What’s up everybody? This is The Act Man
here! And today I’m FINALLY going to talk about the thing you’ve all been waiting
for. Without further adieu, let’s get into: Why Was Halo 3’s Campaign SO AWE- You’ve
got mail! Oh. Well it looks like I got an e-mail. Well
lets – lets check this out real quick. Huh, a gift from the Microsoft store. Well let’s
open it! No! No It’s not true! It’s impossible!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo… So if it wasn’t obvious from that intro,
let me boldly state: I did not buy Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA. I did not plan on getting
it ever, or making a review on it. This is the type of product that is bad for everyone
involved. The more people buy it, the more likely this hobby and passion we all share
will continue to go down the shitter. Is this good for the player? I am thankful that someone
gifted me a game, it’s the gesture that matters. But goddamnit I still feel some guilt.
Although you know what? This is perfect because I can actually tell you every single way they
managed to f*ck this game up, and the few things they did right. I can get it all there.
Ahhh. Just to get you to understand the massive disappointment and downward spiral the Battlefront
series has gone through, lets relieve the buildup to this… abomination.
If you watched my video on the classic Battlefront 2, then you know I’m a huge fan of the series
and Star Wars in general. So after hearing Battlefront was getting rebooted and a new
game was coming out after a decade of nothing, I was hyped as could be! However, the dark
side of the force clouded EA and DICE’s vision. It was obvious this new Battlefront
would be nothing like the games we loved, and would have almost none of the features
and content that gave the Battlefront series it’s reputation. So I passed on it.
We all eagerly awaited that glorious return. Because all I’ve wanted since I was 12 years
old was a cutting edge, modern iteration of Battlefront 2. Just another game to let me
relieve those great childhood memories but with improvements made to every aspect of
the game. Lo and behold, it seemed I was getting my wish. Battlefront 2, but it’s going to
have content? Single-player campaign? Space battles? THE F*CKING CLONE WARS?! I couldn’t
believe it! All those years of waiting. All the franchises I’ve loved that never got
a truly good sequel, that never got to fulfill their destinies. Battlefront would be revived,
BETTER THAN EVER! Or so we all thought…
And that’s where we are today. 10 years of waiting followed by one catastrophic disappointment
after another. The trust, love and hope fans had for this series was violated and destroyed
in only two years. But I’m not gonna get into the whole loot box fiasco again I already
said my piece on that. There’s only one thing to do now, and that’s
to see what this game is really about. Is it as BAD as the Metacritic ratings would
have us believe? Was all that commotion over loot boxes just a bunch of hyperbole? Or has
Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA utterly fallen to the dark side?
Well, let’s buy some loot boxes. Buy some loot boxes. And buy some loot boxes straight
into this! This game deservedly got a bad wrap for the
stunt EA tried to pull. But, and I’m gonna try really hard to do this. I wanna go in
with an open mind. Clear your mind must be. Well it didn’t take long for the game to
make me jaded. Because like other diarrhea infested games made by some greedy f*ck nuggets
they try force you to accept some terms of service that probably say some bullshit along
the lines of “you don’t actually own this game” because f*ck you. Sincerely, EA. What
the f*ck is a “user agreement” anyways? If I bought the game, or someone bought it
for me, it’s mine, what in the name of Jar Jar Binks do I need to agree to? Sucking your
dick, EA? Is that what you want? YES! Cuz no. I don’t agree to that. Make no mistake,
I really did want to love this game. But going into this, I can’t lie I’m gonna be jaded.
When you got extensive amounts of bad press surrounding a product, us consumers can’t
help but think about that whenever we see or hear about your product.
Well chances are if you’re a hardcore Star Wars fan like me, or even if you’re on the
more casual side. You were hoping that this game would have some redeeming qualities.
Because it can’t all be bad, right? That is correct. And yeah you’re right, there
is some good stuff in this game. But lemme tell you, the campaign and story is not f*cking
one of them. So the first 5 seconds look promising but
then… Woah woah woah hold the goddamn nokia phone. Where the opening text crawl? You know,
that thing that nearly every Star Wars game from the last 15 years has had?
Ok so, you know why they sing the National Anthem before the Superbowl? That’s to get
you hyped to watch football! Or you know how some families say a prayer before Thanksgiving
Dinner? That’s to get you hyped for stuffing your face. In the same principal, seeing the
opening crawl for a Star Wars game, gets you f*cking hyped to play it. But it’s missing
in the most graphically impressive Star Wars game to date? We’re starting things off
on the wrong foot. So it begins with a cutscene showing your
new STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST captured on a rebel ship. There’s some cliché cop interrogation
dialogue and a bit of foreshadowing, it’s not too bad. But like idiots who don’t understand
the technology of the universe they live in. For some reason they leave her helmet in the
prison cell which she uses to communicate with her droid and escape! Right on time.
