What's up everybody? This is The Act Man here! And today I'm FINALLY going to talk
about the thing you've all been waiting for. Without further adieu, let's get into:
Why Was Halo 3's Campaign SO AWE- You've got mail!
Oh. Well it looks like I got an e-mail. Well lets – lets check this out real quick. Huh,
a gift from the Microsoft store. Well let's open it!
No! No It's not true! It's impossible! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo…
So if it wasn't obvious from that intro, let me boldly state: I did not buy Star Wars
Battlefront 2 EA. I did not plan on getting it ever, or making a review on it. This is
the type of product that is bad for everyone involved. The more people buy it, the more
likely this hobby and passion we all share will continue to go down the shitter. Is this
good for the player? I am thankful that someone gifted me a game, it's the gesture that
matters. But goddamnit I still feel some guilt. Although you know what? This is perfect because
I can actually tell you every single way they managed to f*ck this game up, and the few
things they did right. I can get it all there. Ahhh. Just to get you to understand the massive
disappointment and downward spiral the Battlefront series has gone through, lets relieve the
buildup to this… abomination. If you watched my video on the classic Battlefront
2, then you know I'm a huge fan of the series and Star Wars in general. So after hearing
Battlefront was getting rebooted and a new game was coming out after a decade of nothing,
I was hyped as could be! However, the dark side of the force clouded EA and DICE's
vision. It was obvious this new Battlefront would be nothing like the games we loved,
and would have almost none of the features and content that gave the Battlefront series
it's reputation. So I passed on it. We all eagerly awaited that glorious return.
Because all I've wanted since I was 12 years old was a cutting edge, modern iteration of
Battlefront 2. Just another game to let me relieve those great childhood memories but
with improvements made to every aspect of the game. Lo and behold, it seemed I was getting
my wish. Battlefront 2, but it's going to have content? Single-player campaign? Space
battles? THE F*CKING CLONE WARS?! I couldn't believe it! All those years of waiting. All
the franchises I've loved that never got a truly good sequel, that never got to fulfill
their destinies. Battlefront would be revived, BETTER THAN EVER!
Or so we all thought… And that's where we are today. 10 years
of waiting followed by one catastrophic disappointment after another. The trust, love and hope fans
had for this series was violated and destroyed in only two years. But I'm not gonna get
into the whole loot box fiasco again I already said my piece on that.
There's only one thing to do now, and that's to see what this game is really about. Is
it as BAD as the Metacritic ratings would have us believe? Was all that commotion over
loot boxes just a bunch of hyperbole? Or has Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA utterly fallen
to the dark side? Well, let's buy some loot boxes. Buy some
loot boxes. And buy some loot boxes straight into this!
This game deservedly got a bad wrap for the stunt EA tried to pull. But, and I'm gonna
try really hard to do this. I wanna go in with an open mind. Clear your mind must be.
Well it didn't take long for the game to make me jaded. Because like other diarrhea
infested games made by some greedy f*ck nuggets they try force you to accept some terms of
service that probably say some bullshit along the lines of "you don't actually own this
game" because f*ck you. Sincerely, EA. What the f*ck is a "user agreement" anyways?
If I bought the game, or someone bought it for me, it's mine, what in the name of Jar
Jar Binks do I need to agree to? Sucking your dick, EA? Is that what you want? YES! Cuz
no. I don't agree to that. Make no mistake, I really did want to love this game. But going
into this, I can't lie I'm gonna be jaded. When you got extensive amounts of bad press
surrounding a product, us consumers can't help but think about that whenever we see
or hear about your product. Well chances are if you're a hardcore Star
Wars fan like me, or even if you're on the more casual side. You were hoping that this
game would have some redeeming qualities. Because it can't all be bad, right? That
is correct. And yeah you're right, there is some good stuff in this game. But lemme
tell you, the campaign and story is not f*cking one of them.
So the first 5 seconds look promising but then… Woah woah woah hold the goddamn nokia
phone. Where the opening text crawl? You know, that thing that nearly every Star Wars game
from the last 15 years has had? Ok so, you know why they sing the National
Anthem before the Superbowl? That's to get you hyped to watch football! Or you know how
some families say a prayer before Thanksgiving Dinner? That's to get you hyped for stuffing
your face. In the same principal, seeing the opening crawl for a Star Wars game, gets you
f*cking hyped to play it. But it's missing in the most graphically impressive Star Wars
game to date? We're starting things off on the wrong foot.
