Tag: Battlefront II

Thoughts about ‘Battlefront II’: Stories told in a very impressive new way

 

On a lighter note we are living in some interesting times.  I have been very encouraged by the glimpses of the future that are emerging, especially the new Tesla tractor-trailer that has the potential to dramatically change the transportation industry.  I am a person who gets very excited when I see things come along that expand the imagination of the human race on a mass scale, like the latest Star Wars products—whether it’s a new toy, video game, or motion picture installment.  With each new addition to that fantasy/science fiction mythology the imagination of the human race is expanding dramatically.  And that has never been truer than in the new Battlefront II video game by DICE and Electronic Arts that expand the efforts of the first version of that game for all the major platform systems over what was released in 2015.  This 2017 edition is just marvelous, jaw dropping cool, and a seriously interesting look into the nature of politics and the human soul.  There are a lot of interesting things going on with Battlefront II that are indicative of some of the greatest art our culture has ever produced.

Nobody buys a game like this to play the single player campaign mode, they buy it to play online with thousands of potential people at all hours of the day and night all over the world.  People in cultures where guns are unfortunately banned can play a game like this and instantly they are playing the most modern version of cops and robbers that we all aspired to as kids, before public schools made it impossible for kids to even make a pretend gun with their hands.  Boys, girls, young and old are all thrown into these battles together and they force you to work toward team objectives to survive by heightening your individuality to the quickest reaction times and personal aptitude.  The desire to play such a game is a very primal one, and this game is certainly one of the best to date at making everything work well and allow players to just enjoy the experience.  I enjoy the ground based combat quite a lot, but it is the flight combat that I love the most.  I thought the first Battlefront was pure heaven for my personal tastes, but in this second installment, it’s so much better, better than I thought it could ever possibly be.  One of my favorite video games that I played as a kid was the Activison Star Wars game The Empire Strikes Back which was a blocky 2D Defender type of thing involving snow speeders and a constant wave of Imperial Walkers, each that required precisely 48 hits to kill unless you managed to hit a little sweet spot that sometimes appeared on the top of the shell.  So the aerial combat in Battlefront II is just beautiful to look at and participate in.  Stunning really.

But the real star to Battlefront II is their new story mode campaign that I was excessively impressed with.  Not only is it a nice story to add to the Star Wars canon fitting in with the movies nicely, but it’s some seriously good science fiction.  For instance, the Empire has a new weapon in this story which are satellites in space that fire into the cloud formations of planets to heat up the atmosphere and cause hurricane like storms on the ground to harass their enemies.  I thought that was a very interesting concept considering that this very year in real life we saw four major hurricanes hit the United States alone, three of which made ground fall as upper category storms.  Many conspiracy theorists believe our current government can do something similar to this now, so I found it interesting that a big platform game by Disney would even allow something like that into a Star Wars storyline.  But it worked and was very interesting.   Does it advance conspiracy theories or address a tyrannical problem indicative of world governments—I think it does a lot to get a conversation going about the temptation to use weather as a weapon against dissidents.   If the Romans could have done something similar, or the Nazis, they would have.  In Star Wars, the Empire does.

The other big surprise for me was a scene where Kylo Ryn was mind walking through the memories of a captor he’s interrogating.  It was a dreamy sequence that you play through as a participant and it reminded me of an old game called Shadowman—where you had to walk through the world of death to solve problems.  I thought it was very intelligent and exhibited great skill in advancing a pretty complicated story.  The game was already one of the best campaign story lines that I’ve ever played, so this last sequence was very interesting.  At that point the makers of the game I thought were just showing off.  They knew they had a great game and at that point were just putting an exclamation point on the end of it.  They could have played it safe, but then it wouldn’t be a Star Wars movie.  In Star Wars fans expect innovation and risk.  When science fiction fans watch something like Star Trek: Into Darkness we know we are seeing touchy, feeling content that is popcorn to the base fans—Star Wars seeks  to blow minds wherever possible with ever-expanding concepts—so it’s good to see that ambition still alive even under Disney control.

Battlefront II is a massive game with huge investments put into it.  Its targeted release was announced months ago for November 17th.  I preordered it which allowed me to start playing it on November 14th, three days early and I have to say, this is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had so far.  Previous winners were of course Uncharted 4 and the latest Zelda game for the Nintendo Switch.  Battlefront II is a massive game with a lot to do and it holds that massive population of a world that wants to play it all at the same time very well.  The scope of the game is so big that I saw it being advertised on the NFL website heavily last weekend, and everywhere else that Disney felt they could penetrate popular culture.  But honestly, no wonder NFL ratings are down.  People may be turned off by the National Anthem issue, or the high salaries and spoiled brat attitudes of the players, the concussion protocols, and the softening of the game to appeal more to women but with competition like Battlefront II to occupy people’s time, a passive NFL experience is pretty boring.

