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The game play is as expected for a shooter in both single player and multiplayer mode. The graphics engine is slicker and prettier, and there is no need to load any parts of the battlefield. The mouse and keyboard simulate the same controls available on the PS2 and Xbox game pad.

While many might bemoan the lack of sophistication in the enemy artificial intelligence in single player mode, the game only has two difficulty settings, so if you find yourself outgunned, the only way to get better is to keep playing the game over and over until you succeed, which is an exceedingly boring way to proceed. To be fair, turning off friendly fire in the game options makes the game a bit easier to play. Your allied units do have a mind of their own, and will step into your range of fire making the game more difficult with friendly fire on. A greater array of difficulty settings would have made the game more interesting to those (like me) who play the game for the plot - a Star Wars fan instead of a hard core gamer.

The game has a series of command posts that you can capture while keeping an eye on the kill board. If you get too far outnumbered, no matter how many heroics you pull off, you will still get defeated by the attrition of your troops. You can respawn as different classes of characters, depending what is available on your map. Engineers can be used to repair droids and build turrets to help hold bases. Troopers that can jump can help you get up to a higher vantage point to help win battles.

The soldier classes include soldiers, heavy weapons, engineer, sniper, special units, space and heroes. Play as one of eight special units, including Bothan Spy, Dark Trooper, Droideka and Clone Warrior. The seventeen new hero units include Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ki-Adi-Mundi and General Grevious. SWB2 adds four new special unit classes, one for each of the four factions supported in the game. I did not enjoy playing the heroes as much as I thought I should. The hero portion of the game could have been better designed to be more enjoyable. (More on that later.)

There are various transportation (speeder bikes) and assault vehicles (All Terrain Tactical Enforcer). In the space game you can fly four scout fighters, four multi-purpose fighters, four bombers, four transports and even pilot a Tauntaun or Snow Speeder from the movies. There are six gun turrets that, once built, can defend command posts.

The single-player, 18-scenario game follows Anakin Skywalker's 501st clone trooper unit from the attack of the clones in Episode II through Darth Vader's attack on Hoth prior to the Return of the Jedi. Follow Anakin from his earliest stirrings of the dark force to his complete surrender to its influence and enthusiasm for hunting down and subduing the rebellion as the Sith Lord Darth Vader. I found the campaign for galactic conquest a better single-player campaign than the one in the original Battlefront game.

Galactic Conquest mode presents you with four galaxy maps, which contain 13 planets each. If the turn-based moves take you over a planet, you assault the planet on foot. If you encounter another space fleet you have a space battle. You can play on the side of the Rebel Alliance, Confederate, Republic or Empire. Build fleets of ships and move from planet to planet, capturing the galaxy of planets one at a time. You can play as a foot soldier of various classes, or use your fleets to blockade the space lanes and defeat them as they advance with space assaults.

Some notable events take place that you may not like. There is an invincible rancor in Jabba's Palace that will eat you. There is something unfair about being killed by an invincible NPC. Luke killed this rancor in the film, but you have absolutely no chance of killing him.

You will suffocate if you get outside of the base on Polis Massa - so don't mistakenly exit from your vehicle outside the base or you will die. The controls on the space combat simulator are distinctly not precise like the joystick and throttle controls supported for the X-Wing and Tie Fighter games. I did not like the game's pad-like flying controls.

As mentioned above, new for SWB2 is the ability to play one of seventeen heroes. At a certain point score you are awarded the hero in the single-player game, or if you are the high scorer in the multiplayer game. As a hero you can eliminate many enemies, and make a big difference in the single player games. As a multiplayer hero, your role is to do as much damage as possible before the enemy players get upset with you and take you down quickly. The heroes are not invincible, and they often go down hard, sometimes before you have obtained a critical advantage that will allow you to win the game.

The one thing that was pretty neat was the ability to get into a space fighter or bomber and fly to your enemy's hangar bay and sabotage their ship from within. Using an enemy ship's guns or sabotaging enemy ship systems to destroy that enemy ship is a unique feature of the game. If only the controls of the flight simulator were more precise.

The game can be purchased in a single package shipped with the Star Wars Episode III DVD. You not only play the game with set pieces and locations from the films, but you can buy and actually watch the "last film" produced.

Multiplayer supports more players - 24 on PS2, 32 on Xbox, and 64 on PC when using XFire or GameSpy public multiplayer servers. Using your console as a server will limit your games to 4 players. The multiplayer play is more varied, with better and more difficult game play than the single player game can offer. The game is basically a team-based shooter set in the Star Wars universe.

The game can be played in first or third person, allowing you to go between the two perspectives with one button press. The graphics on the PC are more detailed than those on the Xbox, which is more detailed than the PS2 version. The animation frame rate is smooth on a fast PC, but can show slow downs and speed spikes on the console versions.

In summary, SWB2 is merely an upgrade to the original game, although there are many new and unique features. The game play is similar to the original game. If you are expecting something unique, you may be disappointed. If you liked the original game and want more of the same with a few unique and fun features, you will not be disappointed.

I felt the game was not well designed for single player mode, and could have benefited from a more extensive single player campaign with better AI and more levels of difficulty to ease up the learning curve while the multiplayer game was pretty standard fare. Star Wars fans are sure to enjoy being in the Universe once again. Gamers may find it lacking.