It Feels a Lot Like Renegade Squadron...
Anyway, I had been looking forward to Elite Squadron since Lucas Arts first announced it. With their promise of same-level ground and space battles, an easier combat system, and deeper customization I was very much in anticipation of this game's launch.
It launched today and, after playing it a little bit, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed.
Firstly, the game itself really doesn't feel all that much different than Renegade Squadron. It looks exactly the same, plays pretty much the same, and feels the same. It even uses the same sound effects (which I expected anyway).
The only real difference to game play is the addition of melee weapons (besides lightsabers), which tend to be difficult and clumsy, and just more trouble than they're worth.
The same-level space and ground battles aren't as smooth as they were made out to be, and there's actually still loading done, but this time via a short cut-scene that transitions you from ground to space and vice-versa. I can't say that I'm entirely surprised by this as I was curious how they would manage to pull off being able to have ground battles and space battles without a long loading screen, and the cut-scenes aren't an entirely bad alternative, but it's not as smooth as they were made out to be, and when the transitions arise it puts an awkward and sudden pause on your game play. Not to mention that it tends to lag a little bit, and the music cuts in and out strangely.
Besides that, there's still a lot of quick pauses during gaming just as there were in Renegade Squadron where the music stops, the game pauses, and it does a bit more loading. While this was never fixed, it's only slightly annoying and can be dealt with.
There were some improvements that I noticed, such as the loading times for levels seems to be shorter, the controls are a bit more responsive, a slightly more attractive HUD, and landing on capital ships is much easier now (which now is also done via a cut-scene). I also like the "upgraded" interior of capital ships which now have a larger, slightly more details area to fight through.
Now, as for customization... there really are no changes here that I've found, unlike what Lucas Arts claimed. Even on the game box it says that there's more customization... Well, there really isn't. There are about four new weapons in the load-out screen, and that's pretty much all that was added to "customization".
As for character customization, nothing was changed or added, much to my disappointment. Despite how LA made it sound during development, there are no new character customization options that I've found so far (and you still can't have a female character).
There are still the four factions you can choose from when customizing characters (Republic, CIS, Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire), and than from there you customize how your character looks. Again, there are three bodies, three heads, and you can select two clothing colors and an insignia. The heads, bodies, colors and insignias are the exact same ones from Renegade Squadron (except that there is one new "Elite Squadron" insignia). This time, however, at the beginning you only have access to a very few customization options; the rest are unlocked as you play through the game. This wouldn't be so bad, and would be kind of neat when in multiplayer mode, if the options you unlocked were actually different options than what appeared in Renegade Squadron... But they're not. As I said already, they're the exact same options that were available to you in Renegade Squadron, but now you have to work to unlock the same options. For me this is very disappointing as I greatly enjoy customizing the appearance of my characters in games I play whenever possible.
All-in-all Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron is a decent game that plays well and is enjoyable, but it's nothing amazing and doesn't really do anything different or new. It feels basically like Renegade Squadron, just with a different storyline for Campaign mode. It's a decent game, but it's just not quite unique...