So it begins with a cutscene showing your new STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST captured on
a rebel ship. There's some cliché cop interrogation dialogue and a bit of foreshadowing, it's
not too bad. But like idiots who don't understand the technology of the universe they live in.
For some reason they leave her helmet in the prison cell which she uses to communicate
with her droid and escape! Right on time. Let's go. You'd think when a group a soldiers
that all wear the same helmet with some kind of communication box on the side would have
the foresight to take everything but clothes out of the prison cell of a Special Forces
Imperial Commander? Nah. This scene from the droids point of view is
actually pretty cool. Wish I could but we don't have the droid's access code. Might
I suggest finding the access code? HAH! GOT EEM! HAH!
Have the rebels figured out you wanted to be caught? Never crossed their mind.
Gee this whole plan was banking on the fact that the rebels would leave your helmet in
your cell? That's a pretty f*cking stupid plan if you ask me. You go through a stealth
section and there's a nice bit of fan service with Admiral Ackbar giving a speech to some
rebels. But hoooowheee by the end of this campaign you will be drowning in fan service.
You get a weapon, purge some data, and make your way down a single path, killing everything
in sight. Then Iden bails out of the ship. The imperial ship manages to fly into just
the right spot so Iden can land in the ship. Then she takes off her helmet to remind us
she's a STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST! What I will say before we go any further,
is graphically speaking. This game is absolutely gorgeous. It's one of the best looking games
I've ever seen. Ladies and gentleman we have gotten to the point, where we can see
the pours on a characters face. Now that's detail!
So you're on the main deck and the writers give themselves about 20 seconds to establish
the relationships between these 3 soldiers. And they rip a page out of George Lucas'
book by having them recount things they did in the past. Hope the landing wasn't too
rough. Been through worse. Remember the Ja Bess Incursion? Still haunts my dreams. I
haven't felt you this tense since – since we fell into that nest of Gundarks.
Anyways, onto the 2nd mission. Now, it's important to keep in mind that I beat the
campaign in 4 hours and 15 minutes. And I'm the type of guy that takes my time with the
single-players and tries to uncover everything. So this story is undoubtedly rushed, which
you can see from the jarring transitions. Today the rebellion dies. SOME TIME LATER?
Uhh it's kind of important to know how much time later it is, if right before this you
say, "TODAY the rebellion dies." Is this all happening in the same day? Technically
Act Man there are no days in space since there isn't a planet with a sun that revolves
arou - SHUTUP! And then we're on Endor? Well this is taking
place during the final battle in Return of the Jedi. Now as much as I love the Star Wars
movies, I don't really want to feel forced to refresh my memory on them when playing
a new Star Wars game. It's a pitfall that some series fall into when they have such
an immense expanded universe that they feel needs to be accounted for in any new material.
You didn't need to watch Episode 3 or 4 to refresh your memory when you played the
Force Unleashed. It certainly helps, but this is a problem Battlefront 2 has, it's trying
too hard to insert itself in between the events of Episodes 6, 7 & 8 and it doesn't let
me focus on what I'm playing now because I don't watch those movies every day of
my life. So you kill some more guys and, man she really
likes taking her helmet off doesn't she? Well how else is the audience supposed to
know she's a STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST. And then KABOOM! The Death Star explodes which
is pretty awesome! I always wanted to see how the Empire and it's soldiers reacted
to it. And this gives us a taste of that, however at this point in the story, two very
important flaws have become abundantly clear. #1 The pacing of the plot. #2 The Plot itself
Look alive, agents. We can grieve later. Right now, we need to move. For whatever reason,
the writers deem it more important for you to continue on your mission on Endor, than
to spend more time addressing the destruction of the Death Star. Now your mission is to
kill Rebels and hijack some TIE Fighters, I think? We need to reach platform 4 and secure
those TIE Fighters. How did you get on Endor in the first place if you don't have any
ships? But what do you care more about as a Star Wars fan? Some ultimately pointless
mission, or would you rather see 30 more seconds of how other Stormtroopers, Imperial Officers,
or other main characters react to the destruction of the Death Star? I understand these are
Special Imperial Forces with a job to do, but come on! It's just more interesting
to see their reactions than "uhh back to the mission. Bleh bleh bloo!" What I want
to point out now, is Battlefront 2 has immense problems with pacing, especially cutscenes
because again, it's only 4 hours long. Point number 2 is how the plot is handled,
how it's communicated to the player. You'll probably recognize this type of writing from
other boring games and movies. What do we know about Argent Moon? Basically, what the
story of Battlefront 2 is doing, is trying to explain what's going on more so than
why it's going on. Like, after the Death Star blows up, the rest of the mission is
all just dialogue about how to get to the ships. We're gonna take back that platform
and evacuate this moon! And then we're gonna make the rebellion pay! When this opportunity
should be used to flesh out why the Death Star was destroyed? Why are the characters
so motivated to get these ships? Why are they upset? What did the Death Star mean to them?
