Yesterday, on the 15th the multiplayer and co-op gameplay was just released for Star Wars Battlefront. This is a kind of up date on my pre-order problem blog from a few days ago. I said that we haven't actually seen any gameplay of Battlefront but they are still asking you to buy it, based on what they promise they are going to do. I still believe pr-ordering is stupid, but I was tempted to myself when I saw the footage. It looks amazing. I can tell this is going to be a great year for gaming. I havn't seen the co-op gameplay yet but the multiplayer is the only reason we play Dice games anyway. And it looks like a classic Battlefield game but in the Star Wars universe, beautiful.
The battle took place on Hoth, the only map anyone played on the previous Battlefront games, of course, because of the AT-ATs. Not only does it look like a battlefield game but it also looks like a battlefront game (confusing names!), as if they were mushed together in a gamers dream. It started with the player running through the original, underground rebel ice base, and coming to the entrance of a hanger. The sun glares outside, too bright to see anything. A succession of turbo-laser fire and explosion follows, an then a raid from some Imperials. The player then runs outside, to see a huge landscape covered with huge battles. AT-ATs and AT-ST roam around, troops from both sides charge at each other and tie fighters and x-wings dogfight over head, while a couple of Star Destroyers loom in the distance. The trailer is too long to explain all, but everything is dead on to the Star Wars theme, the sounds, the look, the fear as you notice the ground tremble and look up to find a AT-AT striding over you.
The footage showed gameplay from the AT-AT, the camera positioned- like the originals- above it's head, but switching to underneath when the player switched weapons. There was Snow Speeder gameplay, using the cable to trip up the walker, which switched to a nice exterior view like the originals, so you could easily see what your were doing. What is nice, is they seem to have kept a lot of gameplay mechanics from Battlefront 1 and 2, giving it a very nostalgic feel. One of the best moments was a first-person dogfight in a Tie fighter against an X-Wing, as the Tie chased the rebel through a succession of winding canyons, the dual lasers sputtering green plasma into the rear of the X-wing. The whole gameplay had a very Star Warsy feel and I think Battlefront fans will be very happy. That's all I can say for now, here's the trailer: