Again the factions of a galaxy far, far away commit mass murder upon each other in the name of portable entertainment.

User Rating: 7 | Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron PSP
Yet again the denizens of our favourite galaxy far, far away commit mass murder upon each other and generally mess up some jawa's day in the outer rim in the name of portable entertainment. Fun, but definatley lacking as a true sequel to any fan of SWBF:Renegade Squadron.

The Good: Controls have been refined some more since SWBF:RS. With the aim speed turned up from default settings, turning and strafing is pretty responsive. The auto aim functions well (unless there happen to be large vehicles behind your target, which seem to confuse the function somewhat), the only thing still missing is a crouch button. Weapons are more refined and fun to use now that it doesn't take your whole ammo cache to take down a single, on foot opponant. However the weapon roster is almost an exact copy from SWBF:RS, no new firearms here, just two melee weapons (neither of which is a lightsaber if you were wondering, also the geek in me was however impressed they managed to get the right colour for the plasma from the Clone Troopers blaster this time). Dogfights are also vastly improved, fighting in space is quick and deadly now, which makes a brilliant change compared to SWB:RS, when you could hammer a Tie Fighter for over a minute trying to shoot it down. Character animations are much improved, levels are well designed and are actually new maps of classic Star Wars locales, for example Dantooine, Tattooine and Endor as well as new locations such as Cato Neimoidia, Vjun and the Death Star.The ability to change between ground, space and capital ship is a welcome addition, and being able to strafe tanks from the air and then to somewhat seemlessly go on to assault the enemy capital ship is brilliant. The actual gameplay part of campaign missions are for the most part pretty fun. They take place in the standard multiplayer maps but add in objectives to achieve in sequence. For example the Dantooine level has you defending against a few waves of clone troopers before running off to mine a bridge, and then off to a turret to shoot down incoming LAAT's. Its a welcome change from previous games use of standard conquest games as a campaign. It is however a shame the story linking these levels together is pretty roughly handled.

The Bad: The roster of starfighters has been vastly neutered, going from SWBF:RS's 3 fighters and 1 transport per faction, to only 1 fighter and 1 transport per faction. Now I understand this make space more balanced and enjoyable, but I'm sure they could have managed to switch up the starfighter used in each map, especially when the models are included in the campaign sections of the game. The game also claims "the most indepth customisation of any battlefront game", which should be read as: 'an extra two melee weapons' and zero extra player avatar customization that wasn't allready in SWB:RS. Now story was never Battlefronts strong point but I will say this: Renegade Squadron is a veritable Shakespearian play compared to the train wreck of Elite Squadrons attempt at a story Alot of people have summed it up much better than I could, suffice to say, the storyline (not the missions) is SWBF:ES's main weak link.

Th Ugly. The graphics for the most part are pretty good whilst on foot, an improvement of the previous games. There are occasional hangups during the campaign where the game will freeze for a second or two, although these seem to be few and far between. Graphically the biggest annoyance comes from the transition scenes between docking/space. All atmosphere is lost due to the transition in no way ressembling the level you're taking part in, space changes hue and capital ships straight up change colour. Also due to the new docking sequences you completly lose the intensity of piloting a screaming manual landing into the launch bay whilst avoiding the wrath of enemy fighters as you pass through the shield.

Other than the few disapointments, SWBF: Elite Squardron has added the refinement needed to push its predeccesor from my 'epic-space-warz-on-the-go' slot in my UMD holder. Pew-Pew.