Today I'm reviewing an older game, which was released way back in 2001. Why, you ask? Well, the other day I discovered some old computer games in my closet and one of them was Star Wars: Dark Forces 2. This was an old first person shooter that let you use different Jedi powers along with classic Star Wars blasters and thermal grenades. It, along with several other titles from LucasArts occupied a fairly big chunk of my very pathetic childhood as a computer gamer. I spent hours upon hours on games like Grim Fandango and Tie Fighter for the PC, and anyone thats nostalgic about old PC games should most definitely check these titles out, if you can somehow find them. But this blog is devoted to console games, because, well.. I think console games kick ass. So, permit me to introduce you to Star Wars Starfighter: Special Edition for the Xbox.This very cool remake of the original Starfighter game for PS2 (which I never played) impressed me in terms of its smoothness, although I found it did have a few more glitches than I would have liked to see. For instance, blowing up large spaceships often results in a few discombobulated seconds of pixelated flying space debris, which is choppy to play through. You also tend to 'bounce' off ships awkwardly if you get too close, and there is very little room on some of the planet battles which leads to a claustrophobic feel at times. However the space battles don't share this problem and overall the game runs very smoothly and only takes about a half hour of getting used to the throttle/braking system and the turning capabilities of all the ships.
You can see how the image looks crisp from a distance (left), but seems to get pixelated at close range (right). However this game was released in 2001, so it is actually ancient by technologies standards, and it still looks great. Kudos to LucasArts.In the mission mode you play as one of three characters (all of which fly different ships) fighting against the Trade Federation to stop the invasion of some planet. I didn't really focus on the plot of the game too closely because the game is pretty much blasting away at everything you can target and destroy. There are some cool features, like having an interactive teammate or wing of fighters that follow your commands, but the commands are basically restricted to "attack my target" or "defend my target". The audio chatter gives you some direction as to what you should be blasting (for example, your wing mates will yell things like "quick, destroy that missile frigate!") but for the most part the game lays out your objectives beforehand and you can pretty much take out everything in sight.
Overall, there's nothing outstanding about this 'special edition' game, however it's a fun couple hours of gaming and it offers a decent challenge to any flight game fans out there. I'm pretty sure this game was motivated by its release date (it came out about a month before christmas) to generate a bit of green. Overall, not bad. But don't go rushing out to buy this technologically ancient title, there are some much better flight and fight games to be played.
The ancient look of the LucasArts 'gold guy' really speaks for how old this game actually is.
Sheel-Score: 6.5/10
Sheel-Score: 6.5/10
2 comments:
Did you ever play Lego Star Wars (either of them)? I have a Game Cube and I've looked at those games a couple of times. We like to play two-player co-op games and I thought they might be good. Any Game Cube suggestions?
Actually I played Lego Star Wars 2 not too long ago. It's a little 'kiddish' compared to some of the more graphic Star Wars games but it has very similar game play to, say Star Wars: Battlefront.
I never owned a gamecube, the only game I played was Smash Brothers, and it was really good if you played the original N64 game. Other than that.. I'd say the 'Zelda' games, they almost never do a poor job when Link is involved :)
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