The improvements to Battlefront 2 don't shine as much as they could, making it feel like an expansion.
What Battlefront has done well, and continues to do well are these immense battles on land with the various infantry from the Star Wars universe. You are literally able to recreate (to the most part) some of the more famous (or infamous) battles from Star Wars. Every infantry unit you would expect to be in a game like Battlefront is there with supporting vehicles; the entire game feels like a scene from Star Wars.
The single player campaign in Battlefront 2 details missions of the 501st division, a somehow absent division until now. While I doubt they are actually part of the original Star Wars saga, they are incorporated into it in a logical manner which, for the most part, makes sense and seems to fit right into the story of the movies.
New in this version of Battlefront is space combat, a very much needed addition to the series. Long overdue and highly anticipated, space battles are finally here for some of the minor battles in the saga. While they have every ship you would want, and have sensible mission objectives, space battles in general feel tacked on. It was as if they added the feature last minute. Most of the huge space battles you want to be a part of (such as attack on the Death Star) or even some of the other space battles are either watered down or nowhere to be found in the game. While the experience is good overall, it needs a ton of work and time devoted to it.
Another addition to the Battlefront formula is actually an existing feature, just modified. In the original Battlefront you could have Jedi allies on the battlefield – now you can play as them. They are called “Hero Characters” – which have a power meter instead of a health bar. The more kills and combos you get refill the ever diminishing bar. Once the bar reaches the end your hero is defeated.
What surprised me most about Battlefront 2 that I thought for sure they would nail, is the online. The online portion of Battlefront on Xbox Live looks so similar to a PS2 ad-hoc style game system it was eerie. Not only was everything disorganized, but it didn’t even offer a robust filter system! Sure there were some good points, but the online portion felt as needlessly tacked on as the space combat. I was appalled but the uncaring the developers needed to have to do that to an online menu. Note that updates via Xbox Live are possible and this might be outdated.
The A.I. in Battlefront 2 seems to have suffered downgrades rather than improvements. More times than not I am standing next to or in front of enemies that do not acknowledge my presence making them easy kills. This can be especially annoying if this happens to your entire computer-controlled team.
With all things considered, Battlefront 2 didn’t impress me like I thought it would have on almost every occasion. Instead of a full out sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront 2 feels like a $50 expansion for $10 worth of new content. Such minimal improvements make it hard to recommend to someone who already has the original Battlefront, but remains a good starting place for newcomers to the series.