These questions are much more worthwhile to answer. This could develop the characters,
their motivations, desires, personalities. This game was advertised as an Empire side
of the story, so let's hear more about their perspective! Does this make sense? Here's
an example: in KOTOR 1 when you crash on Taris, your goal is to find Bastilla. Simple. But
why? Well because she has a powerful Battle Meditation ability to help the Republic. Because
she could be the last hope of the Republic. Because the 3 of you need to escape from the
Sith with your lives. Because Malak is chasing you. Also because she's hot… And British
too. I.. that is, you… Why must you be so impossibly infuriating?!
The reasons why you're looking for something or someone, are far more interesting than
what it is you're looking for. Why do you look for the Star Forge? Why is it such a
deadly weapon? Why does Malak want it? And so on.
Generally speaking, a story that prioritizes the WHY over the WHAT is way more engaging
and compelling because the plot is straightforward. But the reasoning behind everything is much
more complex. I want to come with you to Alderaan. There's nothing for me here now. I want
to learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi like my father. You want to know why
a character does something, more than you want to know what they did. Oh I just – I
just killed some guy. Ok… Why? Why did you do that? That's the Phoenix Wright games
in a nutshell. My point is for the majority Star Wars Battlefront
2, it cares more about what's going on than it does the characters and why these things
are going on. It makes it boring and hard to follow. Back to the story you get a TIE
Fighter and fly up to the wreckage of the Death Star. Again, all the visuals in this
game are fantastic and it's REALLY awesome to be able to fly through all this stuff.
The space battles are also phenomenal, even if the aim assist is absurdly strong. They
nailed the space combat pretty much perfectly! The Emperor is dead. So what happens now?
LOOK LOOK! That's exactly what I was talking about! You have a chance for Iden to show
some emotion, and her reaction to this huge bombshell is mild surprise. Then it goes straight
back to focusing on what's happening. The Empire will assault the very foundation of
the rebels – you see what I'm saying? We learn this admiral is her dad and there's
a messenger who has a final message from the dead Emporor. Blah blah blah Operation Cinder,
blah blah blah go do some menial task. Alright so our next mission is to get some important
satellites. Commander, we've secured the satellites.
Oh… I mean I... I was kinda hoping I'd get to do that. Next there's another awesome
space battle with a pretty cool hanger section. I just wish the game would stop taking control
away from me. Do you think I'm so retarded I can't figure out how to land or take off
my ship manually? More shooting, more corridors, explosions.
Iden takes off her helmet for the 3rd time. Is it just not comfortable or something? There's
a tiny bit of funny banter and OH SHIT! INCOMING! Grab onto something!
Boy you could've gotten some serious brain damage there, Iden. Are you sure it was a
good idea to take your helmet off? Oh. And now it just flew out into space. Are you part
of the: SPECIAL FORCES? Or the Special Forces? We get a little tidbit of Versio questioning
Imperial orders and wait how the f*ck did you get your helmet back? Whatever. Blah blah
blah Operation Cinder, blah blah blah Observatory. And then, awww yeah! R2-D2 and Luke Skywalker?!
This is f*cking great! So you take control of Luke, you run around killing Stormtroopers
and then there's a scene with Luke & Del, another member of Inferno Squad. There's
some nice dialogue and the idea of choosing your destiny is presented very well.
