The no-brainer follow-up to the best selling Star Wars game LucasArts ever made, Battlefront II sticks to the formula of sci-fi combat action using trademarked characters and environments from all six Star Wars films (including Episode III, with the most imaginative landscapes of them all).

It's a complete package with just its single player modes of Instant Action, Conquest an a new, open-ended campaign that plays out a malleable plot from the clone troopers point of view, where your actions can actually change the outcome of the George Lucas story like he never intended.

But Battlefront II it's at its long-term best with its online multiplayer components, where it's as remarkable as the strikingly similar Battlefield 2 from EA, only Star Wars flavored, obviously. These offer a series of live campaigns games where up to 24 players on PS2, 32 on Xbox (64 on Windows PC) can have at it, all tactical and team-based. It's pretty much everything Star Wars fans could ask for, whether it's stomping across Hoth in an AT-AT, cannons ablaze, storming the backwaters of Dagobah in search of the deadly pinball known as Yoda, or going commando with a diverse squad of Storm Troopers inside Princess Leia's cruiser. More than that, there are space battles now, too, integrated with foot soldiering, so while you can roam around a Star Destroy to protect it/infiltrate it, you can also hop into a waiting TIE fighter and join the dogfight outside, or fly over and board the enemy's ship, which is amazing and, really, a complete experience in its own right. But as just a portion of the whole offering, it's overwhelmingly cool.

The game offers little in the way of visual improvement over the last - though it's still pretty enough - but does offer gameplay on a much larger scale, solid character/skills/weapons balance (no small feat considering the number and diversity of playable characters), polished enemy AI, graciously tweaked controls, and, overall, more substance. Much more. Like playable Jedi and Sith Lords, finally.

Funny, but there comes a point when the game is so overwrought with iconic playables that the bubble pops. Like seeing your favorite childhood star reduced to low rent reality TV, it's just wrong to have some novice playing as Darth Vader getting struck down repeatedly by a squad of skilled players, or to see Obi-Wan hopping and thrashing about as someone desperately button-mashes his way out of a jam. That said, it sure can be fun; Celebrity Deathmatch: the Star Wars Edition, or Sith Vs Jedi: Smackdown. Besides which, the number and frequency of super-powered Jedi and Sith Lords appearing can be adjusted server-side, most obviously to one big shot "leader" per side, the rest as grunts and support, so it's not usually campy, but it's always awesome.

[TIPS: You can get a try-before-you-buy peek at Battlefront 2 if you buy the Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith DVD, which includes a game trailer and well as an Xbox (only) game demo on Disc 2 (special features).

To access the "Hero Free-For-All," go into the "Instant Action" mode, then choose the Mos Eisley map with "Assault" mode.

In the console versions of Battlefront II (i.e. Xbox and PS2), pause your single-player game (only) then press Up, Down, Left, Down, Down, Left, Down, Down, Left, Down, Down, Down, Left, Right for infinte ammo, or Up, Up, Up, Left, Up, Down, Up, Up, Left, Down, Down, Down, Left, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right for slow-mo sounds. ]