The Battlefront Rages On
We go hands-on with Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron and offer up single- and multi-player impressions.
Published: September 13, 2007
It's a safe bet that nobody at LucasArts knew what they had on their hands with the Star Wars: Battlefront series until a massive fanbase descended on the franchise to make it the most popular in the publisher's history. Oh, sure they had to know that they had a good game; blending the capture-and-hold dynamic of the Battlefield series with the Star Wars mythos is just about as sure a thing as you could hope for, but whether or not it would actually catch on is another story entirely. Well, it did. Big time
With original developer Pandemic now off making their own games for next-gen platforms, however, LucasArts turned to UK-based Rebellion and their Asura Engine to craft the second PSP game. As it turns out, Renegade Squadron will be appearing only on the PSP, which gave Rebellion plenty of time to tweak the game to best fit handhelds.
For the most part, our time with the game was rather familiar; you still spawn in bases all across the various planets of the Empire, but this time you'll do it offline as a member of Han Solo's Renegade Squadron, a group culled together to disrupt the Empire's operations in a more guerilla style. This means not only plenty of variety in locales, but the need for a well-rounded loadout that can be customized for every situation.
Customization is one of the core focal points of the game; allowing you to unlock and mix/match tons of different races, bodies, heads (yes, you can have Ackbar's head on a Storm Trooper's body if you'd like) and so on, even going so far as to add specific color palettes to parts. The real depth, though, lies in the weapons. Because each player can only carry a loadout worth 100 points, a bit of a balancing act has to take place. Do you strip down to nearly nothing in order to have top speed, throw on a couple of boosts to give you faster running and capture abilities, or do you go the heavy weapons route, becoming a bullet sponge with a mini-gun meant to put the hurt on approaching enemies, or do you throw on a stealth suit, grab a standard blaster and head for the flag capture point without being seen?
All of these things and plenty of variants of them, plus more can all be set (and saved, by the way) to customize how you attack a particular level. With two banks of primary weapons, a handful of explosives, special weapons like a orbital strike and an automatic turret or accessories like a jet pack, plus special power-ups that boost your heath or capture speed or overall running speed, plus boosts that give your teammates better accuracy or refill their health or abilities that lower the enemy's, the options are numerous. With the quick save slots, you also have the ability to change up your strategy on the fly, repelling enemies one second and dashing to capture points the next.
Capturing points on any given map is not only good for getting you points that can put you at the top at the end of the round, but it allows your team to refill ammo, change their loadout, get health back and man any emplacements that might be around. None of this will surprise those that played the games before, but it's nice to know that no matter how much things change, the core of the game is still every bit as good as before.
We took the game through its paces for the first few levels, and were treated to a nice bit of hand-holding through a basic tutorial that outlined all the things we mentioned above; different loadouts and their points values, the strategy in capturing points on the map, and most importantly what weapons do the best damage against different vehicles. It doesn't really pay to try to take out a tank with a standard weapon, which is why a rocket launcher is preferred, though equipping heavy arms will likely push you over the point total, so swapping things around is definitely smart.
It's even more important online, but only because the flow of battle is constantly changing. We got a chance to test out the new Hero Capture the Flag mode, where if you grab a flag and return it, you become a hero from the Star Wars mythos. The rush we had after jumping into Mace Windu's shoes to take down a walker with just a lightsaber was one of the coolest moments we'd had with the series, and it adds a whole new dynamic to CTF matches because of how strong Yoda or Mace or Dooku can have when they're throwing lightning or lightsabers around and slashing enemies up with just one or two hits.
Online games are made up of up to 16 player matches (don't worry, if you can't find anyone, the server will fill in bots for you), supports Infrastructure and Ad-Hoc play (though that is limited to only eight players) and lets your track some of your base stats in the web with the integrated GameSpy features. Thanks to the inclusion of all that customization, the returning CTF, Conquest (capture-and-hold) and Space Assault Modes (which now allow you to go into and capture capital ships and space stations like the console versions), and the game's hardcore fanbase, this is indeed a game worth getting psyched about.
In fact, it's probably more accessible than before thanks to a more PSP-focused control scheme; gone are the days of trying to use the imprecise face buttons to line up a shot. Now, you simply hold the R Button until the reticle locks in on a player. To keep this from being abused, any player can break a lock simply by holding the Circle Button and moving in a direction with the analog nub. Getting into a heated match with multiple characters that know how to roll around and reacquire shots made for an insanely fun head-to-head match.
