Imperial narrator, Star Wars: Battlefront
The initial Star Wars: Battlefront, launched on the Xbox, PS2, and PC, is not especially diverse in its mechanics, at most rising to sheer mediocrity while clinging to several great ideas. The scope of spanning both the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War eras was an excellent way to present a game based around a series of battles to take every command post on a map or kill all of the enemy's troop reserves. Galactic Conquest mode amplifies the strategic nature of the game, having the player and NPCs fight planet by planet two times over to secure control of the galaxy. The drawbacks are that in the campaigns, Galactic Conquest, and quick matches alike, there are not all that many planets to choose from, the very range of game mechanics is actually rather small, and the campaigns have a woeful absence of storytelling depth.
Production Values
By now, the graphics on display are quite blatantly outdated, even more than those of the Wii version of The Force Unleashed! This is not a flaw in this case given the age of the game as a release on the original Xbox system. For a Star Wars game with much better graphics on the next generation of the Xbox, see The Force Unleashed on the 360. Now, there is voice acting from Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones and Boba Fett in the Disney+ shows) and others, which does help raise the overall production values, and yet the campaigns make little use of the voice acting as they make large jumps around the Star Wars timeline and do not follow any particular character.
Gameplay
Across planets like Kashyyyk, Hoth, and Naboo, players can progress victory by victory through two mini campaigns, choose Instant Action to jump right into an isolated round, or try the longer Galactic Conquest scenarios for more strategy-oriented content. Once on foot, there is no sprint mechanic, so carefully selecting an intended command post to spawn at saves a lot of time traversing the battlefield just to arrive to fights. Medical droids and gonk droids near command posts or elsewhere provide health and ammunition refills respectively. Jedi and Sith make occasional appearances, but they only become playable in Star Wars: Battlefront II.
Instead, up to five different classes for each of the four factions can be played, four of these unit types having practically interchangeable weapons with the equivalent class from other factions and an additional unit that is unlocked during the campaigns. Also during one of the campaigns, super battle droids replace standard battle droids as a class. A small selection of vehicles is provided at certain points on maps, but the majority of the game takes place on foot. These maps are fairly small and simple, having little to do but charge enemies or find a vehicle or turret.
Story
There is scarcely anything to spoil, as the game's short twin campaigns follow the general events of the prequel and original trilogies, but with almost none of the worldbuilding and philosophical emphasis. At most, brief cutscenes from some of the films introduce or close out campaign levels as the CIS is eventually formed after the Trade Federation invasion of Naboo, the Republic unveils its clone army on Geonosis, the Empire tries to crush dissent, and the Rebel Alliance resists. No one is likely to play this Battlefront game for the story!
Intellectual Content
In a game like this, the most likely way for any deeper conceptual themes to be explored is in a single player campaign, but the brevity and narrative superficiality of either the CIS-Republic or Empire-Rebellion campaigns snatch that away from Star Wars: Battlefront. As a result of lacking either a developed story (much less an original story like that of the 2005 Star Wars: Battlefront II) or, more importantly, any sort of acknowledgement of or grappling with any deeper issues of reality, the first Battlefront game is enormously hindered.
Conclusion
The first step towards greater things, Star Wars: Battlefront is indeed at its best a springboard for superior games, including the PSP releases. In this sense, it is far from a failure despite its ultimately limited gameplay options. It just does not have as much to offer as even the very next year's sequel. Conceptually, the premise of the gameplay is excellent, as a clash of Star Wars factions with strategic command posts and limited soldiers has immense potential. That potential simply gets better implemented into gameplay and storytelling after this initial title that launched the series, eliminating any reason to play the first Battlefront except curiosity for new players, nostalgia for older players, and for the sake of critically analyzing it or comparing it to what followed.
Content:
1. Violence: There is no blood amidst the shooting and explosions.
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