If you are looking for a great video game to invest in, then this is it. It is released to the general public today in time for the Holiday season and is the perfect thing to do when it’s cold outside and the days are short.   With two new Star Wars movies coming out over the next six months, the announcement of a new trilogy and the Disney parks putting the finishing touches on their new Star Wars lands there is a lot to be excited about for even passive Star Wars fans.  Even as Hollywood is struggling massively; Star Wars is still good enough to keep the industry alive for a bit longer all by itself.  It won’t last of course.  The motion picture experience will likely give way completely to the small screen and video games like Battlefront II.   In many ways the video game industry is still able to tell stories in the classic way that great movies like THX-1138 did; only participants can actually be part of the story instead of just viewers.  That’s what makes Battlefront II such a great offering, because it is truly great science fiction and fantasy that we experience typically in great literature and it puts you in the action as a participant to interact with other people, and that makes it extremely unusual.  Not so unique for the kids who have grown up with these games, but for the tapestry of human history where information is exchanged through art–this is a real showpiece worthy of a great deal of respect.

Rich Hoffman

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‘Battlefront II’ Impressions after the Beta Test: I can’t wait for November 14th

I always feel that I must apologize for covering a light topic especially when there is so much going on in the world around us, but we do have to live. We do have to manage our stresses. And we must find the things in life that make us happy, and for me Star Wars is something that works—especially when we are talking about a new video game. Then regarding that topic, I think much of the world that’s coming, the politics, the structure, the science can be seen with each new video game update from the industry because most of the engineers and designers of the future out there are playing these massive online games. While it’s true that ratings are down in the NFL and some of that is certainly due to the politics surrounding the flag, most of the change in attitude toward football in general is because of this new age of entertainment where people can live entire secondary lives online in their video game avatars. I find it all extremely fascinating, and optimistic and it helps me fight through some of the most complex problems that any one human being could be expected to fight through. With all that said, I have been very excited for the next generation Star Wars: Battlefront II which comes out in November. For a long time there was talk of a beta run in early October so I did my pre-order and signed up for the top version of the game and had marked on my calendar October 4th because that’s when the beta opened for the new game by Electronic Arts/Dice.

My first impression of the beta compared to the full game of the original Battlefront with its bright white backgrounds was that it was missing an optimism that made the original very THX-1138 fun and futuristic. The menu boards on Battlefront II were mostly all in blacks and that made it seem like a lesser quality experience to me. Because of this I was disappointed, but once I started playing the various modes I quickly forgave the game because it was a lot of fun. From October 4th to October 9th I played as much as I could and leveled up to somewhere around 10 or 11. I didn’t pay much attention as I was mostly trying to get a feel for everything. A large part of the weekend my grandson was over and we played the new arcade mode a lot. It was clearly his favorite mode and I thought was a big addition to the overall game, a way to learn the maps and get a feel for the various builds in the game. I also thought the Star Card system was much improved, it reminded me a lot of the Fantasy Flight Games board games in this way, which makes those games infinitely interesting. Bringing that Star Card aspect to a video game made for a very compelling experience and I could see quickly that I would soon spend many hours playing with different cards to figure out the best combination, and then trying them out in the Arcade Mode to learn to use them. From just what the game developers showed on their beta test, there are endless opportunities for variety in Battlefront II once the game is released in November.

Before I get too far into this you do know dear reader about the cultural significance of all this, don’t you? After all, the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer was released during halftime on Monday Night Football. And the moment that the beta ended for Battlefront II Forbes had a nice little article seen below about their criticism of the loot box system. The whole play to win debate in the video game community is a big deal because it brings many people into the realities of capitalism in ways their public educations never did. To be good at these games you must put in the hours, and the money. You can get by only doing one of those things, but to be great, you have to spend time, money and diligence to get the most out of the game. People who are from the ANTIFA crowd of course are out there playing these games and their basic philosophy is confronted with the realities of such a big business as Battlefront II is tapping into. Star Wars is just the entry point to these kinds of experiences. They become a lifestyle for many people in a similar way that adults have traditionally been in bowling leagues or played golf. It is not uncommon in the spirit of competition to get a new bowling ball or a set of titanium clubs for golf to get an edge over your rivals and that is what the loot box system does in Battlefront II. The writer for the Forbes article obviously didn’t like it. I did, my grandson and I had a lot of fun with the loot boxes. It was like gambling in Vegas, you never really knew what you were going to get and it was fun working toward an opportunity to have a chance at something cool. Games like this are all about the proper risk rewards system.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/10/08/star-wars-battlefront-2s-loot-boxes-seem-like-theyre-going-to-be-a-serious-problem/#1707a80a6323

