Have you spent time in the frozen wastes of Hoth? The Star Wars: Battlefront Beta went live yesterday, and the consensus is good! Finaly, a true imagining of the Star Wars universe, in all its epic scope and orchestral flourish. But it’s still a competitive shooter, and you’ll find yourself flailing unless you’ve spent a lot of time with these games or have some sort of natural acumen. Things are a little different in this game, and even veterans will take a moment to get used to things.
The Star Wars Battlefront beta began at 3pm UK time and will most likely end on Sunday night (October 11).
It is open to everyone and only takes a download to get going but beware, both consoles need around 7GB of space, while PC users will need 11GB. Not such a problem for those gamers with big hard drives, although some may have to start deleting older copies of titles.
Tips From Forbes:
Lose The Iron Sights: This is the big one. Star Wars: Battlefront, like most games, gives you the ability to hold down the left trigger and look down your weapon’s sights. Unlike most games, doing this gives you absolutely no accuracy advantage, and so you’re better off just firing from the hip. It will be hard to get used to for anyone that’s played a lot of Call of Duty, but looking down those sights at short to mid-range encounters does nothing but waste a few valuable shooting moments. Learn to lose them, and let loose. You can even play in third person to help shake the feeling that you’re playing a normal shooter.The big question will be if the final product has enough about it to keep gamers happy, the beta itself allows access to Walker Assault on Hoth, Drop Zone on Sullust and Survival Mission mode.
Throw Grenades Like Confetti: Once you’ve leveled up for a little bit, you’ll fill out your character’s “hand” with a few Star Wars cards granting special abilities: in my case, a sniper rifle and a grenade. Use these things constantly. The cooldown is a lot less than you might expect, and you’ll find that you can use these things with a certain degree of abandon. So if you find yourself with a nice rock to crouch behind and you see a firefight on the other side of the map, pull out your sniper. If you see lasers flying anywhere, throw a grenade. In Walker Assault, there are a whole lot of enemies to choose from at any given moment, so you’re better off letting those grenades fly and making it a little unpredictable for them. The same goes for powerups: resist the urge to horde these, as there are always more. The only exception would be if you find an A/X wing or orbital strike just before the Y-Wings are going to arrive. Then you’ll want to use those in a way that maximizes your time doing damage to the AT-ATs.
Flank: This one is mostly for Walker Assault — Drop Zone doesn’t quite have enough people or space to justify any extended flanking maneuvers. But it can be absolutely key in Walker Assault. If you see a firefight in progress around one of the control points, don’t just run in and add another warm body into the mix. Find a way around, watch out for enemies along the way, and try to surprise the enemies from the side or rear. This is especially helpful for the empire, which plays a more aggressive game as they try to deactivate uplinks. Just be careful to sprint through any open expanses you’ll need to cross: snipers are everywhere. And if you find yourself standing still to fire, be aware the enemy is trying to flank you, too.
Find Cover: Like I said, there are snipers everywhere. That little speck in the distance is very much a threat, and Walker Assault is a wide open map. So be very careful whenever you’ve got a view of any substantial portion of the battlefield, because someone else will be using that view to take you down. Luckily, it’s also a pretty well designed map, so you’ll find plenty of rocks and outcroppings even in the midst of what looks like an open field. And when in doubt, keep moving. The weapons aren’t great against a sprinting target, so even if you take some hits, you’ll probably be alright.
Don’t Worry If You Win Or Lose: This isn’t some elementary school platitude, rather just an unfortunate side effect of the current game balance. In Walker Assault, the empire is going to win nearly every time. The rebel alliance needs to display a shocking amount of dominance to even have a shot at winning this game mode, and even then it’s not a given. So think about the game in terms of smaller objectives, or else you’ll get frustrated at the balancing.
