New Star Wars Battlefront

[Dave]

Yeah, that's a pretty weak excuse.  There really isn't a story to this game to conflict with any canon.  You just go and shoot stuff in different OT-like environments.

Heck, Disney Infinities 3.0 lets you mash whatever players you want together without fear of "screwing with the canon".  My kids love to play the ToyBox setting and keep swapping in characters Anakin to Kylo Ren to Sabine to Yoda to Tinkerbell to Olaf to Chewie.  Maybe Disney should have made the different trilogy characters incompatible with each other...   

[JediJman]

Thanks for posting this.  The game doesn't have a first person storyline to follow, so they certainly could have just dedicated certain troops to certain locations and not allowed mixing.  There are added complexities with programming that though, and you immediately divide your players in half for multiplayer games.  Or worse yet, you have a much smaller subset of people trying to play prequel and they can't quickly find matchups, turning them off to the whole game.  There's probably enough hassle and potential problems for them to just decide to stick with OT for now, but it is curious.  If nothing else, they could beef up the maps to fit prequel environments.  It would be fun to play in a Kamino clone factory, the caverns of Geonosis, or the lava pits of Mustafar.

[Jesse James]

Yeah, that's a pretty weak excuse.

Indeed...  What exactly is the point there?  Is there now a canon battle on Tatooine?  And there will now be a canon battle on the Death Star (which I believe is one of the promised maps for expansion)?  Canon shouldn't have jack to do with a MP-only melee.

They could've just used OT characters and included a wide range of locations from the saga if they wanted to do it that way.  I mean, Rebels on the Death Star anyway?  Why not on Geonosis?  Or Coruscant?  Christophsis?  Illum mines?  Whatever.  Just make more maps available at launch and that alone would've improved the game a bit.

Still though, I played Titanfall this weekend for a lil over an hour...  It reminded me how much I hate the inability to reload on BF.  That adds, alone, a huge dynamic to gaming.  The "overheat" thing is just lame...  Hell, these guns HAVE magazines on them!  Troopers have extra mags even, in the films.  I can see extending a weapons capacity but taking that out completely is just a dismal choice.  Then I'm putting custom load-outs on my mechs because I suck, so I make "tanks"...  meanwhile the good players are using the nimble stuff and basically trying to snipe you or just run around too fast to kill, even in the nimble mech design.  But I was able to get in, have a positive k/d the whole time, and really kick some ass and even improve my score.  It felt great.  Didn't hurt that all the new content was free too, but it's an older game so neither here nor there on that.  It's just a slap in the face.

Like I'm amazed BF doesn't include Mos Eisley if you're going to be put on Tatooine...  How do you not include that?  Do you remember Tatooine for sand dunes, or do you remember it for the streets of Mos Eisley?  That's a big urban map right there, but they didn't do it.   

But anyway yeah, I was talking to someone in the industry, and his insight was interesting...  Like basically they glommed onto TFA's release, got the sales they wanted, and have abandoned the product (more or less).  They figure they'll get some residual and piss on those who drop off.  The problem being they've also killed some gamers from trusting them again, and who won't pay $60 for something out the gate just because of the "hype".  I can believe though that they're basically already moving onto "the next thing", and will limp BF along.  Plus now they have a lot less to mess with since it's just basically throwing together some maps and skins, and calling it "content". 

[77Skywalker]

I wouldn't say this game now ignored the prequels completely because just sometimes on the menu screen it plays the music heard in Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith when Obi-Wan Kenobi left for Utapau.

[Diddly]

New Update Launches Today:

Additional Content/Functionality
General: Jakku DLC Content is being patched into the game, downloading it separately via platform storefronts is no longer required and can be deleted from your hard drives
New Map: Twilight on Hoth added to Walker Assault, Supremacy, Turning Point, Blast, Fighter Squadron, Drop Zone, and Heroes vs. Villains
New Mission: Survival in the Ice Caves added to Survival Missions
Turning Point: Jundland Wastes, Forest of Endor, Outpost Beta, and SoroSuub Centroplex maps added to the playlist
Attract Mode: GNK Droid added - GONK!
Settings: Turning off music in the Sound menu now turns off music everywhere in the game
Settings: Added a Film Grain setting slider in the Video menu
Credits: Updated Game Credits list
Weapon and Star Card Changes
Primary Weapons: Damage against air vehicles increased by 10%
Bowcaster: Explosion damage increased from 10 to 15 per projectile and explosion radius decreased from 3 to 2.5m
Bowcaster: Full charge direct hit from 20 to 40 per projectile and a normal direct hit increased from 20 to 30 per projectile
Barrage: Damage increased from 50 to 55
Barrage: Cooldown reduced from 40 to 35s (normal) and from 35 to 30s (upgraded)
Barrage: First volley of grenades no longer disappear if the user uses the Refresh Power-up and then fires a second volley
Homing Shot: Lock time decreased from 1.5 to 1.2s
Homing Shot: Players in the AT-GAR turret now receive on-screen notification when locked on
ION Torpedo: Speed increased from 350 to 380m/s and turning angle increased from 120 to 125 in order to more easily hit air vehicles
Pulse Rifle: Movement speed while aiming decreased by 30%
Tusken Cycler Rifle: Movement speed while aiming increased by 40%
Tusken Cycler Rifle: Bullet speed increased from 300 to 450m/s
Orbital Strike: Fixed bug where it sometimes would not trigger on button press