But after this… they have the most god-awful boring section in any first-person shooter
game EVER! Where you kill… bugs. Really? REALLY?! We're playing as Luke Skywalker
and the coolest thing you can come up with is f*cking BUGS?! This is atrocious! They
spawn in the same locations and you have to hold them off by spamming right trigger for
5 minutes! Not even f*cking kidding! This goes on for 5 minutes!! 30 seconds of this
crap would've been too much. Now here's another thing to consider, this
is the most awkward Lightsaber combat I've ever seen in a Star Wars video game. Every
time you swing the lightsaber, your character does this automatic dash and it has this weird
autolocking mechanic. It feels like you don't really have control. Now lemme just show you
what I mean firsthand. So in the footage you're seeing, I'm gonna
do a basic combo move. High, low, low, high. This is a demonstration of how the move would
be handled in Battlefront 2. And this is a demonstration of how it should be. You see
how one has those awkward pauses and dashes? And the other one is much more smooth, flowy
and natural? That's how it is in Jedi Academy, Classic Battlefront 2, Force Unleashed. That's
way it should be. Take it from someone who trains with weapons, alright.
Anyways the two talk about conflict which kinda ties in with The Last Jedi if you saw
that. There's still conflict in you. Of course there's conflict in me! I'm not
blind. I know what the Empire is capable of. But what else is there? A choice. The Rebellion?
No. A choice to be better. There's an incredibly jarring transition as Del reappears on the
Corvus and you're sent on a mission to rescue some Alien.
That's the Dauntless. The Dauntless? How'd that get into Star Wars? Well the Dauntless
is the power in these waters, true enough. But there's no ship that can match The Corvus
for speed. I've heard of one, supposed to be very fast, nigh uncatchable! The Millenium
Falcon. The Admiral plans to attack this planet Vardos
because… The Emperor commands it. We will purge this planet and others. Fear shall spread
and the galaxy will remember who is in control. Is it just me or is that… completely f*cking
retarded? Hey dipsh*t! If you want to remind the galaxy who's in control then shouldn't
you focus all your efforts on attacking the people responsible? You know, the Rebels that
just embarrassed you to the whole galaxy? Look we all know the Empire aren't the nicest
of folks but isn't killing loyal civilians a waste of time AND resources? Vardos is our
target? One of them, yes. Why? The entire planet and it's people, they're – they're
loyal to the Empire! If you're thinking military and strategy, isn't that just a
big f*cking waste of time? If anything, killing these people would PLANT the seeds of rebellion!
Oh and it does. Wut a tweest! And wait a second, the Emperor created this plan BEFORE his death?
Then wouldn't it become irrelevant after his death and the destruction of the Death
Star? What's the ultimate goal of killing civilians in the first place?
Hey that kinda looks familiar… No! Your world will burn until it's surface is but
glass. Ok wait. Hold the f*ck up. Your orders are to get this Gleb alien off planet, right?
So why are you glassing it, BEFORE Inferno Squad picks her up? What if your glassing
beams happened to kill her, then what? Also why are you putting your troops on the ground,
in harms way if you're attacking loyal civilians from space?! I mean! Ahh f*ck it.
At this point the formula of the campaign is pretty clear. You have a section where
you walk really slowly while people talk, a stealth section, you do a space battle,
on rails linear vehicle combat, and play as a hero. It's pretty boring considering the
only enemies you fight in this game are infantry with the occasional vehicle.
It plays like a Call of Duty campaign, You're basically a one man army, oh sorry. I meant
to say, you're basically a ONE FEMALE ARMY. Cuz women are strong too, OK?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND
THAT? You rarely have a squad of allies backing you up, and even when you do, the battles
feel pretty small just like the bad COD games. Rather than creating interesting scenarios
or unique groups of enemies. The game just throws a bunch of Stormtroopers at you. I
understand the Empire is made up of Stormtroopers, but why not add some type of cool Bounty Hunter
on the side who you fight throughout the game? What about having some gigantic Krayt Dragon
that pops out of the ground or a Rancor? Gammorehans? Remember those big spider droids, Trandoshians,
and all that in Republic Commando? Remember fighting those flamethrower clones, Shock
Battle Droids in Episode 3? Remember the lightsaber battles in Jedi Academy? Or the satisfying
feeling of using force powers in the Force Unleashed? In the vast universe of Star Wars
is the only enemy type you can give us mindless infantry and f*cking BUGS? This is boring!
Is DICE so scared of violating the canon in any capacity that they threw all the unique,
crazy ideas out the window in favor of a safe, generic single-player? Perhaps. But as the
saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Oh yea the AI is also f*cking retarded. And
it's also not a really good idea to recycle locations for the Single-player, arcade and
multiplayer. In fact, it's kinda lazy as f*ck.
