It's been a while since I've had nights like this.
As an adult with a busy life, it gets much harder to find the time to spend with friends. Thankfully, things have been changing for me in that regard, and now I'm getting to spend more time with the group of people I've known for the past 10 years or so. Tonight, three of us gathered at a friend's place, looking forward to a night of fun and conversation. After thinking about what we wanted to do, we settled on doing a playthrough of Star Wars: Battlefront II on the original Xbox. Now, I had heard plenty of praise for this game in the past, but I haven't had enough interest to give it a shot. Now, I had no excuse to not try it out, especially since you could play the campaign in 4-player co-op.
This game, with friends, certainly is an experience.
One minute you'll be on the battlefield on foot, mowing down enemy troops, occasionally shooting a blast or throwing a grenade in the path of one of your friends, and working as best as you can together to complete objectives. Another minute, you're soaring through space, shooting out fleets of enemies while trying not to crash your ships just trying to land (or yelling in agony as you careen into a wall due to our lack of flight experience, which always gets a laugh out of the group.) You may also find yourself gaining the ability to play as a key character from the movies, such as Yoda or Darth Vader. You may also find yourself accidentally wiping out half of your friend's health as they're playing as this character because you started firing at a grunt just as they swooped in to do a lightsaber attack on the same foe. You'll take control of vehicles, even getting to pilot AT-ATs, feeling powerful as you fire strong blasts into enemy troops and turrets, as well as your friend who was just trying to capture the objective.
I guess with all that I'm trying to say that Star Wars: Battlefront II is messy, chaotic fun in the goofiest of ways. You'll laugh and bicker playfully with your friends as you explore stages and try to progress. You'll laugh every time the game sharply cuts to a screen that just says "VICTORY" when you complete a mission. You'll scoff as the framerate drops to like 15 fps because they crammed you all in a hallway with like 20 other NPCs all shooting at each other, and you'll all laugh again as one of you fires a blast in said hallway that kills at least 10 people on both sides, including themselves and the rest of your group.
Star Wars: Battlefront II gave me an experience that feels seldom rare in the modern era: a fast-paced objective-based shooter that can be enjoyed on a couch with a group of friends that isn't looking to nickle-and-dime you in some weird way. Outside of the framerate issues, you'll easily have a wonderful and hilarious time if you can get three friends together to sit down and just blast through stage after stage. The game overall is pretty short, maybe like 2-3 hours max for the campaign, but doing it in a group will make it feel like an adventure.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you can experience this game in 4-player co-op, go for it. I can't speak for how this game plays as a single-player experience, but as a multiplayer one, I can guarantee that you'll have a great time!
As an adult with a busy life, it gets much harder to find the time to spend with friends. Thankfully, things have been changing for me in that regard, and now I'm getting to spend more time with the group of people I've known for the past 10 years or so. Tonight, three of us gathered at a friend's place, looking forward to a night of fun and conversation. After thinking about what we wanted to do, we settled on doing a playthrough of Star Wars: Battlefront II on the original Xbox. Now, I had heard plenty of praise for this game in the past, but I haven't had enough interest to give it a shot. Now, I had no excuse to not try it out, especially since you could play the campaign in 4-player co-op.
This game, with friends, certainly is an experience.
One minute you'll be on the battlefield on foot, mowing down enemy troops, occasionally shooting a blast or throwing a grenade in the path of one of your friends, and working as best as you can together to complete objectives. Another minute, you're soaring through space, shooting out fleets of enemies while trying not to crash your ships just trying to land (or yelling in agony as you careen into a wall due to our lack of flight experience, which always gets a laugh out of the group.) You may also find yourself gaining the ability to play as a key character from the movies, such as Yoda or Darth Vader. You may also find yourself accidentally wiping out half of your friend's health as they're playing as this character because you started firing at a grunt just as they swooped in to do a lightsaber attack on the same foe. You'll take control of vehicles, even getting to pilot AT-ATs, feeling powerful as you fire strong blasts into enemy troops and turrets, as well as your friend who was just trying to capture the objective.
