GameSpot's The Lobby: Should you buy Star Wars season pass?

[MUSIC] But next up on The Lobby we're gonna be talking about the Star Wars season pass announcement. The beta is wrapping up. We have a couple more hours to get into that, but for you essentially there's no more time to play. But we did learn a lot more about the season pass. I'm joined on the couch by Mike [UNKNOWN] Rob [UNKNOWN] and Aaron What do you guys think? So having played a lot of time with the beta that was extended much longer than we thought it was going to be, what are your overall impressions? There are 9, they said [UNKNOWN] 9 million people played the beta. To me that says that this was a demo, given like, yeah. Like, I mean the words that we use around those. A lot of times I think that they do say. Beta when this is in fact a demo. The game is so close to launch. It's gonna be coming out soon. This might be a little bit testing the servers and stressing them and making sure that they work, but for the game itself this is the fully finished product. This is the game as it's [CROSSTALK] So, that's what I went into it assuming, like, this late in the cycle, like, I'm sure the disks are already going off to print and, you know, people who have their pre-orders are making their decisions right about now whether to keep them or ditch them. I mostly was left with a kinda a little bit of concern from the beta. We saw three maps, and Rob's also seen Endor, and every single time we've seen this game there's always been just something to every single map where you're like "Eh, I'm not so sure about this." Like walker assault on Hoth was so imbalanced towards the Imperials and to be fair its a beta and balance can be tweaked and fixed. But in this case, I don't know how it go through QA to that point. I wonder what the creative process was That allowed the Imperials to have their AT-ST walkers literally walk into the Rebel spawn. The spawn. And kill everybody. Or like a turret that fired directly into the Rebel base and killed everybody. Or an AT-AT walker that fired into the Rebel base and killed everybody, like. And you can't choose your spawn. It's something as simple as not even letting players choose where they're going to start to get the objective. Granted you could spawn on a partner but you think of battlefield spawning or lobby menus there's at least a freaking map. Like you know what I mean? I would actually, I'm realizing now there isn't a map to see what's going on in the battle field Field or where are my guys? What tactical location can I come in and help out? It's just so up in the air, we put footage up of a ATST rampage I had as an imperial, and I just flanked around on the side lane and just started owning people, I got 15 kills because. They're spawning in groups, like six guys at once, and I'm just annihilating them. And there's nothing they can do. They have no control over their spawning. So that was just the walkers out on Hoth, drops in on [UNKNOWN], was just like a model of simplicity. And it was so simple, and the pacing was so consistent, that I tend to find those things get boring. Just because the map didn't have any terrain variety to it. It was all lava fields with little pools that burned your ankles and one landing pad with a ship you couldn't interact with. So like maybe that might be Dyson's. So like in Battlefield what they would do is they would take a large map and section off a small area for team death-match style modes. So it's possible that map, to be fair, is much larger and has interesting sections and that was just a boring section to pick for the map and then survival in [UNKNOWN] they only allowed normal mode and in normal mode the enemy AI would fall asleep fighting you. I had an ATST just kind of drift off. In the middle of a gun battle, and kind of lost focus on- I'm bored. [LAUGH] Yeah, again, all the of the things that were curated for this demo, I just found problems. But overall, I mean, this is something that at the end of the day is a marketing tool. It's trying to get you to try out the game. And enough people play that view, you said over 9 million people. And they extended it long enough that it seems like, on that sense of a success. Mike, what do you think after having played it? Is this something that you feel like, I want to preorder? Or do you still kind of waiting to see what the review is going to shake out to be? I don't know that I would preorder. I didn't play as extensively as these two or a few people in the office. But I had fun with it. I wasn't, I don't know that I went into it looking for like a balance as much as I would with a lot of shooters. But, It was just great to be back in the Star Wars Universe. But will that get me excited to pay for the season pass, and preorder the game? I don't think so. Hell no. I think I would hesitate. Yeah. So you're not gonna buy the season pass from this. I'm not. I'm probably gonna handle it just like I did with Battlefield 4, I bought Battlefield 4 And then bought one expansion, and then I got, I drifted away. Again, I used to be insane Battlefield guy, so that's my own reason there. But buying $120 worth for this game and having this beta experience, there's no way, there's no way you would do it. But you mentioned, [UNKNOWN] this is like the Battlefield experience, in that it's gonna follow that same That same setup. That same algorithm, where you have four packs. We don't know exactly what's going to be offered in there, but there's gonna be some assortment, probably of new maps and maybe some new modes. Having seen that from the Battlefield model, why is that not something that you wanna carry over into Star Wars? Traditionally, Battlefield 3 and 4 Had at least one DLC that I didn't like. They mostly had to deal with taking a large battlefield and making it two close quarters. They did that twice in a row on their first DLC. And so already I had already paid for one of four DLCs I didn't like ahead of time. So I've gotten to a point now where I'll wait and see how the DLC is before I'll buy it. And if there's even one DLC that you don't like, you've like saved yourself $15 or whatever out of, you know, the pricing model. Right. Now, again, like this game though is very simple. I think it's very casual and I think of those 9 million people, like, you pretty much know right away whether you like it or not, because the design decisions are so specific. Not being able to choose your spawn, not having extensive loadouts, having the game choose when and where you go a lot of times. You'll know whether you like that or not right away, and I think that won't be a hard decision for casual players to make. Yeah, Rob? Oh, I just wanted to say, we're seeing a lot of aerial combat. I did a video piece. Aerial combat is so Confusing. It needed to be one to one. Like so for instance, when you see a barrel roll, it's just such a weird design choice. And you barrel role, I'm sorry not barrel role, a flip. You're going to be upside down. The game doesn't know, like it then has to be like, okay well now I'm upside down, how the hell do I get back right side up Your controls are the same for left and right and that yaw and roll are the same one direction so you're upside down, the controls are just so weird and bizarre. Here you are, [LAUGH] [LAUGH] Automatically being swung into a hill when you're doing the snow speeder. I don't know. So, was that- It was an afterthought. Was that AT-AT pretty much invulnerable to the tow cable when it was next to that hill? It becomes vulnerable in the very, very last portion of the fight, in which you can tow cable it, and oftentimes the timer would run out while you were in the QTE. So even though you would have cinched the walker, you would lose because the timer ran out. Like, again, it sees You have a demo, you have a curated demo and what you've shown is mostly concerning me, and when you ask a question about pre-orders, that means no I'm not gonna pre-order it. Now, I'm open to the possibility that there's gonna be good modes and maps in this game. There's a couple things that I'm looking forward to, like supremacy is gonna be their conquest mode. And it's this sort of tug of war conquest mode. So that actually could be really cool. Cargo sounds a lot like capture the flag or obliteration from Battlefield Hardline. Obliteration was a great mode in Battlefield 4. And droid run might solve the problems of drop zone by, it looks like the droids move around, right? So instead of just Guarding static things. The droids are running around. So like already there's like probably about half of the modes that I'm interested in. The other half the modes when I flip through the menus I'm definitely not interested in. Like their team death match, not interested in. Air Supremacy their fire squadron mode, not interested in. Sure. So, you know, there's like half the content that I'm. Like tentatively looking forward to seeing. And Rob, as one of the biggest Star Wars fan in the office I think that there has to be some maps there or something that you're like, even though I'm on the fence now like as soon as they announce that? No, I have to order that as soon as I know that's in the game. Exactly. And that's where I'm on the fence. I'm So looking forward to this movie. I watched the trailer about five times everyday. But the movie, as you can imagine, the seasons are gonna correspond to the movie. You're gonna see, like in the trailer, the x wings booking on the water, probably gonna be in the superiority map. You're gonna have these correlations where you're like, oh man that would be really cool. What a memorable moment from the movie that I'd love to play. That's where I'll probably get, I'll get sucked in. But, I gotta play the game, the actual game first. I'm not gonna play that call. 120 bucks is way too much. Is there anything that would pull you in, Mike? Yeah. I mean, like Aaron had said, I think I'm just more of the person who would want to see how each individual pack. Plays out. I would not mind spending $15 for another planet to play on or however they choose to separate it and whatnot. And I'm nowhere near close as Rob, or like a bunch of people in the office. I'm a huge Star Wars fan but I just can't I don't know what they would need to do for me to just say, yes I will preorder it, I will pay $120 dollars so I can prolong this experience for that long. Because right now it seems bare boned from my impression, I've played a few hours, I haven't played a ton. And I don't see it being worth that money. But I'm hoping they can. Convince me. Well, last question for each of you guys. We had some leaks come out of the game that we know there's gonna be some additional characters. Han and Leia. The Emperor, his hero powers you're gonna be able to get. And possibly some new skins for those hero powers as well. What kind of additions like that would you like to see in the game? Whether it's even possible or not or whether it's realistic. What's your dream wish? If you throw Boba Fett in there. [LAUGH] Oh he is coming in. Yeah, he is. [CROSSTALK] As a hero [UNKNOWN] [CROSSTALK] waddle around. As you can control him in the slave one as well as the [CROSSTALK] real deal. Yeah. Or widget. [UNKNOWN] assaults. [CROSSTALK] Wicket. [UNKNOWN] assault. Yeah. [UNKNOWN] assault. I'd be in. Don't take yourself too seriously. Just Dude, how about- Just give me whoppers. How about that, what's that character name? The like, You've seen the trailer, like the silver stormtrooper, Captain, like, Plasma, I think he is? Yeah, he looked like a dark trooper the first time I saw him. He'd be awesome. Plasma? He might be a lady trooper Well, she is. Yeah. Cool. It's the girl from, what's her name from- Rihanna Tarth from Game of Thrones. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, she totally kicks ****. And those are a lot of cool things that we might see potentially. I think they take our ideas. I think they listen to us, and those are the things they're gonna put in the game. Star Wars Battlefront Launch is on November 17th one month after that you will be able to see The Force Awakens in theatres on December 18th. And for even more game spot or [LAUGH] even more Star Wars stuff stay tuned to Game Spot. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]