Another musical interlude

As the Star Wars marathon nears its end, I wanted to present another song I have listened to more than usual lately to get the proper vibes: this time, "Master of Darkness" by Arjen Anthony Lucassen's progressive metal project Star One (the title card shown on the clip is all f'd up, it's not Ayreon). The lyrics are about Darth Vader trying to convince Luke Skywalker to join the Dark Side of the Force, and Yoda being a total asshole like usual, by firmly believing he will actually do it. "Never trust a Skywalker will I, hmm?"

The song features four vocalists: Dan Swanö (Nightingale, Edge of Sanity) as Luke Skywalker, Russell Allen (Symphony X) as Darth Vader, Damian Wilson (Threshold, Headspace) as Master Yoda, and strangely, Floor Jansen (After Forever, ReVamp) as Princess Leia, a character that isn't really a part of the equation, but it's always a treat to listen to Ms. Jansen sing.

REVIEW - Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force (2004)

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: September 2004
AVAILABLE ON: GBA
DEVELOPER(S): Ubisoft
PUBLISHER(S): Ubisoft
PLAYERS: 1-2

With work on the third and final film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy underway, Lucasfilm once again capitalized on the success of the original and published a DVD box set that included yet again revised versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The first official DVD release of the Star Wars trilogy called for a video game - I guess. On the same September day the fabled box hit the shelves - and left them just as quickly, thanks to millions of enthusiastic fans around the globe - a less commercially successful Game Boy Advance title arrived, this time courtesy of Ubisoft. They did fine work on Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith some time later, how did they fare with their first Star Wars game? Well, the sales might not have been too impressive, but it is quite playable! However...

...Exciting is hardly the word I would choose

Luke Skywalker recounts his story of how he first turned from a farmhand on Tatooine into an ace pilot who destroyed the Imperial Death Star, then a high-ranking officer of the Rebel Alliance on Hoth, and finally, an outstanding Jedi Knight who helped his father Darth Vader to return from the Dark Side of the Force and fulfill his destiny as the Chosen One.

Could you help out even a little, sis?

This is the tenth Star Wars game directly based on the original trilogy, that I have played and reviewed during the last month. It has a certain "here we go again" vibe about it from the beginning, the order of progress is so similar to every game that came before it. After all, all of the games have been quite faithful to their licenses. However, some of the key scenes of the movies which are perfect video game material are left totally ignored (although they're maybe mentioned) in Apprentice of the Force, such as the group's escape from the Death Star; while Luke selling his landspeeder to the Jawas to be able to pay Han and Chewie for their services, an almost non-existent scene in the movie, is converted into a standard stage, in which you fight hordes of stormtroopers and navigate the surprisingly confusing Mos Eisley infrastructure to find a pack of Jawas interested in your vehicle. You play as Luke all the way - however, you will often have companions who have crappy A.I.. More about the details in a bit.

Graphical details - you want those? Well, you've come to the... wrong place! Just as the game itself is influenced by cinematic platformers such as Another World and the classic Prince of Persia - the engine is actually that of the Game Boy Advance version of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time - the graphics also follow the less artificially detailed, yet more physical and dynamic chain of command. So, the game is not really that much of a sight to look at in the big picture, and the backgrounds are extremely dull, but from a purely physical view, the game looks quite all right, and some larger cel-shaded sprites such as Jabba's Rancor pet look perhaps detached, but quite damn cool in themselves. As far as presentation goes... Luke has a funny way of carrying his lightsaber in the Episode V part - looks like it is somewhat ripped off from Prince of Persia, as well. I said "in the Episode V part"; Luke's clothes and style change in each "movie" - and once _during_ Episode V, which is quite neat. I don't have much to say about the music. Maybe I've played a bit too many Star Wars games lately, since I find it very repetitive. As a matter of fact, it is quite repetitive. It feels like there's just a randomized playlist of familiar tunes looping all the while. The sound effects are once again on the mark, not much of a surprise there.

I never understood this line, or that "you
will" part. Luke's his own man.

The game is indeed what we, who grew up with games like Another World, Prince of Persia, Flashback and last but definitely not least, Blackthorne, at least used to refer to as cinematic platformers - a very physical game which progresses screen by screen, based on well timed, and moreover well considered jumps, and sometimes very strategic combat. There is one flying stage, which is of course Luke's Death Star trench run, preceded by a dogfight in space somewhat reminiscent of Solar Jetman. The controls are basically quite decent, but there are all kinds of minor and major negative clicks to them, such as Luke's occasional refusal to climb a ledge after grabbing it. Usually you cannot see more than a hunch from Luke's non-existent nose, which results in a bit too many leaps into the unknown - very often, a bottomless pit. Luckily you have infinite lives at your disposal. The most major nuisance in the whole game is most definitely the length of the levels, especially its relation to how boring and repetitive they are.

In most stages, you just run forward and blast/slash all sorts of enemies to high hell while trying hard to find the correct route to your destination in these maze-like pits of death - Obi-Wan and Yoda's spiritual forms show up from time to time to curse you for going into the wrong direction, so don't worry. In some stages, you have a companion. On one occasion it's Leia who "helps you out" in combat, but most of the time it's R2-D2; you need him to "solve puzzles", in other words figure out a very simple way how to get your less agile partner in the right spot to reprogram high-security doors, so you can pass through them. If your companion is incapacited, you die and need to start the screen over. In the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter stage, R2-D2's purpose changes and losing him does not equal defeat; he just won't be there to repair your shields. In other words, you're just doomed.