Let’s go. You’d think when a group a soldiers that all wear the same helmet with some kind
of communication box on the side would have the foresight to take everything but clothes
out of the prison cell of a Special Forces Imperial Commander? Nah.
This scene from the droids point of view is actually pretty cool. Wish I could but we
don’t have the droid’s access code. Might I suggest finding the access code? HAH! GOT
EEM! HAH! Have the rebels figured out you wanted to
be caught? Never crossed their mind. Gee this whole plan was banking on the fact
that the rebels would leave your helmet in your cell? That’s a pretty f*cking stupid
plan if you ask me. You go through a stealth section and there’s a nice bit of fan service
with Admiral Ackbar giving a speech to some rebels. But hoooowheee by the end of this
campaign you will be drowning in fan service. You get a weapon, purge some data, and make
your way down a single path, killing everything in sight. Then Iden bails out of the ship.
The imperial ship manages to fly into just the right spot so Iden can land in the ship.
Then she takes off her helmet to remind us she’s a STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST!
What I will say before we go any further, is graphically speaking. This game is absolutely
gorgeous. It’s one of the best looking games I’ve ever seen. Ladies and gentleman we
have gotten to the point, where we can see the pours on a characters face. Now that’s
detail! So you’re on the main deck and the writers
give themselves about 20 seconds to establish the relationships between these 3 soldiers.
And they rip a page out of George Lucas’ book by having them recount things they did
in the past. Hope the landing wasn’t too rough. Been through worse. Remember the Ja
Bess Incursion? Still haunts my dreams. I haven’t felt you this tense since – since
we fell into that nest of Gundarks. Anyways, onto the 2nd mission. Now, it’s
important to keep in mind that I beat the campaign in 4 hours and 15 minutes. And I’m
the type of guy that takes my time with the single-players and tries to uncover everything.
So this story is undoubtedly rushed, which you can see from the jarring transitions.
Today the rebellion dies. SOME TIME LATER? Uhh it’s kind of important to know how much
time later it is, if right before this you say, “TODAY the rebellion dies.” Is this
all happening in the same day? Technically Act Man there are no days in space since there
isn’t a planet with a sun that revolves arou - SHUTUP!
And then we’re on Endor? Well this is taking place during the final battle in Return of
the Jedi. Now as much as I love the Star Wars movies, I don’t really want to feel forced
to refresh my memory on them when playing a new Star Wars game. It’s a pitfall that
some series fall into when they have such an immense expanded universe that they feel
needs to be accounted for in any new material. You didn’t need to watch Episode 3 or 4
to refresh your memory when you played the Force Unleashed. It certainly helps, but this
is a problem Battlefront 2 has, it’s trying too hard to insert itself in between the events
of Episodes 6, 7 & 8 and it doesn’t let me focus on what I’m playing now because
I don’t watch those movies every day of my life.
So you kill some more guys and, man she really likes taking her helmet off doesn’t she?
Well how else is the audience supposed to know she’s a STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST.
And then KABOOM! The Death Star explodes which is pretty awesome! I always wanted to see
how the Empire and it’s soldiers reacted to it. And this gives us a taste of that,
however at this point in the story, two very important flaws have become abundantly clear.
#1 The pacing of the plot. #2 The Plot itself Look alive, agents. We can grieve later. Right
now, we need to move. For whatever reason, the writers deem it more important for you
to continue on your mission on Endor, than to spend more time addressing the destruction
of the Death Star. Now your mission is to kill Rebels and hijack some TIE Fighters,
I think? We need to reach platform 4 and secure those TIE Fighters. How did you get on Endor
in the first place if you don’t have any ships? But what do you care more about as
a Star Wars fan? Some ultimately pointless mission, or would you rather see 30 more seconds
of how other Stormtroopers, Imperial Officers, or other main characters react to the destruction
of the Death Star? I understand these are Special Imperial Forces with a job to do,
but come on! It’s just more interesting to see their reactions than “uhh back to
the mission. Bleh bleh bloo!” What I want to point out now, is Battlefront 2 has immense
problems with pacing, especially cutscenes because again, it’s only 4 hours long.
