Star Wars: Battlefront is LucasArts reply to the gamers that want a fast-paced action shooter. The game is based on the same engine as Mercenaries but an earlier build which doesn’t have as many features. There’s no single player and the idea is to have online gaming but with bots included (although bots can be shut down aswell).
On xbox and ps2, up to 16 real players can go fight each other while PC gamers will have the possibility to go head to head in a map with 32 players in total.

There’s 2 modes available, Deathmatch and Conquest. Deathmatch is pretty standard and Conquest is a more mission-based multiplayer where gamers need to capture ground from their opponents. If they get enough territory, they’ll be able to receive a bonus consisting of new bots appearing and slaughtering the remains of the opposite forces.
These bots can be Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader or even the Death Star which will destroy a planet completely. This sounds pretty cool but we didn’t get to see it.

When a gamer gets killed he can respawn but also choose to come back as another character. So if you got killed while being a storm trooper, you can choose to come back as a black storm trooper with jetpack for instance.

Mixing gamers from different platforms isn’t possible but someone with a PC can host a game for PS2 gamers although he will need a PS2 to join in on his own server then.

I know this preview is going to be pretty short but that’s mainly because of the game itself. There actually isn’t much to tell about it as it’s currently got nothing that can be called special. You can shoot anything that moves, there’s vehicles from the star wars universe that you can use, but there’s absolutely nothing that gives added value over games like Battlefield, Call of Duty or even Unreal Tournament other than the Star Wars brand. In fact, the graphics don’t even look half as pretty as those from Mercenaries although both games do use the same basic engine.

If LucasArts wants to really do an attack on the multiplayer shooter market, they’ll have a lot of work still to be done.