Star Wars Battlefront II is a great sequel to a wonderful game. Numerous game balance issues have been remedied, and new features bring interesting challenges.

First, the basic premise. This game is all about massive scale battles on pretty much any location thought of in the Star Wars universe. You can run around the streets of Tattoine, jumping from sandstone building to building, mowing down rebel forces. You can explore Hoth, fighting off the snow. Even the meteorite featured for a few seconds when Padme gave birth is here.

With this wealth of locations, you also get a huge selection of unit types. There are traditional stormtroopers, snowtroopers, sandtroopers. You get jawas and tuskan raiders. You can even play as a jedi for a short period of time, to give your team an edge.

There are all sorts of game modes to play in. There's Galactic Conquest which gives you a giant galaxy map of the planets, and you move fleets of ships across them, taking on one planet at a time. Your aim of course is to take them all over. There's cool games like capture the flag and hunt, for quick, fun gameplay.

I love the fact that the world is so in depth. For example, you can be flying your shuttle in space, dodging laser bullets from other ships, with a planet spinning below. If you fly your shuttle into an enemy ship, you can actually hop out and start running around IN the ship, shooting out the troops. You can even attack the systems of the ship - like the shields and engines - to damage the ship. In the background you can see other battles going on, giving your actions an epic feel.

It's important to note that this is not an EASY game. There is a lot to learn here. You can switch characters on the fly, earn points to unlock items, earn bonusses mid-game to upgrade weapons, and much more. It's really key to do the training missions and understand how this all works.

The graphics are really stunning. The textures on the building, the character models, the general look and feel of each world, was clearly done with an eye to detail. The sound is equally good, providing the original sound styles from the Star Wars world to draw you in to the environment.

Highly, highly recommended!

Rating: 5/5

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