is that each time a player is killed after initiating any form of event combat, all of the Orc Captains level up. In other words, long before one learns how to succeed in a Feast, innumerable Orcs may become far more powerful by "winning" feasts. But the game is not clear. Instead, it gives the player vague directions - i.e. "humiliate" an Orc Captain at an execution. Basic logic made it seem to me like if an Orc Captain is making a big show out of tormenting and killing his political enemy, that he would be humiliated by his captives all being killed at a distance before he even steps close to them.

The game does not progress in any organic way on the story front, either. Instead, there are three types of game points - slave story points, Celebrimbor's story points and Orc army story points. Unfortunately, though, there is no natural progression for the stories. I played to the end of the slave story, while only getting to killing my first Warlord in the Orc army story before I got tired of the game. The elements for Celebrimbor's story seemed to be revealed with no clear order or narrative; the story unfolds randomly based on completing randomly-located mission points.

Effects

Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor was designed for high definition systems, like the Playstation 4, Wii, and similar systems. We played it on the Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) connected to our Sony Bravia HD TV (reviewed here!) and it looked and sounded great. The point of view follows Talion and one of the aspects I truly enjoyed was the mechanism involved with shooting arrows. To represent the skill of the archer aspect of the Elf Wraith, when one focuses in the wraith world, everything slows down, which allows the player to shoot the weapons very fast.

Unfortunately, the effects are one of the severe problems with Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor. Mordor is a dark and dirty place and the Orcs are dark and earth-toned. To play Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor, I had to constantly switch between normal view and wraith view. The wraith view allows the player to actually see all of the enemies and hidden objects. This is great . . . except that then one cannot see real-world impediments like walls. Seriously, it's a pretty crap game where the player cannot see all they actually need to. So, one moment, I'd be hidden behind a cart and in the time it took to switch into wraith vision to see that there were actually Orcs all around me was the exact amount of time the Orcs needed to see me and start attacking me.

The problem with visibility was one of the two key reasons I stopped playing Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor.

Replayability

I could not stand to finish Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor, so I have no idea how replayable the game actually is. That said, I enjoyed a lot of the aspects of the free-play in Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor. Going around killing random Orcs was a lot of fun and some of the self-contained missions to try to get runes for bows and my daggers were actually enjoyable. I really enjoyed doing stealth kills and sneaking around to gruesomely shank Orcs, but it was equally frustrating to quietly kill one adversary only to turn a corner and find a ton of Orc Captains who were able to easily slay me and end the mission I was on.

Overall

As a casual gamer, Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor was far too frustrating to continue with, making it a disappointment.

For other video games, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Injustice - Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Angry Birds Star Wars

3.5/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my Software Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition: Not Enough To Sway Non-Gamers!

The Good: Awesome graphics, Engaging storyline
The Bad: Requires a genuine gamer to get the most out of most of the game play options
The Basics: Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition was enough to convince me I will never truly be a "gamer."


During the brief time earlier this year between my fully defeating Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (reviewed here!) and my beginning a months long gameplay that borders on the obsessive with Star Wars Battlefront, I spent a couple of weeks absolutely enchanted with playing Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition. When I told my brother-in-law that I was getting a Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) for the family for the holidays, he picked me up Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition because he knew of my love of the DC Comics universe. After months of not playing it - Star Wars Battlefront truly is addictive for me! - I went back to the game today so I could review it as part of my DC-themed week in the lead up to the cinematic release of Suicide Squad (reviewed here!).

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition is, at its core, a fighting game, which is not something I am generally a fan of. My brother-in-law was right in his thought that I might enjoy the game because of its setting - I did. However, Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition was the definitive video game for me that caused me to recognize that I will never be a true gamer. The reason for that is simple (and I learned it from playing Injustice: Gods Among Us); people who are raised on gaming seem to develop the ability, like musicians, to see something on the screen and translate that to their fingers. As someone who was a pretty terrible clarinet player more than twenty years ago and who never was much into gaming, that type of mental/physical acrobatic is not part of my skill set. Even more importantly, remembering complex controller button and joystick movements and applying them is not something I have the ability to do well. As a result, I discovered by playing Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition that for me, more complex gameplay is essentially just pretty lousy button mashing to try to get through surviving rounds.

Basics

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition is a video game that encompasses multiple universes in the essential DC Comics multiverse. As a sweeping DC Universe game, the players are able to play mainstream characters like Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern and second-string heroes and villains like Solomon Grundy, Zatanna, Deathstroke, and Lobo. Fans of DC Comics properties might also be psyched about how villains like Killer Frost, Black Adam, and Aquaman are playable in multiple skins and personas. Major locations in the DC Universe are presented and players can play through the main movie story - where the story progresses until each battle point and then players play through the battle that the story has led to - or they can choose combat between two characters and do one-on-one battles, much like Street Fighter.

The main story game is fun and provides players with something intriguing to watch between simple button-mashing battles. The story-based battles do not allow players to choose the characters they play, nor the adversaries they face. As a result, players get the chance to play the full pantheon of heroes and villains and try all the many attacks offered by them.