Point number 2 is how the plot is handled, how it’s communicated to the player. You’ll
probably recognize this type of writing from other boring games and movies. What do we
know about Argent Moon? Basically, what the story of Battlefront 2 is doing, is trying
to explain what’s going on more so than why it’s going on. Like, after the Death
Star blows up, the rest of the mission is all just dialogue about how to get to the
ships. We’re gonna take back that platform and evacuate this moon! And then we’re gonna
make the rebellion pay! When this opportunity should be used to flesh out why the Death
Star was destroyed? Why are the characters so motivated to get these ships? Why are they
upset? What did the Death Star mean to them? These questions are much more worthwhile to
answer. This could develop the characters, their motivations, desires, personalities.
This game was advertised as an Empire side of the story, so let’s hear more about their
perspective! Does this make sense? Here’s an example: in KOTOR 1 when you crash on Taris,
your goal is to find Bastilla. Simple. But why? Well because she has a powerful Battle
Meditation ability to help the Republic. Because she could be the last hope of the Republic.
Because the 3 of you need to escape from the Sith with your lives. Because Malak is chasing
you. Also because she’s hot… And British too. I.. that is, you… Why must you be so
impossibly infuriating?! The reasons why you’re looking for something
or someone, are far more interesting than what it is you’re looking for. Why do you
look for the Star Forge? Why is it such a deadly weapon? Why does Malak want it? And
so on. Generally speaking, a story that prioritizes
the WHY over the WHAT is way more engaging and compelling because the plot is straightforward.
But the reasoning behind everything is much more complex. I want to come with you to Alderaan.
There’s nothing for me here now. I want to learn the ways of the force and become
a Jedi like my father. You want to know why a character does something, more than you
want to know what they did. Oh I just – I just killed some guy. Ok… Why? Why did you
do that? That’s the Phoenix Wright games in a nutshell.
My point is for the majority Star Wars Battlefront 2, it cares more about what’s going on than
it does the characters and why these things are going on. It makes it boring and hard
to follow. Back to the story you get a TIE Fighter and fly up to the wreckage of the
Death Star. Again, all the visuals in this game are fantastic and it’s REALLY awesome
to be able to fly through all this stuff. The space battles are also phenomenal, even
if the aim assist is absurdly strong. They nailed the space combat pretty much perfectly!
The Emperor is dead. So what happens now? LOOK LOOK! That’s exactly what I was talking
about! You have a chance for Iden to show some emotion, and her reaction to this huge
bombshell is mild surprise. Then it goes straight back to focusing on what’s happening. The
Empire will assault the very foundation of the rebels – you see what I’m saying?
We learn this admiral is her dad and there’s a messenger who has a final message from the
dead Emporor. Blah blah blah Operation Cinder, blah blah blah go do some menial task. Alright
so our next mission is to get some important satellites.
Commander, we’ve secured the satellites. Oh… I mean I... I was kinda hoping I’d
get to do that. Next there’s another awesome space battle with a pretty cool hanger section.
I just wish the game would stop taking control away from me. Do you think I’m so retarded
I can’t figure out how to land or take off my ship manually? More shooting, more corridors,
explosions. Iden takes off her helmet for the 3rd time.
Is it just not comfortable or something? There’s a tiny bit of funny banter and OH SHIT! INCOMING!
Grab onto something! Boy you could’ve gotten some serious brain
damage there, Iden. Are you sure it was a good idea to take your helmet off? Oh. And
now it just flew out into space. Are you part of the: SPECIAL FORCES? Or the Special Forces?
We get a little tidbit of Versio questioning Imperial orders and wait how the f*ck did
you get your helmet back? Whatever. Blah blah blah Operation Cinder, blah blah blah Observatory.
And then, awww yeah! R2-D2 and Luke Skywalker?! This is f*cking great! So you take control
of Luke, you run around killing Stormtroopers and then there’s a scene with Luke & Del,
another member of Inferno Squad. There’s some nice dialogue and the idea of choosing
your destiny is presented very well. But after this… they have the most god-awful
boring section in any first-person shooter game EVER! Where you kill… bugs. Really?
REALLY?! We’re playing as Luke Skywalker and the coolest thing you can come up with
is f*cking BUGS?! This is atrocious! They spawn in the same locations and you have to
hold them off by spamming right trigger for 5 minutes! Not even f*cking kidding! This
goes on for 5 minutes!! 30 seconds of this crap would’ve been too much.
