Review: Revisiting a Bygone Era With ‘Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection’

It’s 2024 and I’ve played the original again. Star Wars: Battlefront games. Like many others, I have fond memories of the original. battle front games. My older brother and I spent many mornings and evenings huddled around a CRT television, playing battle front 1 and 2 in the dark on a PlayStation 2, screaming with excitement.

This year, Aspyr has brought back these two classic games and made them available to a newer audience with the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection. Returning to these games today is like traveling back in time to a simpler time. For those who wish to revisit these old memories, the games have been preserved just as you remember them. But for those who have never played these games, or are more used to modern, mainstream shooters, these games are a bit strange. Either way, Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection It’s worth a look, both as a fan of the series and as a historical artifact.

Even though the games are already 20 years old, they feel older than that. I haven’t played them since they first came out, but using them again today, especially the first one, may take some getting used to. To begin with, the control system is not typical of modern shooters. There is no updated standard control setup that applies to both games. The standard controls of the first game have plenty of aiming assist and sticky crosshairs. Hit detection can be very off, with some force abilities or lightsaber hits appearing to be connected but aren’t. And some game modes last much longer than the typical aura either Obligations Much more agile matches.

But really, that should be expected from games of this era. At the time, Obligations had not become the large and influential shooter giant that it is today. And multiplayer shooters like aura and Battlefield They were still finding their footing, discovering what kind of gameplay styles and mechanics their audiences enjoyed the most. battle front is in the same boat and the developers are still figuring out what makes a competitive shooter fun.

Actually, the best part about these games is the number of features. Both battle front games – especially Battlefront II – has a lot of single-player content that is still pretty impressive. The most notable feature is “Galactic Conquest”. But also consider that Battlefront II — which only came out a year after the original battle front – was able to add heroes vs. villains, space battles, and refine the shooting mechanics, removing stick reticles to make combat more fluid. There are many things here. For those not interested in playing online multiplayer, these games have a lot to offer in terms of single-player campaigns that can be fun to play and replay, whether alone or with a friend. And how crazy is it that co-op/versus modes in a shooter are something I’d praise a game for in 2024?

Again, this aspect of battle front The games are emblematic of the era in which these games were created. Nowadays, game developers spend a lot of time balancing, fine-tuning, and making sure the multiplayer experience is fluid, frenetic, and fast. But back then, developers working on shooters placed much more emphasis on the single-player experience, offering players game modes that could entertain them for hours. That’s not to say that modern shooters don’t have great story-driven experiences, they still do. But it’s refreshing to see how much content was offered for those who didn’t want to go online.

There are some changes in the Battlefront Classic Collection that were not in the original. They include additional characters like Asajj Ventress and Kit Fisto that weren’t in the original release, or the additional trigger resistance feature for PlayStation 5. This is a feature I don’t like. For those playing on PlayStation 5, note that the game creates some resistance on the right trigger, making it harder to pull, emulating the feeling of firing a real gun. As cool as it is, it also wears out your index finger very quickly.

At the time of writing, the online servers have not been opened to the public. I can’t comment on the multiplayer experience yet, but I will in a later article.

For those who collect Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, I recommend approaching it as if it were a historical artifact. There’s a lot here that may seem “old” or “dated,” but it also shows how far gaming has come. It’s a window into a different era of gaming where “fun” was still paramount and when game studios were more generous with their offline content.

thanks to I aspire for the advanced review copy used in the preparation of this article. Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection is available on March 14 for Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam, PlayStation 5PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.