Vehicle changes

A-Wing: Increased hit box size
A-Wing: Now properly takes damage when colliding with an AT-ST while having the Shield active
Slave I: Players can now see the Shield icon on Rebel vehicles when a Shield is active
AT-ST: T-47 Airspeeder kills with a missle while firing the primary cannons at the same time now properly awards a kill (previously registered as a suicide)
AT-AT: Fixed bug where the Orbital Strike ability would sometimes not have the aiming reticle move
T-47 Airspeeder: Players will no longer receive an out of bounds message on Graveyard of Giants during Turning Point when a control point is captured
Multiplayer Game Mode Changes
General: Pre-Round timer lowered from 30s to 20s
Walker Assault: Fixed Power-up spawns on SoroSuub Centroplex
Walker Assault: AT-AT health increased by 18% on Outpost Beta, 8% on Jundland Wastes, 20% on Forest of Endor, 4% on SoroSuub Centroplex, and 5% on Graveyard of Giants
Walker Assault: Spawning as an Imperial Hero after the AT-ATs just pass the second set of uplinks no longer despawns one of the AT-ATs
Walker Assault: The second AT-AT no longer bumps into the wreckage of the other on SoroSuub Centroplex when the first AT-AT is destroyed during the first Uplink
Droid Run: Correct Objective Notification is now displayed to all players if someone is killed while trying to claim the Droid
Droid Run: Improved spawn zones on Dune Sea Exchange
Supremacy: Fixed Power-up spawns on Jundland Wastes, Forest of Endor, and SoroSuub Centroplex
Supremacy: Improved spawn zones on Jundland Wastes, Outpost Beta, and Forest of Endor
Heroes vs. Villains: Planted turrets on Dune Sea Exchange will now disappear in-between rounds
Hero Hunt: Improved spawn zones on Ice Caves
Fighter Squadron: Players are now protected while spawning on Graveyard of Giants

Mission Changes

General: Both players will now properly see Charge Card pick-ups if Player One is using a 3rd Star Card Hand without a Charge Card
General: Player 2's changes to control settings no longer update Player 1's controls when playing Split-Screen
Battle: Fixed AI Spawn issues on Tatooine
Survival: Wave 10 on Sullust will now always spawn if the player / co-op team dies and restarts the round or if a player picks up a Collectible during the Wave 9 transition
Survival: Partner spawns on Sullust will no longer fail if the currently alive player is in a confined area
Survival: Co-Op players can now unlock the "Complete on Hard Difficulty without spending a life" if one player dies and then waits until the other player completes the wave so they get a free respawn
Hero changes
General: Heroes no longer get stuck in a stunned animation state
Princess Leia: Endor outfit updated - Congrats on completing the Lead the Rebellion challenge!
Princess Leia: Trooper Bane now only knocks back primary target, not nearby enemies
Luke Skywalker: Increased Saber Rush's damage against other Heroes from 2% to 6-8%
Luke Skywalker: Lightsaber swing hit radius is reduced from 0.3 to 0.25m
Han Solo: Zooming in no longer sometimes displays a gun scope
Emperor Palpatine's Shocktroopers: Modified primary weapon damage to match Leia's Honor Guards' primary weapon damage over time

Misc. Bug fixes

General: Lighting, textures, audio, user interface, text, and collision fixes
Controls: Legacy control schemes have had their layouts more clearly defined
Colorblind: Enemy players highlighted with Scan Pulse now have the correct Deuteranopia or Protanopia settings on Graveyard of Giants and Goazan Badlands
PC only: Fixed a bug where a player would lose functionality with an Xbox 360 controller after inviting a player to a Private Match and then starting the game
PC only: Air vehicle sensitivity lowered from 0.9 to 0.45 for easier mouse control
Achievements / Trophies: Updated text on "Impressive. Most Impressive." and "Survivor" to clarify the requirements
Achievements / Trophies: "Playing the Objective" now properly awarded

TL;DR: Just a new map, oh and you have to redownload the Battle of Jakku DLC if you got it back in December.

[Jesse James]

LOL @ this being "big news" for them.  So, so glad I walked away when I did.

[JediJman]

That's a lengthy list of changes for just a new map. Glad to see the homing shot time reduced - that may be worth using again.  This is a free update, right?  Not sure how other games handle this kind of stuff, but I'm happy to see any additional content or updates for free. 

[77Skywalker]

I'm currently downloading the update here.

[Diddly]

Outer Rim Pack Details Revealed

Basically, two new maps (Sullust Industrial Sector and Jabba's Palace) and Nien Nunb and Greedo are added to the hero characters.

[Diddly]

Battlefront 2 Coming in 2017

Next year we’ll see Star Wars battlefront back with bigger and better worlds, because we now have the new movies to work off of, not just the historical movies that we used before.

Yeah, because we saw SO much fighting between the Resistance ground soldiers and First Order Stormtroopers in TFA. They are absolutely determined to not have any sort of prequel content in these games. Ridiculous. I'll pick the sequel up when it hits the clearance shelf, where Battlefront has been since January.

[Jesse James]

The PT was warrin' and whorrin' but never borrin' as they say.  And to that end, they warred a lot.   It was about all that was great in it, to me.  Especially ROTS.

If it doesn't have a campaign it'll suck like this one did. 

On the flip side, I'm anxious for some Doom reviews, just haven't looked around to find them yet.  Might do that tonight.

[Nicklab]

Check out some of the EA Star Wars promo video that's come out in conjunction with the 2016 E3 show.

[Diddly]

The Season Pass DLC is now free if you're subscribed to Xbox Live Gold!