Battlefront – A New Hope Pt.3

Until there is a substantial amount of news on the new Battlefront (NBF) I will call this my last post on the contentious issues identified so far from the information available. I want to talk today about the necessity for a single-player campaign in multiplayer-focused games. NBF does not have a dedicated campaign for single players. In its place are several short “missions” (see what amounts to: horde mode) that could be played solo but ideally suit co-op play. This trailer gives us an idea of what to expect:

(Aside: Why is “…thank the force.” an acceptable line of dialogue? I’m pretty sure the majority of people in the later days of the empire think of the force as a bit of a joke.

e.g. General Motti; “Your sad devotion to that ancient Jedi religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes”.

((Aside aside: Haha; “tapes”. It’s funny when people can’t predict the future of technology)).

I know the Rebellion seems to bandy around “May the force be with you” but that’s like “good luck” right? Not “May god be with you” and “thank god” as this suggests. Am I being crazy?)

The trailer look stunning visually but also gives an example of the objective-horde gameplay like in Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer. In my opinion this is a vastly superior use of resources than trying to engineer a single-player campaign. In the modern era of gaming it can be safely assumed that the vast majority of console owners are connected to the internet and play multiplayer regularly enough that the amount of hours spent online is greater than the amount of hours spent on the campaign. Short objective-based missions train the player to better play the multiplayer and focus on the team goal rather than go through the motions of the films in a campaign.

Now I must stress that this is just the case for the Battlefield series which tries to dole out a compelling single-player and multiplayer experiences. There are plenty of games that manage to do both successfully but it is my opinion that DICE should favour a purely multiplayer model as they have failed to do both at the same time.

What do I mean by failed? Let’s do a classic comparison; Halo vs Battlefield. Halo has consistently had a popular campaign across its titles. Likewise, it has also had a popular multiplayer component.  Battlefield, despite the efforts of DICE and especially Visceral, does not have the best record of campaigns to accompany their excellent multiplayer experiences. BF3, BF4 and BFH have been poor at best and at worst completely forgettable. Particularly in the case of BF4 where the multiplayer launched in such a shocking condition it seems resources could have been better spent on avoiding that than creating a lacklustre single-player that was over in 5 hours and then cast aside. Halo tells a compelling story in single player with gameplay that draws you back in to play it time and again whilst also delivering an engaging and addicting multiplayer platform.

This is why I am relieved to hear that the single player for NBF has been ditched in favour of more multiplayer focused gameplay. There must have been a great temptation to try and create the ultimate Star Wars experience with a campaign that directs the player through the precise speeder-bike chase/ trench run/ lightsabre fight etc. from the films. However, by avoiding this DICE seems to be betting on the organic nature of a multiplayer match to create the “wow” Star Wars moments. They are attempting to immerse the player in the wider world of Star Wars instead of strapping a Go-Pro to Luke’s head; a brave step for the studio and hopefully one to be commended.

-Norris

Battlefront – A New Hope Pt.2

Continuing on from part 1 on the new Star Wars Battlefront I wanted to make a quick post highlighting a contentious issue; controllable vs. on-rails AT-ATs. For anyone wanting to see where the bar is for how niche a problem I’m preparing to wade in on; here you go.

All Terrain-Armoured Transports 

(you're welcome)

In Battlefront 2 (BF2) AT-ATs could be spawned into on Hoth and charged at a snail’s pace into battle; swatting away just about anything that came near it. The trailers and information on the new AT-ATs we’ve received so far tell us that this is not the case in the new Battlefront (NBF). In the new game mode dedicated to the behemoths, Walker Assault, the Imperial Walkers lumber on under AI control. A gunner (possibly two) can take control of the head mounted weapons and radio-in for a powerful orbital bombardment.

Some have argued this has taken away from one of their favourite moments from BF2 and embittered the sweet taste of full Star Wars fantasy immersion. And, as usual, millions of voices cried out in terror that their childhood was, again, ruined. Well I’m here to silence those voices.

Take a look at this clip from the Battle of Hoth in BF2. At the 5:45 mark you’ll notice the walker is stuck against an invisible wall in its assault on the base.

The pilot has kept the walker moving despite now compromising its use on the field. This unfortunately was not an isolated occurrence on this map. In fact it was so common all I had to do to find it was Google “Battle of Hoth Battlefront 2”.

