Star Wars: Battlefront wants you to believe you're in a Star Wars flick, only at middle it'south one of the video-game-iest video games I've played in ages. This is the source of both its greatest triumphs and its worst failures.

Also read: Star Wars Battlefront: Graphics & CPU Benchmarks

Star Wars: Battlefront is a large-scale multiplayer shooter loosely fix during the original movie trilogy. You can fight equally Rebels confronting Imperial walkers on Hoth. You can effort to defeat Rebels on Endor with your swain Stormtroopers. You lot can fight as Princess Leia against Boba Fett on Tatooine. It is, for the most part, a multiplayer outset-person shooter with the sights and sounds of George Lucas originals. Matches tin can comprise up to 40 players, and at whatever given moment they might be diggings each other with laser weapons, riding effectually in land vehicles, or flight classic ships. The upshot is sheer, unbridled anarchy—but information technology'due south wearing a Star Wars Halloween costume.

Like many other people between the ages of 0 and 21,547, I grew up with Star Wars. I watched the original trilogy, I played games similar Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire and Star Wars: Jedi Knight, and I bought action figures past the bantha-load. Despite capturing Star Wars' iconic expect better than whatsoever game before it, Battlefront reminds me most of that last thing—of sitting in my room while my imagination spirited my activity figures off to some other milky way.

Battlefront is a patently ridiculous game. During one of my get-go matches, I witnessed a Tie fighter fall out of the sky and explode at my feet in a way that was more slapstick comedy than cinematic intergalactic warfare. And so I got bulldozed by hunched, sagging skin sack Emperor Palpatine, who suddenly became sprightly plenty to pull off a tornado tackle that resembled 1000. Bison'due south psycho crusher from Street Fighter. I nonetheless scissure up every single time I meet or perform that attack.

In stills, Battlefront looks so much similar Star Wars that information technology'due south eerie. In motion, it's arcade-y, oftentimes hilarious. Seriously, I haven't laughed then much while playing a multiplayer game perhaps ever. Battlefront is, at times, a goddamn drawing. Corpses soar and tumble through the air like dolphins briefly freed from the shackles of cruel gravity. Cherished Star Wars characters like Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo regularly fall off cliffs and bungle big moments. Spaceships clumsily crash into each other seconds later taking off with a bang-up of grandiose music in their wake.

I oft find myself watching these moments unfold and creating a comical alternate Star Wars canon. "Call up that time Han Solo ambushed and killed Darth Vader while he seemed chronically intent on hurling his lightsaber at the basis? Retrieve when a unmarried, valiant rebel soldier punched an AT-AT until it died? Remember when Princess Leia ended up trapped on Hoth with seven tempest troopers, and they fought to the expiry countless times, just to never truly die? Recollect when they figured out they were trapped in some bleak purgatory?"

In curt, here is what Battlefront wants to exist:

Hither is what Battlefront ofttimes is:

Some modes lend themselves amend to reveling in wild Star Wars "what if" scenarios. Supremacy is all-out twoscore-player warfare on land and heaven with any role player assuming the roles of heroes similar Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader if they pick up a temporary ability-up. If you want the Battlefront feel distilled, it'due south great—albeit sometimes frustrating because of how often you lot'll die in the chaos. Walker Assault is an inspired spin on that formula, giving the rebels and imperials different objectives with tremendous cinematic heft. Imperials have to guard a massive AT-AT equally it advances on a rebel base of operations, and rebels take to battle back while securing uplinks and calling in bombing runs. For the rebels, the odds experience overwhelmingly against them (and to an extent, they are), but it captures what the rebels were actually dealing with in Star Wars so well.

You become some specially bully character moments in a couple more intimate modes: Heroes vs Villains and Hero Hunt. The former is a adequately straightforward small battle of heroes and infantry, while the latter sees one role player presume the role of a hero while seven others hunt them downwards. Whoever gets the kill becomes the hero next. As a result, you get these frantic showdowns with characters similar Luke and Leia. Sometimes players are desperate but wily—using every trick in the book to prolong the hunt. Other times, Han Solo strafes futily in the snow in a way that makes information technology await like he's dancing, and anybody laughs themselves into a blackout while blasting him to smithereens.

If yous're looking for a perfect, serious recreation of Star Wars' most epic battles, all of this might upset you. Battlefront is, sometimes, the Jar-Jar Binks of Star Wars games. It's got out-of-place comedy in spades. Information technology can be really, really dumb. Strangely, though, that'due south endeared it to me in a big mode. I call up it's because, for me, in that location are two versions of Star Wars: what I saw on screens and what played out in the theater in my head while playing with activeness figures. The former was chiliad and ballsy and scored by John Williams, sure, only the latter was even more vast in telescopic, apparently hilarious, and—most importantly—mine. On reflection, I realize the latter is likewise the source of almost of my Star Wars nostalgia. Star Wars is great not because of the characters, the plot, the abysmal barrels of merchandise, or everyone'due south favorite part of all, Hayden Christensten. It's not bad because information technology throws the imagination into overdrive. Information technology'due south a universe of possibility, and we get to ain what we imagine.