Now here’s another thing to consider, this is the most awkward Lightsaber combat I’ve
ever seen in a Star Wars video game. Every time you swing the lightsaber, your character
does this automatic dash and it has this weird autolocking mechanic. It feels like you don’t
really have control. Now lemme just show you what I mean firsthand.
So in the footage you’re seeing, I’m gonna do a basic combo move. High, low, low, high.
This is a demonstration of how the move would be handled in Battlefront 2. And this is a
demonstration of how it should be. You see how one has those awkward pauses and dashes?
And the other one is much more smooth, flowy and natural? That’s how it is in Jedi Academy,
Classic Battlefront 2, Force Unleashed. That’s way it should be. Take it from someone who
trains with weapons, alright. Anyways the two talk about conflict which
kinda ties in with The Last Jedi if you saw that. There’s still conflict in you. Of
course there’s conflict in me! I’m not blind. I know what the Empire is capable of.
But what else is there? A choice. The Rebellion? No. A choice to be better. There’s an incredibly
jarring transition as Del reappears on the Corvus and you’re sent on a mission to rescue
some Alien. That’s the Dauntless. The Dauntless? How’d
that get into Star Wars? Well the Dauntless is the power in these waters, true enough.
But there’s no ship that can match The Corvus for speed. I’ve heard of one, supposed to
be very fast, nigh uncatchable! The Millenium Falcon.
The Admiral plans to attack this planet Vardos because… The Emperor commands it. We will
purge this planet and others. Fear shall spread and the galaxy will remember who is in control.
Is it just me or is that… completely f*cking retarded? Hey dipsh*t! If you want to remind
the galaxy who’s in control then shouldn’t you focus all your efforts on attacking the
people responsible? You know, the Rebels that just embarrassed you to the whole galaxy?
Look we all know the Empire aren’t the nicest of folks but isn’t killing loyal civilians
a waste of time AND resources? Vardos is our target? One of them, yes. Why? The entire
planet and it’s people, they’re – they’re loyal to the Empire! If you’re thinking
military and strategy, isn’t that just a big f*cking waste of time? If anything, killing
these people would PLANT the seeds of rebellion! Oh and it does. Wut a tweest! And wait a second,
the Emperor created this plan BEFORE his death? Then wouldn’t it become irrelevant after
his death and the destruction of the Death Star? What’s the ultimate goal of killing
civilians in the first place? Hey that kinda looks familiar… No! Your
world will burn until it’s surface is but glass. Ok wait. Hold the f*ck up. Your orders
are to get this Gleb alien off planet, right? So why are you glassing it, BEFORE Inferno
Squad picks her up? What if your glassing beams happened to kill her, then what? Also
why are you putting your troops on the ground, in harms way if you’re attacking loyal civilians
from space?! I mean! Ahh f*ck it. At this point the formula of the campaign
is pretty clear. You have a section where you walk really slowly while people talk,
a stealth section, you do a space battle, on rails linear vehicle combat, and play as
a hero. It’s pretty boring considering the only enemies you fight in this game are infantry
with the occasional vehicle. It plays like a Call of Duty campaign, You’re
basically a one man army, oh sorry. I meant to say, you’re basically a ONE FEMALE ARMY.
Cuz women are strong too, OK?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? You rarely have a squad of allies backing
you up, and even when you do, the battles feel pretty small just like the bad COD games.
Rather than creating interesting scenarios or unique groups of enemies. The game just
throws a bunch of Stormtroopers at you. I understand the Empire is made up of Stormtroopers,
but why not add some type of cool Bounty Hunter on the side who you fight throughout the game?
What about having some gigantic Krayt Dragon that pops out of the ground or a Rancor? Gammorehans?
Remember those big spider droids, Trandoshians, and all that in Republic Commando? Remember
fighting those flamethrower clones, Shock Battle Droids in Episode 3? Remember the lightsaber
battles in Jedi Academy? Or the satisfying feeling of using force powers in the Force
Unleashed? In the vast universe of Star Wars is the only enemy type you can give us mindless
infantry and f*cking BUGS? This is boring! Is DICE so scared of violating the canon in
any capacity that they threw all the unique, crazy ideas out the window in favor of a safe,
generic single-player? Perhaps. But as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Oh yea the AI is also f*cking retarded. And it’s also not a really good idea to recycle
locations for the Single-player, arcade and multiplayer. In fact, it’s kinda lazy as
f*ck. Back to the story. Well you’re not supposed
to think about why all these decision makes no sense because all its supposed to do is
give the most contrived excuse for Iden to defect and join the Rebellion. Which she does!
