Star Wars Battlefront 2: First Impressions
My first impression is that SWBF2 is that it's worth updating to. I was only able to briefly run a training mission and a few multiplayer missions, but they were a blast. I'm not sure what the trigger condition was, but sometime during gameplay, I was allowed to switch my character to Darth Maul, and that's when the fun started. As the dreaded Sith, I was able to chew through enemy forces like a hot knife through butter, recharging my health from the little heath canisters of the enemies I killed. I can't wait to see how the game handles the clash of Jedi vs. Sith.
SWBF2 is just like the original, only more so ;-) You still blast your way from CP to CP, capturing them along the way. The gameplay is still pretty simple, and there really isn't much strategy involved. Single player mode still seems pretty pointless, leaving all of the fun in multi-player mode. In short, this game is great for LAN parties, but will probably get old fast if you play at home too much. If that sounds like a review for the original Battlefront, it isn't an accident.
I haven't gotten a chance to try the much anticipated space battles, but if they are as good as the rest of the game, they will be fun. I also haven't yet checked to see if it works in LAN party mode (shared CD). If anyone has tried it that way, let me know.
Here's the big fly in the ointment: I can't seem to get it to play more than a few levels before it crashes to Windows. Once this happens, I have to reboot the machine before I can play again. If I don't figure the problem out, and if others have the same problem, the game will be unplayable at LAN parties.
UPDATE:
I did get around to playing the space battle missions. They are a really nice addition to the game that folks at LAN parties tend to have a blast with. When I first introduced them to my friends, they all raved about haow much fun they had.
I found out what was causing the game to crash to Windows. The whole problem was caused by the fact that I was running the game on a dual-core processor. Apparently, someone at LucasArts/Microsoft needs a remedial course in multi-threaded programming. The game runs fine if you use the task manager to limit the game to a single CPU. If you are running a dual-core system and having problems with it, check out Microsoft's instructions for setting processor affinity. That should get you back up and running.