Back to the story. Well you're not supposed to think about why all these decision makes
no sense because all its supposed to do is give the most contrived excuse for Iden to
defect and join the Rebellion. Which she does! Hooray for not fleshing out the Empire side
of things at all. The Force Unleashed had a much more believable change of heart. It
had buildup, timing, likeable characters, motivations, destiny! And it actually made
you think about things. This doesn't. We're not completely alone. Some of the
crew stayed with us. Protected the refugees against those who wouldn't. Just want to
know what's next. God f*cking damnit I'm so done with this already.
They send out a distress signal, and within like 5minutes the rebels take them in.
Finally I get to talk about something good in the story: Shriv! He's such a sarcastic,
funny guy and fits in perfectly as comic relief. So you thought it was a trap, but brought
them on board anyway? You're always telling me to take risks! Seemed like the most irresponsible
thing I could do. He's the type of character that would be in a Star Wars movie and he's
the best NEW character in this game. Honestly the highlights of the story come
from when you're playing as anyone but Iden. They really nailed the writing and personality
of Lando, Han Solo, Leia, and Luke. There's a bunch of references to the movies and although
the fan service is overwhelming at times, this is really the only reason to play the
campaign. But even then, there's so many Illogical leaps in story, location and plot.
Nothing really flows together naturally. It's all about shoving in as much fan service as
possible without regards to how it all comes together as a complete narrative.
The story of Iden Versio is not interesting or relatable in the slightest because her
character is boring and unbelievable. I do not think a Special Forces Imperial soldier
would have such a quick change of heart just because "oh no! Civilians on my home!"
Nor do I think the Empire would attack civilians who are already loyal. It just – it doesn't
make sense. I can't suspend my disbelief. Honestly there's not much that happens after
this point that's worth discussing. It's just more fighting the Empire without much
substance or a greater meaning behind it. Stuff we've already seen a million times
before. At the end you go to kill Iden's dad, but then she doesn't want to, but he
dies anyway. Oh boo hoo. There's a badly forced romance at the end that would make
Attack of The Clones proud. Some bizarre vision epilogue with Kylo Ren and then it ends.
This is basically a clear cut example of the continuing trend in Triple A games that values
style over substance. It's boots on the ground combat so it's instantly good. Oh
it's got great world design, artwork and music so it's good. The visuals and sounds
are perfect so that makes it good. Well, no… There's an old saying, "An ugly personality
ruins a pretty face. The prettiest rose will eventually wilt and grey."
The reason why people love the original Star Wars movies, why people loved KOTOR, Jedi
Academy, Republic Commando, why people love Star Wars is because of the stories. The fight
of good vs. evil, the characters and their motivations. Choosing your own destiny. Light
side, Dark side and everything in between. These stories are timeless, we can all connect
with Luke Skywalker and empathize with his plight. We can all learn from the wise, Jedi
Master Yoda. We can all understand brotherhood, faith and friendship. The whole point of the
force was to illustrate that there's more to this world than what can physically be
seen. It wasn't just because of the visuals and
special effects, that's not what made Star Wars good. Those help to wow the audience
and it's complementary to the story. But without any personality, a face is just a
face, graphics are just graphics. And Star Wars Battlefront 2, is just Star Wars Battlefront
2. The thing that absolutely ruins the entire
game, is none other than the Star Cards themselves. I've already covered the pay-to-win aspects
in a previous videos, links in the description for the curious. Never mind that as gamers
we've seen hundreds of games adopt loot boxes. So much that it's worn out it's
welcome so fast. We're just sick of f*cking seeing this. It's a kiss of death for the
game. Sick of being forced to open loot boxes. It's a chore, I'm tired of doing it. I'm
tired of seeing all these f*cking slot machines in my video games nowadays.
But that's not the core issue I have. Because it wasn't just EA's greed that
ruined the game, it's the fact that the Star Cards are so integral to the game. Campaign,
Arcade, Multiplayer, Space Battles, Vehicles, Heroes, Elite Classes, Regular classes, Cosmetic
customization, progression, every single f*cking thing about this game, every moment of gameplay
is forced to accommodate these stupid ass cards.
Fundamentally, this destroys every opportunity for creativity and innovation in the map design
and gameplay. The game has to adopt a battle point system so that you can use vehicles,
heroes, etc. But wouldn't it all have just been better to put vehicles on the map? Wouldn't
it be way cooler to be able to get in the MTT by simply running up to it? Isn't it
more engaging to find an X-wing, or a Tauntaun on the map and use it because it's there?