Hooray for not fleshing out the Empire side of things at all. The Force Unleashed had
a much more believable change of heart. It had buildup, timing, likeable characters,
motivations, destiny! And it actually made you think about things. This doesn’t.
We’re not completely alone. Some of the crew stayed with us. Protected the refugees
against those who wouldn’t. Just want to know what’s next. God f*cking damnit I’m
so done with this already. They send out a distress signal, and within
like 5minutes the rebels take them in. Finally I get to talk about something good
in the story: Shriv! He’s such a sarcastic, funny guy and fits in perfectly as comic relief.
So you thought it was a trap, but brought them on board anyway? You’re always telling
me to take risks! Seemed like the most irresponsible thing I could do. He’s the type of character
that would be in a Star Wars movie and he’s the best NEW character in this game.
Honestly the highlights of the story come from when you’re playing as anyone but Iden.
They really nailed the writing and personality of Lando, Han Solo, Leia, and Luke. There’s
a bunch of references to the movies and although the fan service is overwhelming at times,
this is really the only reason to play the campaign. But even then, there’s so many
Illogical leaps in story, location and plot. Nothing really flows together naturally. It’s
all about shoving in as much fan service as possible without regards to how it all comes
together as a complete narrative. The story of Iden Versio is not interesting
or relatable in the slightest because her character is boring and unbelievable. I do
not think a Special Forces Imperial soldier would have such a quick change of heart just
because “oh no! Civilians on my home!” Nor do I think the Empire would attack civilians
who are already loyal. It just – it doesn’t make sense. I can’t suspend my disbelief.
Honestly there’s not much that happens after this point that’s worth discussing. It’s
just more fighting the Empire without much substance or a greater meaning behind it.
Stuff we’ve already seen a million times before. At the end you go to kill Iden’s
dad, but then she doesn’t want to, but he dies anyway. Oh boo hoo. There’s a badly
forced romance at the end that would make Attack of The Clones proud. Some bizarre vision
epilogue with Kylo Ren and then it ends. This is basically a clear cut example of the
continuing trend in Triple A games that values style over substance. It’s boots on the
ground combat so it’s instantly good. Oh it’s got great world design, artwork and
music so it’s good. The visuals and sounds are perfect so that makes it good. Well, no…
There’s an old saying, “An ugly personality ruins a pretty face. The prettiest rose will
eventually wilt and grey.” The reason why people love the original Star
Wars movies, why people loved KOTOR, Jedi Academy, Republic Commando, why people love
Star Wars is because of the stories. The fight of good vs. evil, the characters and their
motivations. Choosing your own destiny. Light side, Dark side and everything in between.
These stories are timeless, we can all connect with Luke Skywalker and empathize with his
plight. We can all learn from the wise, Jedi Master Yoda. We can all understand brotherhood,
faith and friendship. The whole point of the force was to illustrate that there’s more
to this world than what can physically be seen.
It wasn’t just because of the visuals and special effects, that’s not what made Star
Wars good. Those help to wow the audience and it’s complementary to the story. But
without any personality, a face is just a face, graphics are just graphics. And Star
Wars Battlefront 2, is just Star Wars Battlefront 2.
The thing that absolutely ruins the entire game, is none other than the Star Cards themselves.
I’ve already covered the pay-to-win aspects in a previous videos, links in the description
for the curious. Never mind that as gamers we’ve seen hundreds of games adopt loot
boxes. So much that it’s worn out it’s welcome so fast. We’re just sick of f*cking
seeing this. It’s a kiss of death for the game. Sick of being forced to open loot boxes.
It’s a chore, I’m tired of doing it. I’m tired of seeing all these f*cking slot machines
in my video games nowadays. But that’s not the core issue I have.
Because it wasn’t just EA’s greed that ruined the game, it’s the fact that the
Star Cards are so integral to the game. Campaign, Arcade, Multiplayer, Space Battles, Vehicles,
Heroes, Elite Classes, Regular classes, Cosmetic customization, progression, every single f*cking
thing about this game, every moment of gameplay is forced to accommodate these stupid ass
cards. Fundamentally, this destroys every opportunity
for creativity and innovation in the map design and gameplay. The game has to adopt a battle
point system so that you can use vehicles, heroes, etc. But wouldn’t it all have just
been better to put vehicles on the map? Wouldn’t it be way cooler to be able to get in the
MTT by simply running up to it? Isn’t it more engaging to find an X-wing, or a Tauntaun
on the map and use it because it’s there? Wouldn’t it have been better for every vehicle
to have a baseline strength that doesn’t change? Well yeah, all of these things were
in Battlefront 2 and it made the maps feel alive.
