STACK #153 Jul 2017

GAMES FEATURE

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EA PLAY

@ E3 2017

StarWars: Battlefront II

Play time At EA Words Paul Jones and Alesha Kolbe

F or the second year in a row, EA has staged its own event at the same time the E3 circus is in town. Last year, EA Play was held a mere five-minute stroll from the Los Angeles Convention Center and during the first two days of E3.

gameplay has been tightened and it looks fantastic. We were fortunate enough to get a behind-closed-

Battlefront II were equally as long. One sunburnt fan told us that he’d waited in line for over three hours to play the 15 minute multiplayer demo. A short presentation preceded the multiplayer that now offers up a tweaked class system with four new options for players – assault trooper, heavy trooper, specialist (for all the snipers out there), and officer class with the ability to heal. The massive 20v20 Assault on Theed from the Episode I demo featured iconic character cameos (if you were lucky

StarWars: Battlefront II

doors look at the new single- player mode. The inclusion of a campaign mode in Battlefront is something everyone – including even Simon Pegg – has pleaded for. Development here is being handled by Motive Studios, headed up by Jade Raymond, an accomplished developer who helped bring the Assassin’s Creed franchise to life for Ubisoft. Events, as is now well- publicised, take place between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens , and, according to the dev leading the presentation, has

This year, EA Play ran from Saturday June 10 to Monday the 12 th , and moved across town to the Palladium in Hollywood. Like last year, the public were invited to attend and by the scheduled kick-off time on Saturday afternoon,

been scrutinised by the Lucasfilm story group to ensure all the details fall within strict Star Wars lore. You play as elite Imperial special forces soldier Iden Versio, and after a brief run-through presentation of a level, we were surprisingly handed the controller to play through it ourselves. Under Rebel attack, we get our first look at a space battle (another feature requested by fans of the game), chasing X-Wing fighters sat in a TIE Fighter. It’s a classic

enough to find them) – from Han Solo and Boba Fett, to Rey and Darth Maul. The multiplayer has

a queue wrapped around three sides of the extensive site. Inside, the lines to play Star Wars:

undergone quite an overhaul; the

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JULY 2017

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