Star Wars Battlefront has polarised opinion like few games in recent history. It’s simplified, shallow and hardly a full game at all. Yet once you log in, you can’t help but play it over and over again.

Star Wars Battlefront is available for Xbox, PS4 and PC. In its current form it only has a few maps spread across several game modes. It doesn’t have a server browser, but just an interface where the game will find you a match. This element has generated a lot of anger from fans, but so far, it’s working fine as long as you’re a solo player.

The first thing that strikes you about Star Wars Battlefront is that it is visually beautiful. From the forest of Endor to the deserts of Tatooine, everywhere looks amazing. The maps are well drawn, characters move fluidly and everything on screen looks and sounds the part.

Gameplay is simple. Kit out your Republic soldier or Stormtrooper and go and shoot stuff. That’s it. Depending on the game mode, you will be capturing droids, killing the opposing team or downing AT-AT walkers, but it’s all about the shooting.

The thing about Star Wars Battlefront is that without the Star Wars context, this game wouldn’t have sold well at all. It’s a barebones game that is very superficial. It has none of the depth of other Battlefield games and is sparse even by Call of Duty standards. Yet with all those Star Wars elements, something happens to it and the game is transformed into a much more playable game even if isn’t as deep as I would have liked.

I mean, where else can you shoot rebels from the cabin of an AT-AT or dogfight an X-wing against other players? Where else can you take the role of Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker and force choke or force push your way through a field of players?

While Star Wars Battlefront is neither a complete game nor particularly good value for money, it’s a fantastic way to live your Star Wars fantasy. For a while at least.

Jesmond Darmanin is a technology enthusiast who has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.