Wouldn't it have been better for every vehicle to have a baseline strength that doesn't
change? Well yeah, all of these things were in Battlefront 2 and it made the maps feel
alive. You can't pick up weapons off the map because
then you'd be playing with Star Cards you don't have. My point is, you don't have
any decisions after you've spawned. You HAVE to play with what you have until you
die. That's boring. And it means if you want any chance of using a hero or vehicle,
you have to die and get lucky and be doing well enough to have enough points. If I'm
doing really well, but I want to use a vehicle, why should I be forced to commit suicide to
use it? The Star Cards actually discourage teamwork. Again, if they made vehicles like
they did in Battlefront 2, where multiple people can get into them. Well the Star Cards
can't allow that. EA banked so hard on this system that if there was any part of it that
didn't jive with the Star Cards, it couldn't be in the game.
Look nobody cared that back in the day that Battlefront 2 was a Star Wars version of Battlefield.
In fact, that's why we loved it! But it seems like DICE is so intent on differentiating
these two series, when they don't seem to understand the basic f*cking point that what
made Battlefront great in the first place was that it took the Battlefield formula and
brought it to the Star Wars universe. How do you not understand this?
The Star Card system also creates a huge micromanagement issue. Rather than having unique vehicles,
weapons, classes, and heroes that come as they are. Instead, every player has to manage
3 different star cards for 38 different classes, heroes, ships, whatever. This means, you have
to manually choose a total of 114 Star Cards with 4 different tiers, for every possible
sandbox tool you can play with. Alongside managing 2 different currencies, weapons you
can modify, attachments, and relying solely on RNG to give you all this crap, it becomes
a f*cking nightmare. It's so much goddamn data, and memorization just to understand
what you're playing with. I don't care if there's a card that gives
the Emperor 1 percent increased damage, I just want to play as the f*cking Emperor.
I don't care if there's a card that allows me to fire the Bowcaster 5 percent slightly
faster, I just wanna play as a goddamn Wookie. I don't want to have to think or care SO
much about the choices I make before the game, that heavily affect my gameplay, my experience!
So much of this is what do you do before? What crates do you open? What heroes do you
buy? What do you invest your currency in? The fundamental issue here is you rely on
RNG so you can't get the for what your play style is. They have different types of crates
but lets say you spend all your credits on Starfight Assault cards. Well the second you
go into Galactic Assault, you're sh*t outta luck because you don't have any cards for
that mode.
Let's say you wanted all trooper cards. Well the second you go into Heroes vs. Villains,
you're f*cked because you didn't spend your credits on the heroes! Do you see what
I'm getting at? It's the most buttf*cking superfluous system for a game that at it's
core is as casual as possible. As I said, it seems like DICE doesn't want to copy
anything from the Battlefield series. But what they should've done is a progression
and loadout system more akin to Call of Duty and Titanfall. For whatever reason, every
weapon, grenade and ability operates on a cooldown. But wouldn't it have been far
more beneficial to have some of these weapons with ammunition? Isn't it kind of bizarre
to pull out a shotgun with unlimited ammo, but you can only do that every 15 seconds?
Why not just give players a choice of primary and secondary weapons? Why not also give the
choices of grenades, utility item, and a power ability? Ahh because they need to be attached
to the Star Cards. Just have one ability that's on a cooldown and offer some tension in the
gameplay because you can run out of ammo and items.
Because even if you make a mistake with an ability, you aren't punished for it. You
just wait for the cooldown. In this regard, all the weapons perform the same. Imagine
if in a Halo game every single weapon had infinite ammo and they were all just different
versions of a plasma rifle. It'd get boring as sh*t real fast.
So if the Star Cards prevent you from picking up weapons, if they discourage teamwork and
don't allow multi passenger vehicles, if they force you to die to use the vehicles
or things that you want, if you have to manage 114 different cards before you actually play
the f*cking game, if you need to memorize hundreds of different abilities and data,
if it creates a system in which you aren't punished for missing your shots or wasting
your grenades, if it's the type of system that incentivizes you to prioritize a single
game mode that you push all your credits, cards and currency to. Then how could this
Star Card system possibly get ANY worse? Well, because of SCALING POWER. Had there
been only one tier of cards, this system wouldn't be completely game-breaking. But of course,
to give the loot boxes enough game-altering sh*t to incentivize purchases, they had to
make multi-tiers. I want to imagine you're playing Modern Warfare 2 or whatever you favorite
Call of Duty game is. Remember how much time you would spend customizing your classes?
