The game I chose for assignment 3 is Star Wars: Battlefront



Star Wars: Battlefront

For assignment 3, I had to change the given parameters slightly so I could complete the assignment. Since I am an Outreach student my “classmate” was my husband, and that’s where I ran into a little problem. Every game I know he already knows and often knows it better than me, so I decided he would teach me one of his games and I could write about learning the game.

I love Star Wars so the game I chose to learn was Star Wars: Battlefront. Star Wars: Battlefront is a hybrid between the first-person shooter and action-adventure genres. In Star Wars: Battlefront the player fights in various battles from the Star Wars saga. The objective of each battle in Star Wars: Battlefront is to capture all of the other side’s opponent’s command posts while defending your own command posts. You can choose to be a character from one of the four different factions found in the “prequel” and “classic” Star Wars movies.

From the “prequels” you can fight for either the Galactic Republic or the Confederacy of Independent Systems (also called the “Separists”). From the “classics” you can fight for either the Rebel Alliance or the Galactic Empire. Each faction has five different characters you can choose from. If you choose the Galactic Republic faction, you can be a Clone Trooper, Arc Trooper, Clone Pilot, Clone Sharpshooter or a Jet Trooper. If you choose the Confederacy of Independent Systems, you can be a Super Battle Droid, Assault Droid, Droid Pilot, Assassin DriodDroid, or a Droidekas. If you choose the Rebel Alliance, you can be a Rebel Soldier, Rebel Vanguard, Rebel Pilot, Rebel Marksman, or a Wookie Smuggler. Finally, if you choose the Galactic Empire, you be a Stormtrooper, Shock Trooper, Imperial Pilot, Scout Trooper, or a Dark Trooper. Each character has its own weapons, strengths, and weaknesses. Part of the enjoyability of the game is learning to play which character during which battle and learning how best to utilize each characters individual features.

One rule the developers of Star Wars: Battlefront enforced is that a faction can only fight its historical equivalent. So the Rebels can face off against the Empire, but the Rebels cannot battle the Confederacy of Independent Systems. According to Wikipedia () this constraint disappointed some players. However, I was happy the game makers included this rule. Part of my enjoyment of the game hinges on the game holding true to the story presented in the Star Wars movies. If the game suddenly contradicted the movies by allowing such a match up to occur, the game would have lacked its credibility and I would have felt cheated.

When the game loads, the player has the choice to choose from four different options. You can choose between the Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War Campaign, Galactic Contest, and Instant Action. In Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War Campaign, Galactic Contest the player must play certain battles in order. The ordering of the battles corresponds to the timeline laid out in the movies. After one battle is over, an appropriate scene from one of the movies is shown to help relate the battle to the timelines laid out in the movie. This type of cut scene is appropriate since it doesn’t take away control of the player’s characters but helps relate the battles back into the movies’ storyline.

With the Instant Action option, you can choose to fight any of the battles in any order. You aren’t restricted to following the movies’ timelines. I think this flexibility is an excellent feature of the game because a player might have a favorite battle he/she enjoys fighting and allowing the player to jump directly to that map without having to fight a bunch of different battles first is very enjoyable for that player (I know this because this is my husband’s favorite option, so he can keep repeating favorite battles).

When the Instant Action option is chosen, a screen comes up where you can choose which battle you want to fight in. There are 10 planets with a total of 16 different places to fight (termed “maps”). After you choose which maps you want to play, you load the game. While loading the map, the computer goes through a neat sequence of “zooming” into the place you selected. This sequence starts with a view of the universe, then slowly zooms into greater and great detail: first the planet level, then the “country” level, then to the actual map selected. I really liked this “zoom in” feature. It gives the player something to watch while the game is loading; instead of just sitting their watching a little progress bar slowly blinking across the screen. Once the game has loaded your map, you can choose which side you want to fight on and what character you want to be. Once you have made your selections, the battle begins.

