Battlefront II - EA and DICE versus the Dark Side

First official patch notes:

Seems the patch has broken all star cards along with people now receiving ZERO end of match credits. I can sense the pride and accomplishment in this patch… GJ DICE.

Game fixed - everyone is on equal footing in-game now. Except now no-one wants to play without their cards. ;)

Gamespot finilized their review. 6/10

This bit:

Recently, EA removed all microtransactions from the game, and while that seems like a change that would be for the better, many of the rewards and systems in place have not been altered to make up for the lack of paid options. This has not only resulted in fewer options for people, but has made the overall grind in Battlefront II a necessary chore.

Cha-Ka!!!

5/10 - MEDIOCRE

it’s lumpy!

A worse metacritic score than Andromeda and Iger so pissed about the bad PR he actually made a phone call to EA (allegedly, but WSJ is a pretty good source).

Definitely some EA employees polishing up their resumes right now.

Rented this game to primarily check out the single player which I finished today. A mostly entertaining but average campaign with some decent set pieces and standard FPS gameplay. However upon finishing the campaign the game reminds me to collect my rewards for use in MP except when I go to the unlock page it won’t actually me collect the rewards. Each milestone shows completed but the game won’t let me collect the credits! I don’t really care since I’m not keeping the game and I don’t care about loot crates but if I did it be pissed .

reviewbrah in Battlefront 2 ? I really didn’t notice till it was pointed out over on Reddit.

:D

Too bad EA/DICE really lost control of the narrative on this, which is 100% their fault. There’s no way this is a 6/10 game unless you hate loot crates with the fire of a thousand suns.

I’d say gameplay wise it’s 8/10 flirting with 9/10 – it is a shitload better than Battlefront 1 in every dimension, and in some ways is even better than Battlefield 1, with the caveat that it’s pretending to be a sci-fi hero movie with special effects, not a “real war”. In terms of succesfully recreating Star Wars movie battle spectacle it’s a 10/10.

Looks like BF1 was about a 75%-73% on metacritic, so yeah, I’d go with 80% for BF2. There is no way this is an objectively worse game than BF1. That was a dreadfully incomplete game, with weirdo multiplayer that kinda sucked. And that is kind of a problem for BF1 because most (all?) of BF1 was multiplayer.

“we are also working with other States”

Man, I wish I could see Iger’s face when the news stories run with a state attorney general literally saying a “Star Wars-themed casino” for kids.

While I do hate loot crates with the fire of a thousand suns, I’m still curious about the game itself. I used to play BF 1942, BF Vietnam, and even BF 2142 a good amount. However, when they moved to unlocks it really turned me off from the game even though they took no money to “purchase,” just time. This was frustrating to me as the gameplay did seem to improve (not always steadily, but still improved) as new versions came out. But the thing was, I felt like I was playing more for the unlock rather than the win, and that just wasn’t so fun.

That said, I know it’s not a popular opinion. Unlocks exist to encourage gamers to go online and keep the community going, and they also become points of pride for the gamers and essentially “thank you notes” from the developers for playing so much. There’s nothing inherently bad about unlocks, but they just don’t jive with my playstyle.

It’s kind of like Steam achievements; when I get one, I think “Oh, neat!” I see how common or uncommon it is, see if there’s any humor or added meaning, and then dive back in the game. I don’t feel like I’m playing for the achievements because they don’t impact the actual game.

So I wonder; do you think the game would be best to play (not best for business - that’s a different question) if everything was unlocked from the get-go, unlocked via a campaign progress, or by accumulating points over time?

I wish unlocks were tied back to player rank. Or at least class ranks.

Also if they are going to stick with loot crates, let them have crates for each class, not just a generic TROOPER crate, where I might get gear for a class I don’t even play.

Posts are popping up on Reddit where players are now buying the 4000 credit crate , and getting all dupes and some credits / crafting parts. Making the overall grind feel even worse.

@Rod_Humble , damn… in that video where they compare whats going on with the game, similar to how Joe Camel was trying to sell cigs to kids. :D

Haha, “the game is a Star Wars-themed online casino designed for kids” is the best possible sound bite to get people riled up.

That being said, is the game really designed for kids? Considering the average gamer is now in his thirties and those who have fond memories of the Battle of Hoth when it first “happened” are now in their forties, I’m not so sure.

I wish unlocks in FPS games were gone entirely so I could see this arsenal of weapons and find out I don’t have to play for a bunch of hours to see all of them.

Yes, it is really designed for kids.

And it now holds the honor of being the worst AAA game of 2017, in terms of review score.

With a 66 metascore and a disastrous 0.9 user score, EA’s sci-fi multiplayer is the worst received AAA title of the year, below other infamously ill-received games like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

So… how long until a case of XBOX or PS4 versions show up in a thrift store?

Maybe there is still room in that desert with the ET games?

I think sales will still be solid. Maybe not the blockbuster they wanted, but I’ll be surprised if this really puts a sizable dent in actual sell through, particularly over time once the furor dies down. We’ll have to see.