You can’t pick up weapons off the map because then you’d be playing with Star Cards you
don’t have. My point is, you don’t have any decisions after you’ve spawned. You
HAVE to play with what you have until you die. That’s boring. And it means if you
want any chance of using a hero or vehicle, you have to die and get lucky and be doing
well enough to have enough points. If I’m doing really well, but I want to use a vehicle,
why should I be forced to commit suicide to use it? The Star Cards actually discourage
teamwork. Again, if they made vehicles like they did in Battlefront 2, where multiple
people can get into them. Well the Star Cards can’t allow that. EA banked so hard on this
system that if there was any part of it that didn’t jive with the Star Cards, it couldn’t
be in the game. Look nobody cared that back in the day that
Battlefront 2 was a Star Wars version of Battlefield. In fact, that’s why we loved it! But it
seems like DICE is so intent on differentiating these two series, when they don’t seem to
understand the basic f*cking point that what made Battlefront great in the first place
was that it took the Battlefield formula and brought it to the Star Wars universe. How
do you not understand this? The Star Card system also creates a huge micromanagement
issue. Rather than having unique vehicles, weapons, classes, and heroes that come as
they are. Instead, every player has to manage 3 different star cards for 38 different classes,
heroes, ships, whatever. This means, you have to manually choose a total of 114 Star Cards
with 4 different tiers, for every possible sandbox tool you can play with. Alongside
managing 2 different currencies, weapons you can modify, attachments, and relying solely
on RNG to give you all this crap, it becomes a f*cking nightmare. It’s so much goddamn
data, and memorization just to understand what you’re playing with.
I don’t care if there’s a card that gives the Emperor 1 percent increased damage, I
just want to play as the f*cking Emperor. I don’t care if there’s a card that allows
me to fire the Bowcaster 5 percent slightly faster, I just wanna play as a goddamn Wookie.
I don’t want to have to think or care SO much about the choices I make before the game,
that heavily affect my gameplay, my experience! So much of this is what do you do before?
What crates do you open? What heroes do you buy? What do you invest your currency in?
The fundamental issue here is you rely on RNG so you can’t get the for what your play
style is. They have different types of crates but lets say you spend all your credits on
Starfight Assault cards. Well the second you go into Galactic Assault, you’re sh*t outta
luck because you don’t have any cards for that mode. Let’s say you wanted all trooper cards.
Well the second you go into Heroes vs. Villains, you’re f*cked because you didn’t spend
your credits on the heroes! Do you see what I’m getting at? It’s the most buttf*cking
superfluous system for a game that at it’s core is as casual as possible. As I said,
it seems like DICE doesn’t want to copy anything from the Battlefield series. But
what they should’ve done is a progression and loadout system more akin to Call of Duty
and Titanfall. For whatever reason, every weapon, grenade and ability operates on a
cooldown. But wouldn’t it have been far more beneficial to have some of these weapons
with ammunition? Isn’t it kind of bizarre to pull out a shotgun with unlimited ammo,
but you can only do that every 15 seconds? Why not just give players a choice of primary
and secondary weapons? Why not also give the choices of grenades, utility item, and a power
ability? Ahh because they need to be attached to the Star Cards. Just have one ability that’s
on a cooldown and offer some tension in the gameplay because you can run out of ammo and
items. Because even if you make a mistake with an
ability, you aren’t punished for it. You just wait for the cooldown. In this regard,
all the weapons perform the same. Imagine if in a Halo game every single weapon had
infinite ammo and they were all just different versions of a plasma rifle. It’d get boring
as sh*t real fast. So if the Star Cards prevent you from picking
up weapons, if they discourage teamwork and don’t allow multi passenger vehicles, if
they force you to die to use the vehicles or things that you want, if you have to manage
114 different cards before you actually play the f*cking game, if you need to memorize
hundreds of different abilities and data, if it creates a system in which you aren’t
punished for missing your shots or wasting your grenades, if it’s the type of system
that incentivizes you to prioritize a single game mode that you push all your credits,
cards and currency to. Then how could this Star Card system possibly get ANY worse?