Unlike my halcyon action figure escapades, however, Battlefront has limits, and they're quite circumscribed. Even its best moments are ephemeral and, at worst, forgettable. For all its interlocking parts, Battlefront is not a particularly circuitous game. There are nine main multiplayer modes, but only a few amount to more simplistic close quarters shooting—the sort of thing that's been done better in other games, that doesn't really benefit from having Star Wars attached. The modes I listed before? Good, but ultimately repetitive. Some of the others, like Driblet Zone and Cargo? They're essentially king of the hill and capture the flag, except kinda irksome because Battlefront'southward infantry combat is so unproblematic—meant more for massive battles than intricate small-scale engagements.

Shooting has a nice weight to it, but many guns—which you unlock past playing matches, earning in-game currency, and ranking up—experience similar. Information technology'southward prissy that, so far, there don't appear to be whatever hugely overpowered weapons, but at that place aren't many guns that are super interesting or unique either. Unfortunately, you offset out with inappreciably anything equipment-wise, and unlocking the coolest stuff (ex: jetpacks) takes forever. It's irritating. Even slightly better starting gear would've been much appreciated. Similarly, the flying model for the few ships in the game is simplistic and a bit wonky. Removed from larger battles—for instance, in a mode dedicated to aerial battles—ships aren't all that fun to fly. Battlefront is definitely more the sum of its parts; it needs those parts working in conjunction to be truly standout.

Even then, information technology becomes repetitive fairly quickly. For every moment where Princess Leia steals her blood brother's kill of their jerk-ass dad, there are tens of typical shootouts with the samey weapons, confusing deaths amongst abiding anarchy, and scenarios other shooters have done better. This isn't helped past the relatively small number of levels. Technically speaking, there are only four locations, but they change size and layout depending on what mode you're playing and how many players there are.

Yet, you lot'll come beyond similar landmarks a lot of the time, and before long Hoth'south hangar, Endor's tree fort, and Tatooine's tarps and crates volition experience clumsily familiar. It doesn't assistance that some levels are markedly more varied than others. Endor levels tend to accept alternate routes and vertical paths in spades, regardless of size. They're also visually breathtaking, teeming with greenery and life. Dark, lava-filled Sullust levels, past contrast, are mechanically bland when they're small, and they're still only so-so when expanded. Their visual palette, meanwhile, inspires very piffling of the imagination and excitement I go from running around in other Star Wars locations.

It must be noted that Star Wars: Battlefront has a $50 flavor pass, and it definitely feels like a strangely modest $60 game designed to be fleshed out with more than stuff. Possibly, in that respect, it'southward a fleck of a contemptuous enterprise, given how rabidly people adore Star Wars. Don't get me wrong: what's there already is solid, and information technology's kept me entertained for tens of hours. But I'm already starting to go bored, and I experience similar—given the sheer joy in experiencing all these foreign, hilarious moments with Star Wars characters and locales—even a little more initial variety would've gone a long mode.

Even Battlefront'south balance issues come from its wedlock to Star Wars. There are cool, thematically appropriate things like the Walker Assault mode I mentioned before, but you lot've also got to fence with issues similar the fact that Storm Troopers—clad in armor white as the driven snow—are easy targets against Endor's green backdrops. On Hoth, meanwhile, they blend in virtually likewise well. Again, it makes sense in the context of the setting, but it can abound frustrating over time.

Battlefront as well has a few single player battles and survival runs, only they're not particularly noteworthy. This is a multiplayer game through and through, and glorified AI bot matches merely don't live up to the spectacular lunacy of games with and against real people. If yous don't programme to play this game with other people, it's simply not worth your time.

Star Wars: Battlefront is a game that'due south helped me better empathise where my own Star Wars nostalgia came from. I remember, when the start Force Awakens trailer came out and everyone was talking about how information technology made them cry, I found it hard to muster any real emotion. Battlefront has given me moments that fabricated me express mirth until tears streamed out of my eyes. It's given me tales of victory and loss, bohemian storm troopers 360 headshotting Luke Skywalker while (presumably) shouting, "Yippee ki yay, motherfucker!" and winning the mean solar day in the most un-Star-Wars ways imaginable. It'due south taken me back to my time inventing goofy, implausible Star Wars stories with action figures—things I fully acknowledge were dumb and terrible, but too mine.

Battlefront is not the best game e'er, and it'south certainly not the best shooter ever. To summit information technology off, I'thousand worried about its ability to keep people entertained long-term, something crucial for a salubrious multiplayer game. But there's a feeling of childlike joy to playing information technology and thinking almost it. I have a weird relationship with it, in that respect. I can tenuously recommend information technology right now, but maybe I won't feel that style after more time passes, after I've exhausted its core combat loop. For now, though, I feel like Battlefront is a game I will probably not go dorsum to regularly, but when I want some silly, Star-Wars-flavored fun, I'll be happy to take it waiting on my hard drive.