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You take on the role of a mercinary allied with the republic, Kyle Katarn. Formerly a Jedi who gave up his powers, Kyle has made a living keeping the New Republic safe from the Imperial Remnant. Featureing Famous characters such as Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, And the New Republic leader Mon Mothma, the game takes place in the time after the movies and Features a plot that is easy to get into, with makes the game as hard to put down as the game itself. The Game teaches something very important to gamers that play it, SAVE OFTEN. You will be dying alot and the levels are rather long. Dying means you have to start at the levels begining ( the last time you saw a load screen ) and do all that work over again, which, I might add, can get even more frusterating than repeatedly getting killed. Still you will find yourself sometimes dying out of shere curiousity (hey...I wonder what would happen if i jumped in this pit beside these huge arcing shield generators?! ) not because of the doubt it would kill you...but for what the animation for it might look like.
Graphics:
Ok...lets Face it...This game is a port of a computer game that is getting old. In game it looks great...save for the odd glitches that sometimes happen, such as deflecting a blaster bolt with your lightsaber when your blade is no where near it or watching an enemy get stuck on a pixle and wiggling like he has ants in his drawers. And while the blaster problem is common, I'm wanting to think it was only there because i was playing the game on Padawan (easy). Unfortunately, the games cutscenes involving the polygonal character models...really badly needed a facelift, and the game would periodically skip frames in times cenimatics of large areas. I never noticed loss of frames in the In Game mode however so that is something. The game also features a gallery that you can unlock...but..there aren't many pictures and you can't really see them either.
Sound:
Accurate....Very...very...accurate. The voice acting is very well done. Each of the main characters sound like he/she should. Blasters sound like blasters, TIEs like TIEs, Lightsabers like Lightsabers....you get my drift. The only downside is the music, which changes depending on your situation/proximity to the enemy. While this can be handy..it can also annoy you as the transitions aren't really as smooth as can be. Still I will admit that its funny to listen to some of the in game conversations that happen sometimes between the various, soon to be dead villans that you come accross in the game.
Controls:
Port worthy. That having been said, as compaired to many other ports the transition to the Gamecubes controler actually was a pretty good one. While It would have probably been much better on a keyboard, where it was ment to be, the Gamecube controler actually allowed a good deal of freedom. Selecting the Force ability you wanted to use for the situation was about the only thing that needed to be done before entering the battle, as the controls would usually get you killed if you suddenly had to change fighting Dark Jedi. Otherwise the controls played out as a very tipical First Person Shooter's controls would have. Beware the action button though...as it doubles as your use item command.
Gameplay:
Ok...this game has NO learning curve. It starts out hard ( even on Padawan when you haven't ever played the game before ) and just gets harder. The game features a lot of, run here, flip this switch, go there, style puzzles that sometimes cause the games progress to be a little tedious, but none the less fun. Unfortunately this formula sometimes results in you running around trying to think of where you haven't been yet. Thats a bad thing because to my knowedge the game has no in game map much less any way of telling you "go here". The game also has a few glitches, a small delay in the jump command that killed me more than anything else in the game, a really strange anti-gravity glitch where I just floated off in a direction in the middle of a multiplayer match, Small things like that. Luckily you get used to the jump quickly and the anti-grav problem only ever happened to me once.
Overall:
hard as hell, beautifully crafted, well scripted and voiced. Someone did their homework. The game is excellent and offers a lot to people that are fans of the Star Wars franchize (like me). Despite the minor problems that plague it, the game plays beautifully and keeps you interested. It can be frustrating at times but the story alone will keep you coming back for more punishment. The Levels flow pretty well as well and the ammount of recognizable things in both the multiplayer and single player ( less in single ) games will give a true fan a nice little rush, while it will give the regular player plently of space and levels to mess with.
Final Score: 8 out of 10
The music and dated ( so...grainey ) FMV sequences are the only things that cut this game down, and Its mostly the FMV. The game is almost enjoyable to a fault, no matter how frustrating or difficult it is. And I'm sorry to say this but there is just something extremely entertaining about sucking a hanger full of Stormtroopers out the nearest airlock.
Draco's Game Reviews © Ben C. Broome 2002+
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