How cool would it be to play all the well know battles from the Star Wars movies? Pick your side, choose your weapons, even hop into and drive any of the vehicles on the field of battle. C'mon, who hasn't wanted to take out the rebels in an AT-AT walker on Hoth? No one, that's who. A few astute gamers created all new models, weapons and sound effects a few years ago to create Galactic Conquest, a modification to the highly addictive Team FPS Battlefield 1942. They enjoyed a moderate succes, even earning praise from the bearded wonder himself, Mr. Lucas. Though it was an opportunity to relive a few of those moments, in all it had little scope and plenty of quirks to work out before it could gain the mass MOD appeal that its cousin, Desert Combat, acheived.

So I ask again, how cool would it be? Pretty freakin cool, but with a couple of luke warm spots though. Introducing Star Wars: Battlefront, a joint venture between Lucasarts and Pandemic Games that combines the point-capture style game play made popular by BF1942 with the grand vistas of the Star Wars universe. The games greatest success AND greatest downfall is it's multiplayer. More on that in a moment.

SW:BF throws you into the greatest Star Wars ground battles of cinematic and fictional literary history and span both the Clone War era of the film prequels as well as the Galactic Civil War of the original trilogy. Jumping right in, single players are given 3 options for battle, Historical Campaign, Galactic Conquest and Quick Action.

Historical Campaign plays out like a story mode. Players choose either Clone Wars or Civil War era and are put onto the team that SHOULD win, according to the plot of the films. Playing through each of the levels and producing the correct outcome (winning each level) will unlock bonus features contained on the disc. Bonuses consist of still shots and concept images for the game and movies. Interesting to watch for fans, but casual players will care less. A teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: Replublic Commando is among the bonuese, but available immediately. Interspersed between each mission are full motion video sequences from their respective movie which would have been a nice touch, except they look as if they were compressed and inserted at the last minute, creating a grainy, often blurry image. Personally, I don't feel the video is crucial to the game and certainly doesn't demonstrate the quality that is possible on DVD, as we've seen on past Star Wars games, particularly for the GameCube. I would have favored ditching the video for additional bonus materials, unlockable levls or better AI.

Galactic Conquest adds a slightly strategic element to the shooting. Players choose one of 8 planets, then battle for control. Winning or losing the battle and having control of a planet determines a team bonus, such as health regeneration or the assistance of a non-playable Jedi character for your team. Lastly, Quick Action let's you pick a map, a team and throws you into the fray without any back story or consequences. Just good ol' fashion shoot em up.

Multiplayer action is hit and miss, as mentioned a few paragraphs back. The heart of the game is the ability to hop online, and join a 32 player skirmish either via Xbox Live!, standard PC server setups or PS2 online. We played the Xbox Live! version of the game and found it pretty simple to find a server and take my place. Each team is divided first by faction, then by class. Each team has a pre-requisite 4 of 5 class types. Average soldier with repeating rifle and grenades, a sniper class with a specialized long range scoped rifle, a heavy weapons expert with a rocket launcher and a pilot with repair and building skills. Then, each faction contains a specialized class. For example, the seperatist droid army has the rolling death machine, the Droideka, at their disposal, complete with dual blaster arms and a deflector shield when deployed. The rebel forces have wookies to assist them with a spreadfire bowcaster and time bombs they can affix to anything, even the legs of passer-by walkers. Players use any means necessary to take posession of control points or just take pot shots until the opposing team loses all of their reinforcements or spawn count. Vehicles representing the era that you play and the side that you choose litter the landscape in places. Tanks, speederbikes, AT-ST chicken walkers, even the giant AT-AT walkers can be piloted by players. Sadly, the AT-AT can't be piloted by anyone but the Empire, and although the Milennium Falcon can be found in a hanger on Hoth, it can't be commendeered. This doesn't mean that fighting is grounded though. The air force can be as strong with Jedi Starfighters, X-Wings, TIE Fighters and a slew of others are ready to fly.

Sadly, when you have Halo as a benchmark for first person shooters, especially on the Xbox, your standards for multiplayer gaming are heightened and in the case of Battlefront, it falls short. In the abridged words of our own Design Geek: "How stupid is this?!?!" After countless nights of hooking up a couple of Xboxes and getting 2-4 players per box in a capture the flag match, imagine our disgust at finding out that although Battlefront supports LAN play, it limits players to 1...ONE... per console, per TV!!! Split screen play is only supported locally and multiplayer as a whole offers only the point-capture gameplay. Deathmatches and capture the flag are distinctly missing, but this is not all that surprising when you consider that the game is based on the BF1942 model.

I'm not going to go heavily into the visual or audio aspect of the game. Lucasarts is nothing if consistent in the quality of their software, offering both excellent visuals, faithful film sound effects and the stirring John Williams score that accompanies nearly every iteration of the franchise. These are always a 5 out of 5 in my book with very few exceptions, and certainly not found here.

Before passing judgement I have to say that this game is addicting. By some odd force of nature, or perhaps a technological stride in subliminal suggestion, you are compelled to continue playing long into the night. It doesn't have the enguaging story of KOTOR or the raw firepower of Halo. Frankly, except for the Star Wars theme, it has nothing spectacularly new. Owning or renting comes down to a degree of character. If you're a gaming Star Wars fan, you MUST purchase. If you're a hard core FPS gamer, you should still pick up the title, especially Xbox owners since Halo isn't online playable and we've still got a month before it will be (Halo 2). Casual fans and or gamers will still enjoy the title immensely, if nothing else for the hours you can spend just gunning down Ewoks, Jawas and Jar Jar clones on their respective planets.