Level Up: Star Wars Battlefront Beta
By Samual Cale on November 01, 2015 from Level Up
Recently, Electronic Arts released an open beta of their new game, Star Wars Battlefront. It was only for next gen consoles and PC. I say was because the beta is over. The full game will be released on November 17, and I look forward to it. I found in the short time that the beta was available that it was a very pleasing experience.
Gameplay was relatively simple in Star Wars Battlefront beta. There were only three game modes available, two of which were multiplayer, the other single player or co-op. I spent most of my time doing the multiplayer, as it was very fast paced and interesting.
The game is primarily about the Rebels fighting the Imperials. In multiplayer, the game mode that was recommended for new players 
was called Drop Zone and involved two teams of eight. The objective was to capture the most crashed escape pods before time ran out. Most matches lasted about ten minutes, maybe a little less.
was called Drop Zone and involved two teams of eight. The objective was to capture the most crashed escape pods before time ran out. Most matches lasted about ten minutes, maybe a little less.
The second multiplayer game mode, my personal favorite, was called Walker Assault. The teams each had twenty players, and the objective was for the Rebels to stop the advance of the Imperial AT-AT walkers, while the Imperials defended the AT-ATs. This battle was set at the famous assault on the Rebel base on Hoth the snow planet. To damage the walkers, Y-wing bombers had to disable their defenses. To make the Y-wings more effective, the Rebels had to activate uplink stations while the Imperials tried to deactivate them.
For the Rebels to win, they had to work together and focus their attacks on the AT-ATs while they were vulnerable. On either faction vehicles were available. The Imperials had different variations of TIE fighter as well as small AT-ST walkers, while the Rebels had a few different fighters. You could also play as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader if you got lucky, at which point it really took a lot of damage to stop you, and you could defeat most enemies with a single swing. These matches usually took about fifteen to twenty minutes.
The single player/ co-op game mode was known as Survival. You played as a Rebel on Tataooine, and your objective was to hold out against increasingly difficult waves of storm troopers. This game was fairly straightforward and altogether not much of a challenge.
As one can expect in a beta, there weren't very many different weapons. There were four primary weapons, one special weapon, two different grenades, and a few active abilities, the most notable of which being personal shields and a jump pack. This doesn't account for pickups, which there are many of. Pickups range from something as small as a landmine to something as devastating as calling in an orbital strike wherever you want. I think that pickups really added to the game.
I really liked the Star Wars Battlefront beta, and rate it at eight out of ten. I found the graphics to be decent, and the gameplay mostly pleasing, except for the occasional bad spawn point. I hope that the full game being released in November will be even better than the beta, and that what few problems were encountered in the beta are fixed in the full release.
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