Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron retains the blasting action from 2005's Battlefront, but includes a few subtle additions to make it an improved, though not quite perfect, sequel.

For those who don't have too many friends (or want to get a good amount of practice), Renegade Squadron packs a single-player campaign mode. In it, you fill the role of Col Serra, a commander who recaps his days of adventure and glory on Han Solo's squad to a curious listener. Over the course of each mission, select your starting point, equip yourself with the necessary items at stations and head into battle against the Empire. (As a bonus, you can customize Col if you don't like his drab appearance.)

Battlefront's credit spending system definitely stands out. Rather than pick and choose whatever tools you like, you have to budget a certain amount of available coinage. Weapons are cool to have, such as the rocket launcher and the chaingun. However, you'll also need to conserve funds for other necessities, such as a fusion cutter to repair gun turrets or a jet pack to reach higher plateaus.

The real treat, however, is the return of Galactic Conquest. In this mode, you hop around an interactive game board, mapped throughout a quadrant of the galaxy. Buy soldiers, weapons and items and move around sectors, starting battles to maintain control of a certain space. If you're not up for this Risk-like experience, however, other modes are available, such as two variants of capture the flag and a full-blown assault space battle where everyone jumps into ships and chases after each other like dogs in a junkyard.

All of this would be worthless without a reliable control scheme. Luckily for us, Renegade Squadron plays wonderfully. The ground combat is very similar to Battlefront II. Auto-lock onto enemies and switching targets is easy, except in the higher difficulty levels -- then it requires a bit of manual work on your part. Strafing and throwing grenades is a cinch. Even space combat missions have never felt so engaging, as your vehicles maneuver very easily. There's even an auto-follow option that's easy to turn on, in case you have trouble keeping a bead on Boba Fett or some other wily TIE Fighter pilot.