That was always a highlight, right? But now imagine how f*cked the Call of Duty formula
would be with SCALING POWER. Think of COD cards that would improve the base damage of
the Model 1887 by 20 percent or ANY GUN for that matter! Or perks that become better and
better the higher tier COD Cards you get. A chopper gunner that takes two more hits
to take down. You try to apply this SCALING POWER idea to the gameplay of Call of Duty,
and it utterly breaks the game. This idea would break any FPS game, casual or competitive.
Overwatch, Halo, Titanfall 2. The idea of base skills, weapons, abilities, and vehicles
that scale in power with time played or money paid, is f*cked up beyond belief and jeopardizes
all the work that was put into this game. Make it nearly unplayable for me.
You might think I'm overreacting to all this Star Card crap and to be honest, I probably
am. But can you blame me? I wanted to love this game so badly! And they just spit in
my face. At least, I hope you guys understand why I'm so angry about this system. In essence,
the Star Cards are the undoing of Battlefront 2. There is no way to fix this post launch
because it is such an inextricable part of the game. It can't be removed or altered.
EA's intent was not to provide a sense of pride and accomplishment, but to provide a
way for you to sink seemingly endless amounts of cash into the game. And because the Star
Cards are such an over-emphasized core component of Battlefront 2, it destroys the balance,
creativity, immersion, satisfaction, tension and fun.
Well so let's finish up with arcade and multiplayer. The arcade mode is basically
just shooting the same boring enemies you were shooting in the campaign. Either solo
with a time limit, or with AI bots and a time limit. The creativity is staggering. While
it can be a bit of fun to try the harder difficulties, it doesn't provide enough uniqueness or
fun to make it worth playing again and again. Not much to say here, it's basically a poor
man's version of firefight from the Halo games. It's f*cking insulting that the game
limits the amount of credits you can earn by playing it. You should understand now what
I mean, when I say that every part of this game had to make sacrifices to accommodate
the Star Cards. Well, so how does the actual multiplayer hold
up? What does it provide aside from impressive graphics and breath-taking levels? Not much.
Think of every map as a different roller coaster. It's really. really fun and exciting the
first time you go on it. But everytime you ride it after that it becomes less and less
interesting and fun, because you've already seen it and done it before. It's a spectacle,
but it doesn't have depth. The maps are pretty good but the core gameplay is so casual
it's not gonna provide much of anything different from match to match.
In my experience, I didn't encounter a whole lot of bugs or serious glitches which is a
good sign. Apparently rubber banding is a huge issue for some people. But one thing
I did notice was how awkward and glitch the speeders are. They control like absolute sh*t,
glitches all over the place and sometimes it just doesn't fire. But apart from that,
the game performs very well. You got 20 vs 20 matches with no bots, the
game can't even match the number of combatants Battlreont 2 had 12 years ago. No server browser,
no private matches, no flying into capital ships in space battles, no capture the flag.
And where's the Hunt mode? That would've been a perfect gimmick side mode to add in.
Who doesn't wanna play as a Jawa, Ewok, or Tusken Raider? There's no heroes like
Anakin, General Grevious, Jango Fett, Mace Windu. I don't care if these characters
are going to be added later. How the f*ck do you make a Star Wars game where you can
play as all the different heroes and villains and not include the most pivotal character
in 6 of the movies? Obi-Wan! The game advertised itself as incorporating all three Eras but
there's only two heroes from the prequels. There's one thing I noticed about the multiplayer.
