[ENG] In The Heat of Battle

(Polska Wersja Dostępna Tu! - [PL] W Ogniu Bitwy)

(I don't know how many people are interested in campaign of Star Wars: Battlefront II or Call of Duty: WWII but in case someone is - minor story spoilers/the basic campaign information is revealed. You have been warned.)

(I have only attached screenshots from single-player segments. Graphic spoilers may reveal important story moments. You have been warned.)

A while ago I picked up a Star Wars: Battlefront II and Call of Duty: WWII in PlayStation Plus offer for June 2020 (I guess you could call it a PS+ June 2020 Review). It's worth noting that I'm not the fan nor hater of either franchise. I thought to myself – 'why not' – and downloaded both games which... Well let's just say that my PS4 hard drive doesn't feel so good when 2 games are clogging up an enormous 200GB of space!

I have played through the campaign of both titles and played a bit of multiplayer so I thought that I may as well talk about it!

(Fun Fact: Both games were released in November of 2017 on PS4, Xbox One and PC).

Let's start with Star Wars: Battlefront II, shall we? I think I don't have to present this game to anyone at least mildly interested in the gaming world. The lootbox controversy and worldwide changes that this controversy has caused were still echoing months after everything was supposedly settled down. I didn't have an opportunity to play the game back then, but from what I've seen and heard – the situation was hopeless to say the least.

(Battlefront II surely is beautiful)

It's worth noting that I'm not the biggest fan of Star Wars out there – I have some basic knowledge like who Darth Vader, Yoda, Han Solo or Luke Skywalker are; I have watched parts from 1 to 6 when I was a child so I remember everything vividly, but when it comes to the recent trilogy – parts from 7 to 9 – I haven't watched them, but I have a very rough knowledge of who Rey or Kylo Ren are.

When I started downloading the game, I opened my eyes widely when I noticed the download size. Over 100 whopping GB. It's just... Even GTA V isn't as massive, and I will tell this right now... I kind of still don't understand why the game is as massive as it is, but it's probably a very simple reason that I'm too blind to notice.

(Iden Versio, leader of the Inferno Squad)

(I haven't played the Battlefront I and I don't know if the stories between BF I and II are connected.)

In the story of Battlefront II, through the most part, we follow a story of Iden Versio and Inferno Squad. Notice that I said – for the most part – during certain missions we will play as other characters from the Star Wars canon like Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. The story itself isn't really long as you can wrap it up in 5-6 hours. It's the story about betrayal, revenge and retribution.

Story overall is... Pretty alright, I guess? I mean, it's nothing too tragic but it's also nothing outstanding. I think it serves more like a really stretched tutorial for the multiplayer – it teaches you the basics of lightsaber fight; the normal 'soldier-play' and space battles. And I would be able to be just fine with the campaign, if not for one thing... Dialogues.

(The power of The Empire)

Voice acting is this game is just... Yikes. The game set the language of dubbing to Polish by default and... Oh god... I don't mean to judge or anything, but it literally sounded like you just gave the script to some random people on the street and told them to read it without any context whatsoever. Pretty quickly I changed the dubbing to English and... It wasn't anything phenomenal, but it was definitely much better than the Polish version. Other than that, I have no issues with sound design or music, they are fine.

Graphically the game looks really nice, many things are quite detailed and game performs incredibly well during large battles with tons of lasers and explosions. I was genuinely surprised that the game keeps a stable framerate in the literal hell of a battle... I mean, it shouldn't be surprising as it's the game focused on multiplayer and it wouldn't be good for game to just randomly drop frames during shootout but... Well, I was amazed, alright? Let's leave it at that.

(Weird, unnerving, beautiful - call it what you want)

Other than campaign, there is also an Arcade Mode if you're feeling fancy – it's just a set of challenges for both Light and Dark side, many of these challenges give you the basic idea of multiplayer and a decent challenge at higher levels (Each challenge has 3 difficulties).

Well, that's it for the single-player segment which is... Surprisingly generous for the game highly focused on the multiplayer.

The very first thing I noticed when I chose the multiplayer from the main menu, was a lot of game modes. From the most basic showdown, space battles, to a lightsaber focused fight and capture the flag. I played few games in each of these modes and... Maybe it's just me, but multiplayer fights are pure chaos – not that it's bad or anything. Maybe if I will play more I will get used to it, but for now – each match is just a chaos tournament for me.

(You launch the game and... In the worst case wait for few minutes before everything loads)

In each mode we have few classes (or Heroes – depending on the mode) to choose – from the most basic like, you know – Sniper, Heavy, Soldier and Engineer/Medic through the more advanced ones like Airborne Soldier or Ewok, ending on Heroes – Yoda, Luke Skywalker etc. By performing various actions in a match we receive Battle Points, if we collect enough – we can change into something much more stronger for one life (sometimes we can't because all the 'Special' classes were already taken and we just have to wait).

I think that my favorite mode is Space Battle, I just love maneuvering between wreckage, outsmarting other players and sitting on my enemy's tail for so long that I would be considered a professional stalker. But just because it's my favorite, doesn't mean I don't enjoy other modes – quite the contrary, despite the chaos I find the multiplayer segment of Battlefront II really good.

(HUD is minimalistic, but clear and readable)

About these accursed lootboxes... Nowadays it's much better, we can unlock skins by just playing the game and acquiring necessary currency and skills to our favorite classes by just playing them. From what I've heard, back then you would drop skill cards from lootboxes that were totally random and sometimes you could drop a ton of these cards and still get nothing for your favorite class or character.

The only complain I have in general are... Painfully long loading times, reaching minute or two sometimes. And when you want to quickly switch the multiplayer game mode, sitting through a long and slow loading screen can be really annoying, but other than that... Battlefront II is a pretty decent game!