I haven’t played any other game of the first-person shooter type so I can’t speak from first hand experience on how to compare this game to other games in its genre. However, I have watched my husband play Grand Theft Auto and I find Star Wars: Battlefront more enjoyable. I’m not a big fan of violence and Grand Theft Auto is extremely violent. For example, when you shoot someone in Grand Theft Auto blood starts squirting out and they stagger around before they fall dead. In Star Wars: Battlefront, when you shoot someone there isn’t any blood and they drop immediately and then fade away. I prefer the less violent nature of Star Wars: Battlefront.

I think the textbook has an excellent explanation of why Star Wars: Battlefront is so popular. As the textbook states on page 95, “One reason why games based on movie licenses have been so popular is that the exposition and character development has already happened in the players’ minds when they watch the movie, letting them dive right into choices in the game while benefiting from their emotional associations with the established character.” I think the reason most people play Star Wars: Battlefront is because they have an emotional connection with Star Wars, its universe, and its characters. People enjoy playing this game so they can be part of their beloved universe and experience the epic battles shown in the movies.

Computer technology definitely makes this game more enjoyable by providing a believable environment for the player to get absorbed in. The graphics allow the player to feel as if they are running through the forest of Endor or better yet commandeering and zipping around on an Imperial Speeder Bike. In single player mode, the AI did an excellent job of controlling the computer generated players, so you felt like you were a soldier on the battlefield and not just one person running around shooting things. With the computer generated characters, you actually felt like you working with other team members to capture the command posts.

Being a Star Wars fan, I enjoyed this game. It allowed me to become a part of the Star Wars universe and take part in the battles described in the books and the movies. Since I don’t play a lot of video games, I found this one surprisingly easy to learn. I did have two major difficulties while learning this game, but I quickly overcame them.

The first difficulty I had was learning to follow the map. The map is shown as a small circle on the left-hand lower corner of the screen. A large white arrow represents your location with red and green arrows representing the location of enemy and friendly players, respectively. Not being used to playing video games, I kept getting confused about what direction I was heading and usually wound up running in circles. I would also get stuck on top of walkways and couldn’t find my way off without jumping and taking hits to my health.

The second difficulty was getting used to using the left mouse button to fire my weapon. In the few games, I had played previously I was accustomedused to hitting the space bar to fire. With the initial set-up of the game, the space bar would cause the character to jump not fire. So in the beginning of the game, I often found myself standing in front of an enemy jumping up and down instead of firing. Needless to say, I usually wound up dead from this action. After several of my jumping-up-and-down-instead-of-firing fits, my husband taught me how to change which buttons controlled what. This was very easy to do. Once I got that changed, I least started firing back.

Although no fault of the game designer, I did get a little dizzy while playing the game. Sometimes the graphics were too realistic. As a result, that when I would spin around to shoot something behind me, I would get slightly nauseated. The game does give you the ability to go into third person view (perhaps to help with this sensation?) but that mode made the sensation worse so I quickly switched back to first person view.

After approximately 30 minutes of play, I began to get good enough to have fun at the game. I was able to fire my weapon and I even capture a couple of command posts! I like that the game automatically took care of trivial tasks for the player, such as automatically reloading your weapon once you ran out of ammo. Another fun aspect of this game was that each time you die (which is normally several timers per battle) you are taken back to the “character selection” screen. This feature allows you to choose a different character to play and you can even switch sides. This ability really keeps the game interesting and can add a lot of variety to the game play. If don’t like the character you are playing, you can easily switch. Another nice feature of the game is it allows you to turn on/off whether you can kill other players on your team (i.e. friendly fire). This was very helpful for a beginner because often I would line up my crosshairs on someone and in my exuberance fire before I realize I was shooting at a good guy. While this feature doesn’t prevent you from shooting at them, it does prevent you from killing a teammate.

I enjoyed learning this game. It was a fun chance to be able to immerse myself in the Star Wars universe and be a part of the battles from the movie. I came away with a greater understanding of what my husband and other players finds enjoyable in it.

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