So you remember in Battlefront 1 on Tatooine there was that Sarlaac Pit, and the Tusken
Raiders who would attack everyone. Or in Battlefront 2 there were the Jawas who would repair things
on Mos Eisley. Gungans on Naboo, Ewoks on Endor. None of these factions or interesting
gimmicks are on any of the maps. Which is kind of a missed opportunity because they
added a lot of depth and liveliness to every map. I don't know, it just makes sense that
as the Rebels you'd have Ewoks backing you up. Guess they didn't bother to program
any of that stuff in. Damn shame. Again, what made Battlefront 2 and Battlefield
so fun was there were several options for the player to move around the map, to attack,
defend. This time in Galactic Assault, you're basically forced to go down a series of choke
points. Why is there no Conquest? Where are the command posts? Or Spawn points players
can destroy to cut off reinforcements like the battery on Hoth. Even after all the mistakes
DICE and EA made with the first game, after all the features they didn't implement there,
it's like they still don't understand what we want! You gave us Space Battles and
the Clone Wars era, and I'm so happy about that. But it just seems like you're refusing
to add in the things that made the first two Battlefront games as good and popular as they
were. You refuse to implement what made it possible for you to actually work and create
this game! And it blows my f*cking mind. It offers a pretty abysmal amount of content
and variety with five game modes. Two of them being decent, one of them being meh and the
other two being bleh. It appears the updates will add more stuff in eventually like every
triple A shooter these days. But nothing really stands out to me except the Space Battles.
Though the devs talk about this idea of multiple seasons and updates that can focus on certain
elements of the Star Wars universe and implement them in Battlefront 2. Which I find to be
a pretty neat concept. This allows new drops of content to be added with a theme, you know
fleshing out the Clone Wars, or the Rebellion, etc. I just wonder how long people are willing
to wait with the current content in-game. While playing multiplayer I did notice a Clone
say "Watch those wrist rockets!" And that was a really nice bit of nostalgia that I
appreciate. I think they nailed the voices and personality of the characters and different
factions. The droid voice acting is fantastic. So at least they've artistically defined
the styles of the 3 eras very well. All the heroes and villains are pretty satisfying
to use, fun to play and all have unique abilities and playstyles. Once more, the voice acting
and style of the heroes is spot on. The gunplay is decent but as I said every
weapon operates under the same cooldown mechanic so the guns feel the same. It doesn't require
a lot of thought, strategy or teamwork. Everyone's kind of a lone wolf. I mean it's a real
casual type of game, that's fun in bursts, however just doesn't seem like something
that can maintain a consistent playerbase. Or keep people's attention for long.
Conclusion Well in conclusion, there's not much redeeming
about Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA because every single aspect of the game was compromised
for Star Cards and loot boxes. The campaign is boring, with god-awful amateur storytelling
that can be finished in 4 hours. And the core gameplay across space battles and all the
other modes is really just a visual experience. With the gameplay being pretty shallow in
comparison. What I will say is the music and sound design
is fantastic. Everything has a crisp Star Wars vibe to it. Guns sound powerful and just
the audio and visuals are outta this world. Music of course has the good ol' John Williams
magic to it and Battlefront 2 certainly feels like a Star Wars game.
I guess what I just don't understand about these games is how they can't match what
classic Battlefront 2 had. This was a huge collaborative effort between
3 studios. And if I'm correct on my research here, then Motive Studios with 100 Employees,
worked on the single-player, while Criterion Games with 90 Employees, worked on the vehicles
and space battles, and Dice with 640 employees, did everything else. Alongside help and funding
from LucasFilms and EA. Now, Pandemic Studios at the time of it's
closure in 2009 had 228 Employees. So I think it's safe to assume that EA's Battlefront
2 had a much larger budget and more hands on deck working on it than the classic 2005
version. With just one studio, Pandemic's work still provides more content that of a
modern triple A game created by 3 development teams. And they didn't even have the benefit
of microtransactions, and free DLC, and constant updates, and all that crap.
I just… I just don't understand. How these two companies have handled the Star
Wars license is nothing short of catastrophic failure. You've pissed people off and disappointed
them twice in a row after 10 years of waiting. And this is Star Wars, ok. You pieces of sh*t,
get that through your thick skulls. This means a lot to millions of people and if you can't
treat this property, these stories, these characters, the universe that's been built
up over 40 years with respect, then get fucked and fuck off! You shouldn't buy this game
but I don't mind if you already did and had fun with it. I don't have fun with it
for the reasons I've just explained. And that, is Why Star Wars Battlefront 2 Is
SO BAD! But what do you think? Are you gonna go back
and play some of these actually good Star Wars video games like I am? What are your
thoughts on Battlefront 2 EA? Wanna give a shoutout to my boy Squeegliees
for supporting the channel and all my other patrons who make it possible for me to keep
making videos like this. You guys are the best! And I appreciate you! Like the video
if you enjoyed it and subscribe to The Act Man for more AWESOME content! Alright everyone,
that's all I've got for today! This is The Act Man signing out. PEACE!
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