Now let us focus on the second game – Call of Duty: WWII. Just as I'm not the fan of Star Wars, I'm neither the fan of these long franchises like Call of Duty, Battlefield or FIFA – I don't know, it's just not my cup of tea, but since I had an opportunity to check out a CoD:WWII I thought to myself – yeah sure, why not.

The campaign starts on D-Day (6th June 1944) and follows a story of Red Daniels, a soldier fighting for the freedom side-by-side with his brothers-in-arms – Zussman, Turner and much more. The premise seems really simple and sounds like some typical World War II game, but... Well, I don't know how CoDs stand in campaign quality, but WWII surprised me quite positively!

(Horror, sacrifice, battle for freedom... D-Day.)

First of all, it's not a story about the glory and power of one, singular man. I have seen this trope in war games way too often – protagonist being an unkillable, one man army. Here... Of course, there are moments where we feel like an immortal war machine, but for the most part – we need to rely on our teammates' abilities (Like... I dunno, giving us a medkit, ammunition, grenades etc.) and we need to be smart when to use them. Oh, and if we rush straight for the enemies – we'll be mowed down faster than you think (Mind you, I played on normal difficulty).

I am not sure if this is standard in CoD games, but from what I remember – often when you got shot, you just had to crouch behind some wall or cover and your health would magically recover. In CoD WWII your health is replenished by medkits, we can only carry a set amount of them and our health is often mowed down in seconds if we decide to rush through or for some reason ignore enemies on our way. So... That's for good if you ask me – it makes health actually an important resource that won't just come back because you decide to pray under this one spot on the wall that doesn't have blood. 

Buuuut even if you die, the time to load you back into the game is almost instant in comparison to Battlefront II where it's not so unusual to wait a bit before respawning or go from match to menu or vice versa.

(Hanged civilians. War knows no mercy.)

Of course – there are a lot, and I mean A LOT of scripted scenes and events (From what I remember this isn't something unusual throughout the CoD franchise) and... It makes a lot of fragments much more glamorous and action-packed, sometimes even scripts are woven into the gameplay so well that sometimes it's hard to tell when you have to admire action and when to TAKE action.

Campaign, as I've said – is pretty decent to say the least – a good story of a harsh fight between following orders and doing a right thing to do; a friendship forged in the heat of battle, friendship that is stronger than perspective of freedom; a tale following the philosophy that no sacrifice is too great. There are true horrors of war, but also moments of heroism; of throwing your own life on the line to save an ally.

(You meet horrors of war really often)

Whereas in Battlefront II I said that campaign serves more as a multiplayer teaching tool rather, in CoD WWII I was genuinely interested in the story and... It prepared me a tad bit for multiplayer, but campaign is a well-crafted story that CAN give you some experience in how the shooting and grenades work in the game, but once you step into the multiplayer – you quickly realize that this is nowhere close to difficulties you had to fight through during the story.

When I started the multiplayer, I had to choose something called a 'Division' – to put it shortly – a fancy name for class... Technically. Just because one class has a sniper rifle at the start, it doesn't mean you can't change it for shotgun. But every division has a set of different, useful perks once you level them up. But other than that and a short introduction to various parts of the main multiplayer menu – you're pretty much free to go and dive deep into multiplayer.

(For many - the last train; train to the place, where the hope would die...)

There are plenty of modes to choose from – the basic deathmatch and team deathmatch; typical bomb plant/defuse scenario; capturing and holding points; multi-objective scenarios on maps of various sizes (depending on the game mode). Aaaand then there is a zombie mode, which – in all honesty – I haven't played and I have no interest in playing it. I was never too keen on 'zombie' genre or modes. It may be good, it may be bad – but I can't give you an answer for that.

I started playing when CoD WWII had some sort of Double XP for everything – divisions, weapons etc. so... I can't quite give a reliable time it takes to level up, because in span of like 5 or 6 hours I went from 1st to 20th level. The experience was literally raining. I suppose leveling up in 'normal' pace isn't as bad too since... Well, multiplayer is enjoyable to say the least.

(Beauty and terror)

And even though I think multiplayer here is much more enjoyable than in Battlefront II (At least there's much less chaos going around) and I definitely have much more fun playing it, I need to address a small elephant in the room. Initially you will be matched wish usually really high-level, experienced players that can make your overall experience... A bit less pleasant, but endure through this, try to learn maps and time-to-kill and... Well – between me on the 1st level and me on the 20th level is quite a big difference.

(I know that I'm in no position to talk about what's broken or easy to use due to my inexperience in this particular multiplayer and in overall CoD franchise so... I'll just keep that to myself).

We've addressed the small elephant in the room, so now it's time for the bigger one – lootboxes. Just like in Battlefront II – we can find lootboxes in CoD WWII as well (here called as 'supply drops'). They contain cosmetics – skins, gestures, etc. We can earn them for free by doing daily/weekly missions (here called 'orders')... Not that it justifies putting lootboxes in the game, but at least the game doesn't try to force microcurrency and lootboxes down your throat so... that's that.

(More weapons are unlocked with special tokens we receive with each level up)

(A sacrifice...)

So, to summarize everything up. I quite enjoyed both titles, but in both campaign and multiplayer aspect – CoD: WWII won my heart. Maybe my opinion would have been different if I were a fan of Star Wars, but... In my opinion – CoD: WWII does everything – even frickin' lootboxes – better than Battlefront. I'll probably play some more Battlefront II every now and then, but my from these two, I'd say that CoD would be my 'go-to' game for the most part. But as with everything – everyone has their own opinion and other people can much more enjoy Battlefront II and there's nothing wrong with that!

Take a part in large space battles and play as your favorite character or/and experience the horrors of war and a reminder that war is the best example of humanity's self-destructive behavior!

Kind Regards,

Wing.