Well, because of SCALING POWER. Had there been only one tier of cards, this system wouldn’t
be completely game-breaking. But of course, to give the loot boxes enough game-altering
sh*t to incentivize purchases, they had to make multi-tiers. I want to imagine you’re
playing Modern Warfare 2 or whatever you favorite Call of Duty game is. Remember how much time
you would spend customizing your classes? That was always a highlight, right? But now
imagine how f*cked the Call of Duty formula would be with SCALING POWER. Think of COD
cards that would improve the base damage of the Model 1887 by 20 percent or ANY GUN for
that matter! Or perks that become better and better the higher tier COD Cards you get.
A chopper gunner that takes two more hits to take down. You try to apply this SCALING
POWER idea to the gameplay of Call of Duty, and it utterly breaks the game. This idea
would break any FPS game, casual or competitive. Overwatch, Halo, Titanfall 2. The idea of
base skills, weapons, abilities, and vehicles that scale in power with time played or money
paid, is f*cked up beyond belief and jeopardizes all the work that was put into this game.
Make it nearly unplayable for me. You might think I’m overreacting to all
this Star Card crap and to be honest, I probably am. But can you blame me? I wanted to love
this game so badly! And they just spit in my face. At least, I hope you guys understand
why I’m so angry about this system. In essence, the Star Cards are the undoing of Battlefront
2. There is no way to fix this post launch because it is such an inextricable part of
the game. It can’t be removed or altered. EA’s intent was not to provide a sense of
pride and accomplishment, but to provide a way for you to sink seemingly endless amounts
of cash into the game. And because the Star Cards are such an over-emphasized core component
of Battlefront 2, it destroys the balance, creativity, immersion, satisfaction, tension
and fun. Well so let’s finish up with arcade and
multiplayer. The arcade mode is basically just shooting the same boring enemies you
were shooting in the campaign. Either solo with a time limit, or with AI bots and a time
limit. The creativity is staggering. While it can be a bit of fun to try the harder difficulties,
it doesn’t provide enough uniqueness or fun to make it worth playing again and again.
Not much to say here, it’s basically a poor man’s version of firefight from the Halo
games. It’s f*cking insulting that the game limits the amount of credits you can earn
by playing it. You should understand now what I mean, when I say that every part of this
game had to make sacrifices to accommodate the Star Cards.
Well, so how does the actual multiplayer hold up? What does it provide aside from impressive
graphics and breath-taking levels? Not much. Think of every map as a different roller coaster.
It’s really. really fun and exciting the first time you go on it. But everytime you
ride it after that it becomes less and less interesting and fun, because you’ve already
seen it and done it before. It’s a spectacle, but it doesn’t have depth. The maps are
pretty good but the core gameplay is so casual it’s not gonna provide much of anything
different from match to match. In my experience, I didn’t encounter a whole
lot of bugs or serious glitches which is a good sign. Apparently rubber banding is a
huge issue for some people. But one thing I did notice was how awkward and glitch the
speeders are. They control like absolute sh*t, glitches all over the place and sometimes
it just doesn’t fire. But apart from that, the game performs very well.
You got 20 vs 20 matches with no bots, the game can’t even match the number of combatants
Battlreont 2 had 12 years ago. No server browser, no private matches, no flying into capital
ships in space battles, no capture the flag. And where’s the Hunt mode? That would’ve
been a perfect gimmick side mode to add in. Who doesn’t wanna play as a Jawa, Ewok,
or Tusken Raider? There’s no heroes like Anakin, General Grevious, Jango Fett, Mace
Windu. I don’t care if these characters are going to be added later. How the f*ck
do you make a Star Wars game where you can play as all the different heroes and villains
and not include the most pivotal character in 6 of the movies? Obi-Wan! The game advertised
itself as incorporating all three Eras but there’s only two heroes from the prequels.
There’s one thing I noticed about the multiplayer. So you remember in Battlefront 1 on Tatooine
there was that Sarlaac Pit, and the Tusken Raiders who would attack everyone. Or in Battlefront
2 there were the Jawas who would repair things on Mos Eisley. Gungans on Naboo, Ewoks on
Endor. None of these factions or interesting gimmicks are on any of the maps. Which is
kind of a missed opportunity because they added a lot of depth and liveliness to every
map. I don’t know, it just makes sense that as the Rebels you’d have Ewoks backing you
up. Guess they didn’t bother to program any of that stuff in. Damn shame.
