I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron for the DS to review and I was quite excited to play.  I’ve never played a Battlefront game, but I’ve heard nothing but great things about this series and I had very, very high hopes.

There are three different types of gameplay in this title.  The first is a third person shooter where most of the action takes place.  Next is the starship mode, where you are “piloting” a ship (either a land vehicle or a star ship) and you basically dodge obstacles with your control pad and hold down the fire button.  The third is the capital ship mode.  In this mode, you’re basically a turret gunner on a track, firing at another capital ship.  As far as gameplay was concerned, I didn’t find anything very groundbreaking.  It seemed like pretty standard fare, if not a little boring.

Story wise, you’re a pair of brother clones, X1 and X2 who are fighting through the wars for whatever reason.  I’ve only been able to put a few hours into the game, so it could get cooler, but the story wasn’t really that big of a deal and, to be honest, I didn’t care too much for it.

The problem with the story, for me, came in with the writing.  There is dialogue from established characters (Palpatine, Anakin, Obi-wan, etc.) and none of it seems like it was written for the character.  It seems like it was written for the game as directions or exposition and after the fact they decided that they wanted to assign the bits of dialogue to specific characters.  It was terribly written.  The part that annoyed me the most on this front was the opening space battle from Revenge of the Sith.  You’re fighting as a pilot escorting Anakin and Obi-wan to General Grievous’ ship.  Anakin has a series of dialogue where he is derisively ordering you around and literally calling you “Clone.”  It would go something like, “Clone, go shoot at that ship over there.”  It didn’t fit with Anakin’s character for that scene of the movie at all…  It was very poorly done.

Overall, I’m going to have to say that, while I was pretty bored with this game, the repetition of action and challenge level was perfect for my son and he seems to be enjoying it very much.  This seemed very counter-intuitive to me.  I usually give things with the Star Wars brand, music and associated content most of a pass on the boredom factor, but this game I just couldn’t abide.  And usually with my son it’s the other way around.
Score

• Audio – 10 This was fine for a Star Wars game. It had all the right sounds.
• Controls – 7 They were repetitive and boring, but it’s a handheld game
• Story and Writing – 4 Jeez…
• Replay – 5
• Graphics – 8 Fine for a DS game

• Overall – 6

If you’re going to grab Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron for a kid, please click the link to do so on Amazon.

And be sure to keep up with Swank on all the latest Star Wars news over at the Examiner.