DICE’s solution to this problem is to remove player control of the vehicle’s movements but keep control of the weapons. Thus one player cannot get the AT-AT trapped and ruin a spawn point for their whole team and the walker’s weapons are kept at their most effective by staying on the optimal path.

-Norris

InSPECTRE Gadget?

The new Spectre trailer came out yesterday following the teaser a few months ago. As a 007 fan I’m keen to throw my odd-job hat into the ring of debate. To validate my own opinion and help you calibrate fan level status; when Skyfall came out in 2012 my university friends and I went to the cinema in tuxedos and my answer to the dinner party question if money was no concern what would you buy? is always the Aston Martin DB5.

-          As an aside I would like to mention that there is an Aston Martin Vanquish owner in my neighbourhood who has the plates JBD 007. However, it’s painted black. It just feels wrong.

I thought I’d give you a few hand-picked moments from the trailer for discussion. Let the nit-picking begin!

Dialogue

Firstly a word on how trailers have tried to tell too-much of the film in their brief two minutes. Whilst I appreciate that this is a trailer and that the actual lines are edited and cut differently in the film there is a lot of ham-fisted dialogue in an attempt to encompass the whole film. The fact is all the Mexico-City scenes could be cut with no impact on the impact of the trailer. Particularly as the “dry-wit” pay-off before the logo isn’t that funny. Ralph Fiennes setting the scene in his first outing as M irks unnecessarily for the sake of crow-barring in a start to the trailer. (Like I said though I know this isn’t how it goes down in the film. See: sitting behind desk vs standing for his lines). For another example see: “Its name, Spectre”; clearly two different non-sequential lines.

Tech

The DB10. Sleek and silver (like it should be) it delivers a healthy taster of the vicarious fantasy life that makes 007 films so appealing.

And then Q ruins it all with one distressing line.

There is one thing I have continually praised the reboot for; keeping the deus ex-machina gadgets to a minimum. I can forgive the endless product placement for this reason as it keeps us grounded in reality by having to use real technology. (Cue a thousand examples of how I’m wrong; Q’s hacking network in Skyfall, Sony Ericsson with ridiculous OS in Casino Royale. Etc.) Bond appeals to me most when he is just a well-trained, brawn and brain spy. He does not when he is Inspector Gadget; saving the day and defying death with the touch of a sci-fi button.  So when Q states the DB10 has “A few little tricks up her sleeve” it gets me worried that we’re slipping back into Brosnan territory.

Old Man

Another credit I give to the reboot is Bond’s and the wider cast’s realness and mortality (see: Fleming’s Casino Royale novel. Praise master book-reading race! Stay tuned for in detail Game of Thrones books vs show differences). James bled his way through the fight with the henchman in Casino and got battered and dusty in the desert in Quantum which stands in contrast to the ever-pristine Brosnan 007 who barely even sweated. It’s comforting then to see old-man Bond huff and puff through his lines on the mountain top. After the M bomb-shell in Skyfall and the threat of a new reboot not far away the chance of slipping the mortal coil is not inconceivable.

Referencing

There are several moments that mirror scenes from the previous films. Now I love a good reference (perhaps more than most). For instance, the classic trope of the “muscle” bad guy and the “smart” bad guy combo from in-series films such as The Spy Who Loved Me (Jaws and Stromberg) and out-series films like Raiders of the Lost Ark (Rene Belloq and the beefy-Nazi-from-the-plane-fight). However, there comes a point where it seems almost like lazy film making. Why do Bond and Q have to sit facing away from each other on a bench à la Q introduction in Skyfall? Is that dogma now? Do we meet new love-interests on trains purposefully now? Can villains only be revealed through hacker gimmicks on a (SONY) laptop?

Perhaps I’m being over-critical (I am). A friend of mine commented that the train scene is deliberately designed (and shot) to remind the viewer of Vesper and put them on edge; will 007 make the same mistake twice? “Make me disappear” likewise acts as a cheeky wink to the audience after the DB10 reveal in reference to the “Vanish” in Die Another Day (this thankfully relieved me of some of my gadget fears – it’s all just a tease; don’t worry).

