With the Battlefront beta now closed I wanted to share a few
thoughts on what we have seen. It should go without saying but I’ll say it
anyway; a beta is a beta. Things will change before release. So take everything
with a pinch of salt and prepare for something that could be quite different
next month.
Firstly; HALLELUJAH! The “Active Reload” from Gears of War
makes a triumphant return. For the non-COGs; Active Reload makes a mini-game
out of reloading. When reloading an on-screen indicator slides down past a “sweet
spot” and if you press the right button in time the reload will finish
immediately allowing you to get back into the fight. Get it wrong and the
weapon will jam and make reloading longer than normal. It’s a brilliant and
simple risk / reward system that makes a normally mundane action an event in
itself. In Battlefront it’s more of an Active Vent than Active Reload as BF
features no ammunition. Much like turrets in most shooters all weapons function
on a heat up / cool down system meaning you can fire off consistent rapid
volleys given you’re good enough with chaining your Active Vents. I love this
system and honestly wish it was in every shooter. Bravo DICE!
Sniping is something I have a love / hate relationship with.
I get it; it is perhaps one of the most satisfying feelings you can get nailing
a long distance headshot and it does take skill to master. However, Battlefront’s
cousin Battlefield suffers from having sniping as a core class and rifle option
as snipers typically keep back from the core fight to make the most of their copes
rather than taking objectives.
Battlefront has taken a different, and in my opinion better, approach to
sniping; everyone can have a sniper rifle at any time! This initially sounds
like a terrible idea except that each shot is on a cooldown and takes away from
having another “hand” (Battlefront’s word for perk). Now everyone can get that
satisfaction of pulling off an excellent headshot but still needs to stay in
the action to make the most of it as the cooldown keeps them from bunkering
down and firing off round after round. The beta was a bit too over-run with
sniper rounds pinging overhead but I attribute this to the small number of
options for hands available. In the full game with a greater array of hands
there should be fewer players opting for the rifle in place of something else.
Battlefront operates a “buddy” system as an alternative to
squads as seen in Battlefield. You can spawn directly onto your partner as well
as share his primary hand if it isn’t already unlocked. The quick spawn onto
partner works nice as a substitute for the revive system (which I understand
will not be a part of Battlefront) and means you’re never too far away from
each other at any one time. This is an essential to success as Battlefront’s relatively
long time-to-kill means that an average player is unlikely to win in a 1v2
scenario. However, with “squading-up” absent from the game it makes it
difficult to play with more than one friend at a time as the UI does not
highlight friends / party members differently from other team members. This is something
I hope will be addressed in the full game.
Vehicles, along with every other object in the game, look
the part in Battlefront (I forget to mention that the game looks incredible with no exaggeration). They
do not play particularly well though. Air combat does not grant enough freedom
of movement in an attempt to make it accessible to all skill levels and ground
vehicles aim awkwardly. Thankfully these things are patch-able and I imagine
this feedback will be some of the loudest across the community. I cannot fault
those Tie Fighters though; audio masterpieces.
Overall I was impressed by Battlefront and am more confident
it will take a greater portion of my time in amongst Halo 5 and Fallout 4 when
it is released. Just a few more points as I am concise of TL;DR.
·
When hit character models flinch quite
drastically without changing the hit boxes. This can make target tracking
tricky and was an issue in Battlefield 3 and 4. The flinches were toned down in
both these games to accommodate this and I’m sure this will happen again for
Battlefront. Strange to see DICE make that mistake AGAIN though.
·
Like I said, Battlefront looks great with many
little touches and attention to detail that immerses you in the Star Wars
feeling. My personal favourite is the wiping transitions echoed from the original
trilogy that pushes the feeling of playing the films.
Thanks for reading. I’ll leave you with some quick clips I
took.
When chickens fly:
If anyone can figure out how I died here I'd love to know. Too much flair maybe?
Should have kept his back-plate in:
-Norris
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