Yesterday EA released a patch for Star Wars: Battlefront that included a new map (another Hoth map that takes place at night during a snow storm), among other things. I still like this game, although I don’t play it as much as I did at launch. I still pop back in for special events (double exp mostly) or when a patch drops. I keep hearing the game is dying and maybe it is, but by playing when I play I never have any trouble getting into a match.

I still pretty much ignore everything except the larger MP modes. The 20 v 20 ones like Walker Assault and Supremacy are big enough that I don’t get my usual case of the guilts when my team loses.

I also like that hardcore gamers seem to have written off SW:Battlefront as being a game for filthy casuals, because guess what? We casuals need games too! I can’t really argue with them though. I played for about 3 hours last night and came in anywhere from 3rd to 17th place and was on the winning side roughly half the time. That’s because so much depends on what power-ups or vehicles you grab. If I was a really skilled shooter player that would probably bug me.

It’s kind of sad, though that most gamers think every game needs to be aimed squarely at them and if a game isn’t, they can’t just accept that but have to rant and rage about it.

Anyway, I digress.

The only problem I have with the game now is that there are enough maps that it takes a long time to cycle through them. I guess I just missed the new map when I logged in. I played through the Outpost Beta map (the old Hoth map) and then Tattooine, Sullest, Endor, 1 match on Jakuur and by then it was midnight and I had to quit, so I never saw the new map. It had to have been next on the list but…being a responsible adult sucks. Midnight is my limit (you play 2 matches on each map, one as Rebels and one as Empire).

[Update: I finally got a chance to play the new map. Here’s a quick video of random gameplay. Turns out its an entirely new map, not just the hold Hoth map played with different lighting. Huzzah! My only complaint is that the blue lighting hides the blue health bar of friendlies and I keep shooting them thinking they’re the enemy… there’s no team damage but shooting makes you light up on radar.]

I’m not sure what the solution is though. If EA lets us cherry pick the maps that we want to play on it would fracture the player base (maybe?) unless you just happen to love the same maps everyone else loves.

Folks really tore into SW:Battlefront for not having enough content and being ‘shallow’ but I’ve definitely got my money’s worth of fun out of it, and expect to continue to play it now and then for the foreseeable future. I find it to be a rare (for me) beast: a competitive multiplayer game that offers casual fun. Usually I find competitive MP, and even some co-op MP, games to be very stressful, but not this one.

Here’s a quick video of me playing badly but still having fun: