In addition to providing the iconic battlegrounds of the Star Wars movies for online multiplayer battles, Battlefront made use of star fighters on some maps that didn't involve fighters in the movie battle. So even though Tie fighters and X-wings didn't always make much sense or offer much use on the map, they were a nice novelty for players interested in taking them for a spin. For the sequel, space battles have been added to make full use of pilots and star fighter combat.

There are six maps for space battles, usually with a capital ship on each side and smaller vessels thrown in to round out the field. After choosing a pilot or marine, you can hop in a Tie Fighter, Interceptor or Bomber or an X-wing, A-wing or Y-wing, plus similarly decked out droid ships and early republic ships. The fighters are, obviously, great for dog fighting because they're quick and maneuverable. Bombers and Y-wings are slower and much more effective at attacking the sweet spots of enemy capital ships, like the bridge and gun turrets. The flight combat is very basic. Other than a barrel roll, you're not going to find a whole of depth. The interesting part is boarding an enemy ship and taking it out from the inside. In that case, marines are better equipped than pilots, though pilots repair their ship slowly over time.

Fighter combat is fun, but it's more shallow than flight simulation fans are going to want. It's not a game in itself. Rather, it's one element of the teamwork needed to be effective on those maps. You need to organize a boarding party, get them on the ship safely, then take over that ship. Traveling from one ship to the other adds another level of complexity to the team play, which is great. It's just not going to satisfy those looking for complex dog fights.

To create the feeling of giant space battles from the movies, though, you really need a lot of people. When you've got some people flying, some people boarding and some people manning turrets on the ships (another option), the area gets thin on players pretty fast. That's where the Xbox and PC versions hold a serious edge over the PS2. On Xbox live the games can host up to 32 players, with 64 being the max on the PC. The PS2, however, can host only 24.

The other big addition to multiplayer is the use of Jedi characters. The default setting makes one available to a side after it scores ten points. One player will get a prompt offering to let them play as whichever character is available for that map. The conditions for Jedi appearances can be edited to more or less than ten kills, or it can simply be triggered after a certain amount of time has passed. The honor of playing the character can go to the player with the best score, worst score, or randomly. Only one Jedi can appear on a side at a time, and they do not respawn.

The chances of needing them to respawn, however, are slim. It's not impossible to bring down a jumping, saber throwing, blast deflecting Jedi, but it's pretty hard. They don't have too much trouble cutting through normal players like butter, so your best hope is to get them to go head to head against each other.

The first game offered only conquest mode, in which winning meant controlling all the command posts on a map. This time you'll be able to play capture the flag (one or two flags), assault and hunt, which must have been dreamed up just for those who have a problem with Ewoks and Gungans. In a Hunt game, the purpose is to take down as many of the natives as possible. The other players, Gungans and Ewoks, usually, get to defend themselves, of course, but it seems clear most Star Wars fans would rather be on the side of the empire, sniping them off as fast as possible.

The single player offers Galactic Conquest mode again, putting the player through battle after battle until you control the whole galaxy. But the new Rise of the Empire mode is a lot more interesting. It focuses on Vader's pet army, the 501st legion, during the empire's expansion between the two trilogies. The missions are more varied, with objectives like collecting items and wiping out groups of people in addition to the usual massacre of the opposing army.

Battlefront II is a good sequel, but it's got too much in common with the first game to make the upgrade a no-brainer. The animation and character models are pretty much the same as the last game, which were good - not earth shattering, but good. The expanded fighter combat will not satisfy fans hoping for a new version of the X-wing vs. Tie Fighter series, but it's a nice new wrinkle for the multiplayer maps. Jedi fall into the same category - a nice improvement, but they don't make the game into something completely new and fresh.