For me the best part of the new Battlefront II game was the Starfighter Assault modes. It took me a minute to get used to things because they changed the mechanics quite a lot. On the previous edition of Battlefront I was one of those 50 kills per game people. I was very good at it and it was a dream come true for me to fly those ships around in space in combat situations. I can tell that I will be spending many hours playing just that mode. I would say that the new game is worth it just for the Starfighter Assault modes. As readers here know I love the Fantasy Flight Games offerings of X-Wing and Armada so putting a pilot into a scenario that is objective based around giant capital ships and individualized dog fighting is an incredible experience. Even for a beta test the frame rates were high and the details were amazing. Some of the cut-scenes were sloppy on my giant 4K television but I’m sure the final release of the game will be a major improvement on that. As I seem to say with each of these big video game releases, whether it is Uncharted 4 for the Playstation, or Zelda for the Nintendo Switch, this Battlefront II game is the next technical evolution that turns living rooms into combat zones and works our minds in ways we couldn’t duplicate under any other situation.

Probably the best improvement however on Battlefront II is the class system where there are four different categories of player. I found due to my aggressive style the Heavy Class to be most to my liking. But what’s better is that you aren’t stuck to that class for the whole round of play. If you need to lighten things up for more stealth or sniper ability you can during a round, and those strategic options are like gold raining from heaven to a guy like me who literally spends all my down time thinking of strategic options. I think of strategic options even when it comes to what grocery store to go to, so a game like this with all these random elements playing against each other is just food for my brain. So I’m really looking forward to November 14th when the whole game is released to the public. Like I said, I held nothing back on this version. I did preorder the game so I could play it with the early access. And I did by the deluxe version of it so I could get every little benefit. On the first one I came late to the game because I was made at The Force Awakens for killing Han Solo and not respecting the continuity of the previous novels. It took me a year to finally give it a shot after radio host Matt Clark bugged me about it every week for that entire year. Once I did start playing however I exploded and quickly maxed out my level at 100. There were a few weekends around last Christmas where I was off work and I played the starfighter modes for 48 straight hours—because it was that fun. With Battlefront II being noticeably an improvement on the game play mechanics, I will likely go even deeper into the game, so I am starting with the deluxe package and from there I will support the game in whatever fashion they come up with. It’s not only a work of art and technical marvel, but it’s just some of the best fun you can have from a top end entertainment system. I can’t think of a better way to live life than to blow stuff up and hear all the wonderful sounds from a Bose sound system that puts you in the middle of the most intense battles a mind could think of. I am really, really, really looking forward to November 14th. Battlefront II will be a winner and the beta was just a taste of the great things to come.

Rich Hoffman

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Disney’s Fantasy Island: Where imagination intersects with reality to create mythology

I have been just a little enamored by all the news coming out of D23 in Anaheim, California over the weekend of 7/14–7/16.  I know many of my readers come here looking for political commentary, or uplifting insight into some complicated matter, but for anyone who knows me; the key to living that I find most valuable is mythology.  I credit the great Joseph Campbell as being the only teacher I ever really found valuable as I spent much of my youth digesting his vast work in the realm of mythology.  And in the modern sense, Star Wars is the greatest realization of modern myth that there is.  To the extent that Star Wars can expand the imagination of the human race is something I find infinitely valuable and is important if we look out beyond the limits of our present political entanglements. Even in the realm of education, Star Wars is changing the game and now under Disney’s guidance the results to me are mind bending—as was revealed by the entertainment company at their D23 Expo.

When I was a kid there was a popular television show called Fantasy Island that came on Saturday nights and I enjoyed it immensely. The premise was that whatever fantasy a visitor might have they could visit Fantasy Island and live it out only to learn some life lesson by the end of their trip that was important to their return to the regular world.  Well, Disney with all their resources are using the mythology of Star Wars to create their own version of a real “Fantasy Island” at Hollywood Studios with an exhibit they are calling now “Galaxy’s Edge” which is a fully immersive Star Wars land designed to take the theme park experience to the next level.  I wrote about that the other day, click here to review.  But in addition to that they are opening a Star Wars resort which is a completely immersive “fantasy island type of experience where you actually will be a part of a Star Wars story which I think is phenomenal on many levels as these videos will reveal.

