I read some previews and reviews for Star Wars Battlefront II and it sounded really cool. I hadn’t played the original (which I hear is basically the same game) but I had wanted to try it. I hadn’t gotten much use out of my Xbox Live account with Halo 2 but I can see that SWBF2 will fix that problem. The game is a ton of fun to play. I don’t think I’ve played another Star Wars game before that has captured so much of the action of the movies. Today I manned an AT-AT and picked off rebels running around the snow on Hoth. Yesterday, while I was still learning the controls, I flew an X-Wing around the hangar bay of a Star Destroyer and took out several TIE pilots and stormtroopers. This happened because I hadn’t yet figured out how to land. The different classes and characters really make the game interesting. This evening when I was playing “Conquest” on Hoth, a message at the bottom of the screen asked “Would you like to play as Darth Vader?” Um… YES! After a few large force jumps across the icy terrain, I (as Darth Vader) slaughtered some rebels and took out a couple of turrets. A lot of reviews said playing as the heroes isn’t very exciting. I disagree. I don’t think they are overpowered but they are strong enough to make the gameplay interesting.