In the simple fighting game, players can choose which character they want to fight with - including various skins (appearances, for non-gamers) - against any one else. This is the opportunity to see how a fight might turn out between Green Arrow and Cyborg or Wonder Woman and Solomon Grundy. Sadly, however, fans of the DC Universe will quickly discover that player proficiency outweighs any sense of fidelity to the powers and abilities of the characters represented in the game. The idea that Green Arrow would last more than two seconds in a fight against a psychotic Wonder Woman, for example, is utterly ridiculous to fans of the DC Comics source material.

Story

Opening on Earth where Metropolis has been destroyed and millions of people killed, Batman interrogates The Joker about where he obtained the nuclear bomb which destroyed the city. Superman, overcome with fury, breaks into the interrogation and accuses The Joker of drugging him and causing the destruction which led to Lois Lane's death. Superman, in his grief, kills The Joker while Batman is powerless to stop him. Elsewhere in the multiverse, the villains create a coordinated attack, organized by Lex Luthor. While Batman is incapacitated by Deathstroke, on Earth most of the primary heroes are forced to deal with the threat of Doomsday, while the Justice League Watchtower is attacked by Luthor himself and defended (poorly) by many of the sidekicks of the a-list heroes. When Batman learns that Luthor has given The Joker a nuclear weapon, he rushes to stop him. In the ensuing fight, Batman, The Joker, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and The Flash are teleported to the universe where Superman killed The Joker and has now taken over.

There, the heroes from "our" universe fight the heroes who have allied with the tyrannical Superman. The alternate universe Superman has taken up with Diana and has control over most of the people still standing. The heroes from "our" universe struggle to aid the alternate universe's Batman in getting into the Batcave to get a weapon that can stop the tyrant Kal-El. In fighting the alternate universe heroes and villains, the heroes from "our" universe gain compassion for the victims of the citizens of the alternate universe and they strive to break up Superman's powerbase and save that universe . . . before they are trapped there forever.

Game Progression

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition is a pretty straightforward video game that features a side-on view for the battles, set in key environments with pretty active backgrounds. The battles are very straightforward and while the story progresses and there are different styles of one-on-one battles - from simple conflicts to tournament-style battles that feature consequences from one battle that carry over into the next conflict - the gameplay is essentially the same from the first battle to the last. Defeating an adversary is entirely based upon one's ability to hit the right buttons in the right order faster than one's adversary.

The exception to this are the major attacks. There are meters in the lower left and right corners of the screen that show players how their power is building to a major super-powered attack. Each character features an attack that, when activated, deals extreme amounts of damage to an opponent's life-meter and plays a little movie with exceptional graphics to illustrate the extreme nature of the fight - like Doomsday pounding his opponent through the entire core of the Earth and then beating them back into the main battlefield. Those unblockable attacks are very cool and players have to figure out when best to play the attack to get the most out of it.

Players can also learn to use the environment of the battlefield itself to do damage to their enemies. Players can throw their enemies into the background and throw statues at their enemies. They can also break walls to send tidal waves against their enemies and throw enemies through walls to access alternate battlefields!

Effects

The Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition game was designed for high definition systems, like the Playstation 4, Wii, and similar systems. We played it on the Playstation 4 connected to our Sony Bravia HD TV (reviewed here!) and it looked and sounded great. This might well be the first video game I have played since getting into gaming (at all) with which there were no perspective issues, which was incredibly nice. Other than Wonder Woman being rendered so incredibly topheavy from cleavage as to be occasionally disturbing to watch, the characters are pretty impressively rendered. The other interesting aspect of the game's look (for me) was that changing a character's skin (outward costume) did not change their ability. So, for example, playing Doomsday as a Black Lantern did not suddenly give the player the ability to either raise the dead or transform the enemy into a Black Lantern as well.

The sound effects are accurate to the sound effects from the DC Television Universe's, including using Stephen Amell for voice of Green Arrow in at least one of the skins. When things are destroyed, though they sound like real damage is being done. The characters sound good and the inclusion of actors like J.G. Hertzler for characters like Deathstroke is pure geek genius casting!

Replayability

Because Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition has the linear narrative and the freeplay combat option, there is high replayability to the game, though once one has not played it for a few weeks, going back through the tutorial to recall all of the sophisticated moves becomes pretty much essential. I was surprised by how quickly the moves came back to me after not playing for six months. That said, I discovered that more sophisticated moves - like punching someone through a wall and moving them to a secondary battlefield - was not part of the simple instructions available at the beginning of any battle.

As well, the online component to Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition was more frustrating than it was at all enjoyable. While professional gamers probably see things like server lag and such as cheap excuses, even when I was at my best - winning consistently against the AI on Very Hard settings - getting my ass kicked repeatedly online by players around the world was absolutely no fun.

Overall

The Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition is a great environment for a fighting game and the movie/play content makes it well worth trying for DC Comics enthusiasts. However, it is - at its core - a simplistic fighting game with incredibly complicated move controls that make it a tough sell for more casual gamers or those who just love the DC Comics Universe.

The various skins for this game include content from:
The Killing Joke
Blackest Night
Flashpoint
The New 52, as well as Red Son, Arrow, the Arkham City video game franchies and the alternate universe from the game itself.

For other video games, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Season Pass
Angry Birds Star Wars
Star Trek 25th Anniversary for Gameboy

5.5/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my Software Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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