The only real concern we had with the game (and it was a final build, so it's not likely to be fixed when the game ships next month) is the framerate. The game is almost universally choppy, and it can be a little rough when trying to aim, but other than that, the game packs more than enough oomph to keep PSP owners happy for weeks. We'll have the full review soon, so check back often.
With original developer Pandemic now off making their own games for next-gen platforms, however, LucasArts turned to UK-based Rebellion and their Asura Engine to craft the second PSP game. As it turns out, Renegade Squadron will be appearing only on the PSP, which gave Rebellion plenty of time to tweak the game to best fit handhelds.
For the most part, our time with the game was rather familiar; you still spawn in bases all across the various planets of the Empire, but this time you'll do it offline as a member of Han Solo's Renegade Squadron, a group culled together to disrupt the Empire's operations in a more guerilla style. This means not only plenty of variety in locales, but the need for a well-rounded loadout that can be customized for every situation.
Customization is one of the core focal points of the game; allowing you to unlock and mix/match tons of different races, bodies, heads (yes, you can have Ackbar's head on a Storm Trooper's body if you'd like) and so on, even going so far as to add specific color palettes to parts. The real depth, though, lies in the weapons. Because each player can only carry a loadout worth 100 points, a bit of a balancing act has to take place. Do you strip down to nearly nothing in order to have top speed, throw on a couple of boosts to give you faster running and capture abilities, or do you go the heavy weapons route, becoming a bullet sponge with a mini-gun meant to put the hurt on approaching enemies, or do you throw on a stealth suit, grab a standard blaster and head for the flag capture point without being seen?
All of these things and plenty of variants of them, plus more can all be set (and saved, by the way) to customize how you attack a particular level. With two banks of primary weapons, a handful of explosives, special weapons like a orbital strike and an automatic turret or accessories like a jet pack, plus special power-ups that boost your heath or capture speed or overall running speed, plus boosts that give your teammates better accuracy or refill their health or abilities that lower the enemy's, the options are numerous. With the quick save slots, you also have the ability to change up your strategy on the fly, repelling enemies one second and dashing to capture points the next.
Capturing points on any given map is not only good for getting you points that can put you at the top at the end of the round, but it allows your team to refill ammo, change their loadout, get health back and man any emplacements that might be around. None of this will surprise those that played the games before, but it's nice to know that no matter how much things change, the core of the game is still every bit as good as before.
We took the game through its paces for the first few levels, and were treated to a nice bit of hand-holding through a basic tutorial that outlined all the things we mentioned above; different loadouts and their points values, the strategy in capturing points on the map, and most importantly what weapons do the best damage against different vehicles. It doesn't really pay to try to take out a tank with a standard weapon, which is why a rocket launcher is preferred, though equipping heavy arms will likely push you over the point total, so swapping things around is definitely smart.
It's even more important online, but only because the flow of battle is constantly changing. We got a chance to test out the new Hero Capture the Flag mode, where if you grab a flag and return it, you become a hero from the Star Wars mythos. The rush we had after jumping into Mace Windu's shoes to take down a walker with just a lightsaber was one of the coolest moments we'd had with the series, and it adds a whole new dynamic to CTF matches because of how strong Yoda or Mace or Dooku can have when they're throwing lightning or lightsabers around and slashing enemies up with just one or two hits.
Online games are made up of up to 16 player matches (don't worry, if you can't find anyone, the server will fill in bots for you), supports Infrastructure and Ad-Hoc play (though that is limited to only eight players) and lets your track some of your base stats in the web with the integrated GameSpy features. Thanks to the inclusion of all that customization, the returning CTF, Conquest (capture-and-hold) and Space Assault Modes (which now allow you to go into and capture capital ships and space stations like the console versions), and the game's hardcore fanbase, this is indeed a game worth getting psyched about.
In fact, it's probably more accessible than before thanks to a more PSP-focused control scheme; gone are the days of trying to use the imprecise face buttons to line up a shot. Now, you simply hold the R Button until the reticle locks in on a player. To keep this from being abused, any player can break a lock simply by holding the Circle Button and moving in a direction with the analog nub. Getting into a heated match with multiple characters that know how to roll around and reacquire shots made for an insanely fun head-to-head match.
The only real concern we had with the game (and it was a final build, so it's not likely to be fixed when the game ships next month) is the framerate. The game is almost universally choppy, and it can be a little rough when trying to aim, but other than that, the game packs more than enough oomph to keep PSP owners happy for weeks. We'll have the full review soon, so check back often.