Star Wars: Battlefront II

"I think the game I like best in the Star Wars universe was Battlefront II. It just had such a unique approach to a class-based third-person shooter."

- Lasercorn's opinion on Battlefront II

Star Wars: Battlefront II is a Star Wars game featured on Why We're Single, Raging Bonus, Backseat Gaming, Smosh Games Review and Smosh Games VS.

Information
Star Wars: Battlefront II is a 2005 first- and third-person shooter game based on Star Wars, developed by Pandemic Studios and published by LucasArts. The second game in the Battlefront series and a sequel to 2004's Star Wars: Battlefront, it features new vehicles, characters, game mechanics, maps, and missions than the original. Unlike its predecessor, Battlefront II features a more narrative-based campaign, retelling portions of the Star Wars story from the point of view of a veteran Imperial stormtrooper, reminiscing about his tour of duty in service of both the Galactic Republic and as part of the Galactic Empire. Gameplay additions include the use of Jedi, additional game modes, and objective-based space battles.

Battlefront II was well-received and, like the original, a commercial success. Unfortunately, Electronic Arts, the gaming publisher that currently holds the rights to the Battlefront series, ceased support for the game in July 2014 after an extended two-month period. The Windows version was added to a list of supported games on GameRanger on May 31, 2014, which allows for continued online play.

Gameplay
Battlefront II is fundamentally similar to its predecessor with the addition of new gameplay mechanics. The general objective in most missions is to eliminate the enemy faction. The game is split into two eras: the Clone Wars, with battles taking place between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and the Galactic Civil War, with battles taking place between the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire. Players can choose between six classes during gameplay. Four class types are common to all factions: infantry, heavy weapon, sniper and engineer. In addition to these, each faction has two unique classes which unlock by scoring a predetermined number of points. For the Rebellion, the Bothan Spy and the Wookiee; for the Empire, The Officer and The Dark Trooper; for the Republic, the Commander and the Jet Trooper; and for the CIS, the Magnaguard and the Droideka.

The game also features heroes, a special class that allows the player to control iconic characters from the Star Wars universe, which serves as a bonus to players and unlockable by meeting certain criteria. In addition to utilizing heroes in Conquest matches, the game also featured a Hero Assault mode in which heroes were pitted against villains in a team deathmatch format, as well as several other game modes, such as Hunt Mode, Capture the Flag, and XL.

Reception
Battlefront II was very well-received and sold well, having been listed as the second most-played Xbox title in 2007, and placed third in 2008. In 2009 it reclaimed second place once more.

The game was praised not only for having a much more engaging single-player storyline, but also for fixing many of the issues that plagued the original. Reviewers noted a slight improvement in AI intelligence and praised new varied objectives to obtain victory. Some felt that the upgrades from the original were not enough to merit the price.