I guess with all that I'm trying to say that Star Wars: Battlefront II is messy, chaotic fun in the goofiest of ways. You'll laugh and bicker playfully with your friends as you explore stages and try to progress. You'll laugh every time the game sharply cuts to a screen that just says "VICTORY" when you complete a mission. You'll scoff as the framerate drops to like 15 fps because they crammed you all in a hallway with like 20 other NPCs all shooting at each other, and you'll all laugh again as one of you fires a blast in said hallway that kills at least 10 people on both sides, including themselves and the rest of your group.
Star Wars: Battlefront II gave me an experience that feels seldom rare in the modern era: a fast-paced objective-based shooter that can be enjoyed on a couch with a group of friends that isn't looking to nickle-and-dime you in some weird way. Outside of the framerate issues, you'll easily have a wonderful and hilarious time if you can get three friends together to sit down and just blast through stage after stage. The game overall is pretty short, maybe like 2-3 hours max for the campaign, but doing it in a group will make it feel like an adventure.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you can experience this game in 4-player co-op, go for it. I can't speak for how this game plays as a single-player experience, but as a multiplayer one, I can guarantee that you'll have a great time!
6 Comments
@cowboyjosh We talked about that version but my friend doesn't own the game physically anymore (we played off the Xbox hard drive) so we couldn't experience it that way. I'm sure it would've been even better on the Series X since the framerate probably would've been a lot smoother!
FWIW you don't need the physical version; you can buy it for like 10 bucks on the Xbox e-store (at least here in the US). I did myself about a month ago when I was completing my Xbox Star Wars collection. Still though original hardware is much more classy! I played SO much of this back in the day haha.
Never played this but your story reminds me of fun times playing Perfect Dark 4 player with slow motion one hit kills with friends and the hardest Sims. Utterly hilarious and devastating...in slow motion.
Great review though. Really sums up the spirit and fun the game produces rather than talking about the game itself which in some ways is a much better way of discussing games.
Great review though. Really sums up the spirit and fun the game produces rather than talking about the game itself which in some ways is a much better way of discussing games.
@cowboyjosh That's also something we talked about. He was considering snagging the digital version, and he might do that down the line. There's something satisfying about booting up the old consoles and whipping out those controllers to get a game going with the peeps all grouped together. I doubt we'll be checking out any of the other modes outside the campaign, but from what I've read of reviews for this game, it looks like you could get a ton of mileage from side modes and online play from this one. Part of me is upset I missed out on that, but I'm glad I got to experience the game as I have, all these years past the peak of its relevancy.
@FallenGrace That sounds like a hilarious time. I didn't really grow up with many shooters before I started playing online-focused multiplayer ones like Call of Duty, so I didn't get to have the Perfect Dark or Goldeneye stories most people who grew up in that generation do. Playing this game with friends all these years later kinda gave me a taste of what that must've been like. I'm not the biggest Star Wars guy out there, so I was mostly in it for a good time with the boys, and that's absolutely what I got. I wanted to make sure I could capture what that experience was like as I wrote this, so I'm glad I was effective at doing so. Hopefully stories like mine and yours can encourage people to get together more often with friends to have fun chaotic game nights.
@FallenGrace That sounds like a hilarious time. I didn't really grow up with many shooters before I started playing online-focused multiplayer ones like Call of Duty, so I didn't get to have the Perfect Dark or Goldeneye stories most people who grew up in that generation do. Playing this game with friends all these years later kinda gave me a taste of what that must've been like. I'm not the biggest Star Wars guy out there, so I was mostly in it for a good time with the boys, and that's absolutely what I got. I wanted to make sure I could capture what that experience was like as I wrote this, so I'm glad I was effective at doing so. Hopefully stories like mine and yours can encourage people to get together more often with friends to have fun chaotic game nights.
hell yeah battlefront 2 rocks
cowboyjosh
2 months ago