Many years ago as I was one of the core members of The Joseph Campbell Foundation invited to Washington D.C. by Campbell’s wife Jean and a few other people who were very close to George Lucas who at that time was a board of director member—to review a very special Star Wars exhibit at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.  It was a big event and we had the VIP experience of getting there first before it was opened to the public.  So I took my kids because I knew it would be important in their lives.  And they never forgot it—and neither did I.  It was an experience that bonded us all very tightly—and that is what a good mythology can do.  You should never get lost in some fantasy and avoid living life, but I often say that Star Wars to me is like a vacation that I take in my mind.  I’m always thinking about very intense things and get myself into very stressful acts—and Star Wars in the form of some video game, book, or movie puts ideas onto a place where I can see them differently and usually solve problems by changing the perspective a bit.  For instance I’m currently very excited for the release of Battlefront II.  When it comes out I’ll probably spend a month playing it very diligently because it helps me manage very complex real life situations through the problem solving that you get while playing acting in battlefield strategies and war-time scenarios set in a Star Wars context.  I thought that these Battlefront games from Electronic Arts were the ultimate first person Star Wars experience.  Until this year’s D23—a Star Wars resort with a new land within Hollywood Studios called Galaxy’s Edge.  Compared to when I took my kids to the Star Wars exhibit at the Smithsonian in 1997 as a proud member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation from the perspective of a “mythology insider,” what Disney is doing is incredible, and I’m a big fan of it.

But that wasn’t all.  Over the past year I mentioned that I bought a Playstation VR device essentially so I could play the Battlefront Star Wars VR mission that came out on it over the previous Christmas.  It was to me a jaw-dropping experience and it has been a feature attraction to anybody who has come to my home over the last 6 months. The ability to fly an X-Wing Fighter into combat in and around a Star Destroyer was incredibly well done and if that was the extent of it I would be forever impressed.  But now a company called Lenovo has teamed up with Disney to create what is called an “augmented reality” experience meaning that you can see reality as you normally would only with a special headset new things can be introduced to it.  In this case you can embark on Jedi light saber training and play the Holo Chess that was so popular in the Star Wars films with this “augmented reality.”  That brings the experience of Star Wars and its mythology even more to the private world of the home environment.   Mythology is driving technology in ways that are then coming back to the personal experience of living the power of myth.   I will certainly be getting the new “augmented reality” headset by Lenovo as soon as it hits Best Buy likely this fall.

http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/jedichallenges/?irgwc=1&clickid=3rq2DwQpgXfOxH8WRAzR8SUQUkhS2J0hMXAvQk0&PID=27795&acid=ww:affiliate:bv0as6

But this home technology only hints at what a company like Disney can do at these theme parks now to provide that truly Fantasy Island experience for their guests.  Star Wars is a powerful mythology.  On the surface it’s for kids, but the themes it contains are very primal and communicate with people in ways that nothing else currently does.   For adults Las Vegas has created some of that Fantasy Island mystic, but it doesn’t contain enough mythology to be a truly beneficial experience.  You get the sights and sounds of some fantasy thought, but not the problem solving that comes with experiencing an “augmented reality.”  I typically read a lot which works for me, but most people don’t take time for that kind of experience and the mind does get fatigued if it is not fed a steady dose of imagination.  A mind filled with imaginative elements whether from a fantasy situation or just from stimuli works better than a mind weighed down with the weights of reality.  Mythology helps people think bigger about things and that is a truly beneficial service.   But the ability to move directly into a mythic circumstance is truly revolutionary.  It is a real Fantasy Island type of experience and I think it will have vast importance over the coming decade culturally.

I knew when Universal Studios opened up that Harry Potter experience in their Florida parks that we were moving into a new kind of mythic experience.  And I knew that Disney would have an answer.  But I didn’t think it would be possible to be this cool.  What is happening is far exceeding my expectations and the possibilities are obvious.  I remember all too well how powerful Star Wars was to me and my family when these new options were not available.  What they will do to the mind of the up and coming to me is truly mind-blowing with benefits.  And I’m very excited to see more.  I was looking forward for quite a number of months to see what this year’s D23 would reveal.  What they showed was far more than I anticipated which is hard to do.  That leaves an astounding thought, what will be next?

Rich Hoffman

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