"Any" news is good news? You sure about that?

"A dwindling population leaves planets deserted and lonely"

Picked up a copy of PCFormat today and there's a review of SW Battlefronts II. Which gets totally panned.

You can feel the writers frustration, it's a good game and has front end excitement... but something's just, well, wnot 'wrong' but not 'right' either.

"There's someting about Star Wars that brings out the excited child in all of us, and Battlefront 2 is so packed with cool Star Wars things that you'll lose count of the tiny moments of glee when you get your hands on something from the films. But after each and every one of them, without fail, there is a sag of disappointment. Every time, the new toy turns out to be lame, badly made or broken. We're not children, we can tell the Jedi bits are just a third rate hack 'em up, we've played a good FPS or two and we know Battlefront 2's toothless, tactics-free blasting isn't one of them" - Tom Francis, p102 PCFormat January 2006

The game gets a pretty stinky 59% and PCF says "All of your wildest Star Wars fantasies realised... badly"

Page 98 of the same mag. Their review of SWG:Starter Kit is summarised "It's not big, it's not clever - a total absence of any depth" and gives it an enfeebled 24%.

"It starts well. A new tutorial on board a space station sets the starting point for the eager adventurer, gaining levels, meeting familiar faces and getting to know the game. You are eventually plonked on Tatooine, giving you access to a long and interesting quest line." The ability to dabble in varied professions was once the main draw, giving players the freedom to choose what they wanted from their character. This led to game balancing problems, now remedied with the removal of 25 professions leaving a dull total of nine" "A dwindling population leaves planets deserted and lonely, the player economy is in tatters and the only real content is only available through expansion packs"

"A once interesting game now lacks soul, creativity and, crucially, things to do"

Andy McGregor, p98 PCFormat January 2006 (My emphasis added)

Normally having two Star Wars games reviewed in one issue of a games mag would be enough to have them running to Toys'R'Us and stocking up on plastic lightsabers and Yoda/Vader masks so they can ham it up a bit and stretch the reviews out to a couple of pages and a big "I remember my first Star Wars moment..." type articles.

Now it's starting to feel as if the Star Wars name is going to be the Kiss of Death. For a while anyway.