Something more concerning though is Waltz’s (Blofeld’s??) line of “You came across me so many times yet you never saw me”. A well-orchestrated over-arching plot is a difficult thing to do right and it cannot be made up for after the fact. For example, the Marvel Cinematic Universe does well to plan ahead and tie the plot together throughout many films. On the other hand something that was not done well was J.K Rowling trying to shovel-in wand ownership and make the books retroactively align to that concept. I cannot say right now which Spectre will be. If there are genuine moments we can go back to in the previous films and say “Yes, I can see now this was actually Spectre” then this will be a tremendous bit of plotting. However, if we are now treated to flashbacks of re-shot scenes with Christophe Waltz now lurking in the shadows I will not be pleased.

Best Moment

Bond’s name on the war memorial. Gave me chills. A seriously good bit of cinematography.

-Norris

A final thought.

Andrew Scott given a split second looking evil? Really? Was there no one else to cast as the management level bad guy? I appreciate he fits the bill. I’d appreciate it even more if it’s a bait and switch and he turns out to be 006 or otherwise.

Battlefront - A New Hope Pt.1

Hopping admittedly a little late on the Battlefront news band-wagon (see - "I'll get round to it once work quiets down / I have some free time / hopefully it'll happen magically overnight without me having to put any actual effort into it") I thought I'd give you my two cents on the subject.

With the franchise now placed squarely on DICE's shoulders we have seen in the brief glimpses revealed so far considerable influence of the studio's style on the game. ("It's Battlefront Jim, but not as we know it" - that reference ought to rustle a few jimmies). DICE, known most prominently for the Battlefield series (yes AND Mirror's Edge; calm down) is familiar with how to handle a shooter. They've also gone out of their way to express their love for Star Wars as well. In fact, if you don't feel you haven't been beaten over the head with their efforts to quell the fear of the masses then please do let them know. I'd quite like to see the hope leave Patrick Bach's eyes when confronted with another salvo of "you've ruined my childhood". Jesting aside; DICE do seem to have gone to great lengths to make a video of them going to great lengths to make this an authentic Star Wars experience.

Enough sarcasm.

I do genuinely like DICE and appreciate the efforts they are going to.

Scene setting aside; I wanted to focus on a key area in this post rather than cover the topic as a whole.

TEAM SIZE

One of Battlefield's more contentious issues is the appropriate number of players to map size ratio. 64 player Operation-Locker-meets-rebel-base-on-Hoth would turn me off quicker than I turned off [insert film you love]. On the other hand you have the ghost town Bandar-Desert-meets-Tatooine-on-last-gen-only-with-a-Star-Destroyer-instead-of-an-AC130. There's a broad spectrum of spacing that DICE has really yet to nail. Which is why a 40-player max count strikes me as a decent proposal. 20 on 20 seems to me the perfect balance for objective gameplay whilst not jamming the map with Battle of Pelennor Fields levels of infantry. However, I have some concerns about the number of vehicles on the maps. From the short video we've seen of Walker Assault on Hoth there seem to be a large number of pilotable air vehicles comprising of X-Wings, TIE Figthers and Snow Speeders. This brings up another ratio I find critical to Battlefield enjoyment; vehicle:infantry.

I'll expand on that in two ways:

1) No matter how good you are as an individual solider; Battlefield games can normally be played out by numbers; with superior numbers normally trouncing skill. Anything that detracts from those numbers i.e. players in jets fighting their own separate fight from the rest of game detracts from useful infantry numbers on the ground.

2) In my opinion the best part of Battlefield is infantry combat supplemented by vehicle gameplay, The worst part is having the majority of players in vehicles necessitating playing as an Engineer to deal with this.

With fewer overall player count but a large ratio of available vehicles (specifcially air vehicles) to player count it seems we may fall in to another DICE regular issue of lots of irrelevant air battles with little objective focused ground gameplay (which itself will be dominated by the remaining land vehicles; AT-STs etc.).

I will add that this may be just a feature of the Hoth map. I can't imagine they'll be much air combat on Endor. Despite what I may wish DICE will still try to create a product that appeals to as many styles of gameplay as possible. Some people like the scenario I have described and even more so if it involves playing as a bad-ass TIE fighter swatting X-Wings out the air (or just flying around shooting so you can listen to that sweet, sweet laser sound effect). Having Hoth dedicated to appeasing those players whilst I and others enjoy infantry fights peppered with an AT-ST or two on Endor makes business sense.

- Norris.