Again, what made Battlefront 2 and Battlefield so fun was there were several options for
the player to move around the map, to attack, defend. This time in Galactic Assault, you’re
basically forced to go down a series of choke points. Why is there no Conquest? Where are
the command posts? Or Spawn points players can destroy to cut off reinforcements like
the battery on Hoth. Even after all the mistakes DICE and EA made with the first game, after
all the features they didn’t implement there, it’s like they still don’t understand
what we want! You gave us Space Battles and the Clone Wars era, and I’m so happy about
that. But it just seems like you’re refusing to add in the things that made the first two
Battlefront games as good and popular as they were. You refuse to implement what made it
possible for you to actually work and create this game! And it blows my f*cking mind.
It offers a pretty abysmal amount of content and variety with five game modes. Two of them
being decent, one of them being meh and the other two being bleh. It appears the updates
will add more stuff in eventually like every triple A shooter these days. But nothing really
stands out to me except the Space Battles. Though the devs talk about this idea of multiple
seasons and updates that can focus on certain elements of the Star Wars universe and implement
them in Battlefront 2. Which I find to be a pretty neat concept. This allows new drops
of content to be added with a theme, you know fleshing out the Clone Wars, or the Rebellion,
etc. I just wonder how long people are willing to wait with the current content in-game.
While playing multiplayer I did notice a Clone say “Watch those wrist rockets!” And that
was a really nice bit of nostalgia that I appreciate. I think they nailed the voices
and personality of the characters and different factions. The droid voice acting is fantastic.
So at least they’ve artistically defined the styles of the 3 eras very well.
All the heroes and villains are pretty satisfying to use, fun to play and all have unique abilities
and playstyles. Once more, the voice acting and style of the heroes is spot on.
The gunplay is decent but as I said every weapon operates under the same cooldown mechanic
so the guns feel the same. It doesn’t require a lot of thought, strategy or teamwork. Everyone’s
kind of a lone wolf. I mean it’s a real casual type of game, that’s fun in bursts,
however just doesn’t seem like something that can maintain a consistent playerbase.
Or keep people’s attention for long. Conclusion
Well in conclusion, there’s not much redeeming about Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA because every
single aspect of the game was compromised for Star Cards and loot boxes. The campaign
is boring, with god-awful amateur storytelling that can be finished in 4 hours. And the core
gameplay across space battles and all the other modes is really just a visual experience.
With the gameplay being pretty shallow in comparison.
What I will say is the music and sound design is fantastic. Everything has a crisp Star
Wars vibe to it. Guns sound powerful and just the audio and visuals are outta this world.
Music of course has the good ol’ John Williams magic to it and Battlefront 2 certainly feels
like a Star Wars game. I guess what I just don’t understand about
these games is how they can’t match what classic Battlefront 2 had.
This was a huge collaborative effort between 3 studios. And if I’m correct on my research
here, then Motive Studios with 100 Employees, worked on the single-player, while Criterion
Games with 90 Employees, worked on the vehicles and space battles, and Dice with 640 employees,
did everything else. Alongside help and funding from LucasFilms and EA.
Now, Pandemic Studios at the time of it’s closure in 2009 had 228 Employees. So I think
it’s safe to assume that EA’s Battlefront 2 had a much larger budget and more hands
on deck working on it than the classic 2005 version. With just one studio, Pandemic’s
work still provides more content that of a modern triple A game created by 3 development
teams. And they didn’t even have the benefit of microtransactions, and free DLC, and constant
updates, and all that crap. I just… I just don’t understand.
How these two companies have handled the Star Wars license is nothing short of catastrophic
failure. You’ve pissed people off and disappointed them twice in a row after 10 years of waiting.
And this is Star Wars, ok. You pieces of sh*t, get that through your thick skulls. This means
a lot to millions of people and if you can’t treat this property, these stories, these
characters, the universe that’s been built up over 40 years with respect, then get fucked
and fuck off! You shouldn’t buy this game but I don’t mind if you already did and
had fun with it. I don’t have fun with it for the reasons I’ve just explained.
And that, is Why Star Wars Battlefront 2 Is SO BAD!
But what do you think? Are you gonna go back and play some of these actually good Star
Wars video games like I am? What are your thoughts on Battlefront 2 EA?
Wanna give a shoutout to my boy Squeegliees for supporting the channel and all my other
patrons who make it possible for me to keep making videos like this. You guys are the
best! And I appreciate you! Like the video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to The Act
Man for more AWESOME content! Alright everyone, that’s all I’ve got for today! This is
The Act Man signing out. PEACE!
Everything he said was write.
He even talked good about the game ( graphic, Sound) but good graphics don't make a good game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFT1eOaZc3c&t=1s
This one's pretty great as well