Star Wars: Battlefront Update

By Ricardo Torres, GameSpotPosted Jun 23, 2004 5:10 pm PT

LucasArts shows off more of its Pandemic-developed team-based shooter set in a galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars: Battlefront is the upcoming squad-based shooter from LucasArts that drops you dead center into the classic battles from George Lucas' epic movie franchise. The game, developed by the insanely productive Pandemic Studios, lets you play as the Imperial or Rebel forces from the classic trilogy or the Republic or Trade Federation forces from the current trilogy, set to wrap up next year with the eagerly anticipated Episode III, which we imagine will be subtitled "Things Go Real Bad for Anakin."

Battlefront will embroil you in bitter interstellar warfare across many familiar Star Wars planets.

While we got a taste of what this ambitious game, currently slated for the PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox, had to offer at this year's E3, we recently had the chance to take a better look at the title. LucasArts showed off work-in-progress builds of all three versions at an event yesterday in a woodsy area of San Francisco's Presidio, which bore more than a passing resemblance to Endor (sans live ewoks). In the midst of some authentic-looking reps from the Imperial and Rebel forces, we had a look at all three versions, which, while still works in progress, were looking very promising.

The versions of Battlefront on display offered varying glimpses of areas in the game. While all versions will share the same worlds to battle on, specific worlds were shown on the individual platforms at last night's event. The PlayStation 2 featured Hoth, Endor, Yavin IV, and Geonosis, while the Xbox let you duke it out on Endor, Kamino, and Yavin IV. The PC had the most low-key showing of the three versions, with just Endor and Kamino on display.

Each of the worlds featured settings and vehicles that were in-line with the trilogy from which they were pulled. For example, Endor featured ewoks, speeder bikes, and AT-STs, while Kamino featured a rainstorm and droid ships. Despite the differences in processing power for each of the platforms, the game was looking sharp across the board. The PC offering understandably looked the best of the three, but the PlayStation 2 and Xbox iterations were hardly dogs. While there were some frame rate issues with the console games, given their early states, they were still very playable and featured eye-popping visuals that were suitably impressive. The PlayStation 2 version actually stood out in this regard. Quality visuals aren't too hard to come by on the PC or Xbox, given their powerful architectures, but the graphics produced by the aging PlayStation 2 hardware were testament to the fact that there's still some life left in Sony's little, black box.

Customizable controls for both on-foot and vehicle gameplay will let players battle it out in their own styles of play.

The controls in the game are laid out nicely in their default form, but Pandemic has included the option for players to remap them to their liking (which is something we'd actually like to see more of on consoles). The basic rundown is as follows: You'll have buttons dedicated to primary and secondary fire. Primary weapons will include rifles and pistols, while secondary ones will be in the grenade family. Most characters will actually come with at least two weapon options in the primary and secondary slots, which you'll be able to toggle between on the fly.

While in battle, you'll move with the left analog stick, and you'll use the right stick to go into free-look mode and to toggle zoom on and off when you're using sniper weapons. The D pad will let you issue commands to your artificial intelligence-controlled squad when playing solo. The face buttons on the controller will let you reload your weapon, jump, crouch, and use turrets and vehicles you come across in the game. The game will feature a number of vehicles and weapon emplacements to use, all of which will be tied to individual locations. This control customization extends to all the control schemes in the game, meaning you can set up custom layouts for ground and air vehicles as well as for on-foot action.

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