Regardless of the context, this is ALWAYS
epic.

The thing that drives Apprentice of the Force even deeper into the ground besides the common fact that its level design is ultra-boring, is that it really doesn't have anything that new and spectacular in it. Just think how many games based on the first three films have come and how some of them have conquered - how many times we have entered Mos Eisley and the Death Star, and did all sorts of things which never happened in the movies, but did happen in every game there ever was. It's a different platformer, but it's still a platformer! The only thing that's really different is that you actually train under Yoda's supervision, but even that segment's only here to usher in a new Force ability in a different way than usual. Nothing really new or at least very special in the ability department either, by the way: a double jump, a healing spell, a Force push, you know most of this drill. There are not many boss fights in the game, the numerous and occasionally completely irreverent boss fights in Super Star Wars are compensated for with inescapable battle screens filled with enemies and sometimes different hazards.

The cel-shaded Rancor looks really nice in
motion, so much better than the rest of the
whole game.

I didn't want to be on a constant negative about this game, but sometimes, it just happens, to me at least. I play a game, begin a review and once I'm almost done, I realize that even though the game was decent enough to try out and experience, I really can't come up with anything truly good to say about it. So, to put a cap on the negativity, the game is really easy. There is just one strategic boss fight that is truly challenging in the core sense of the word. Otherwise, the game is quite a breeze - which actually separates the game from every other Star Wars platformer... hmmm. You'd think there was a choice of difficulty level since the game is really generous with blaster upgrades, health items and Force energy, but there is none, it's just that simple and easy. It's indeed the promotional product to endorse the DVD box set that it was primarily meant to be, rather than a really worthy game. A sort of a "survival mode" is unlocked after you beat the game, nothing special there. It's just an endless stage in which you get points for each successful kill and won't have access to power-ups.

Star Wars: Apprentice of the Force started to bore the hell out of me in Mos Eisley, and since there are no landspeeder sequences, you can imagine how soon you make it to Mos Eisley. Cloud City took the cake, I simply couldn't stand the game anymore - sure, it's playable, but it's so God damn plain and boring! I clashed through the rest of it like a zombie, and the whole thing left a really lame aftertaste. Star Wars fans will surely enjoy the game to some extent, but I'm also sure they'll get a better run for their money playing some other games that have these very same themes.

GRAPHICS : 7.0
SOUND : 7.0
PLAYABILITY : 6.5
LIFESPAN : 5.0
CONCLUSION : 6.2

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 65.42%

Just another update. Be cool.

As you might've noticed before I deleted most of my old updates, I have taken a liking to making one in the beginning of each month, to tell you what will be going on for the next few weeks.

The (first...?) Star Wars marathon is four reviews away from its end. Can't say I'm going to miss the sound of a lightsaber for a while after I'm done with the biggest marathon yet. However, there is one thing that has constantly been fun about the Star Wars marathon, from the beginning to this very moment; the games are so different, in both gameplay and quality. I would bore myself to death if all the games were total horse shit. In turn, I would also bore myself to death with writing about tens of top-of-the-heap games in succession. I would run out of praises in no time, and lose my edge in really stomping a game to the ground. And thus, I got the idea for the next marathon, which goes by the enigmatic working title "Life After Star Wars".

Mark Hamill, tell us about life after
Star Wars.

Before the next marathon, I'm going to review a game which I have wanted to review for the longest time, ever since its release actually. I've got to finally get it out of my system, and I think it's going to be another one of those reviews which almost count as short stories, like most Final Fantasies, Red Dead Redemption, WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain and Dragon Age: Origins before it. It's not necessarily a top-quality game, just one I have a LOT to say about. I pretty much have the whole review in my head already, so I think it'll be done real quick, though.

This next marathon will outdo even the strangest twists in Star Wars when it comes to general diversity, differences between games and their ratings. It will also be bigger. I haven't nailed down an exact number of games just yet - THE LIST doesn't help in this situation a whole lot, since we're not talking about a single franchise, we're talking about something a bit more institutional. I'm going to compile a list of the games for myself in just a few minutes, while I'll let you have a rough estimated number of 30. That's right, 30 freakin' games. Might be even more, I have never been too good with estimations.

That's enough of jumping ahead, me and you still have four Star Wars games to go before the next marathon, and the one game I subtly referenced. Hope you've had an excellent May thus far, and may it remain excellent to the end.

REVIEW - Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon (2003)

GENRE(S): Shooter
RELEASED: November 2003
AVAILABLE ON: GBA
DEVELOPER(S): Pocket Studios
PUBLISHER(S): THQ
PLAYERS: 1

Flight of the Falcon is one cool name for a game, and for a Star Wars fan, it immediately paints a picture of a bombastic shoot 'em up starring THE dynamic duo of science fiction kicking ass all over the galaxy. Let's look at the track record of Star Wars games leading up to Flight of the Falcon on the Game Boy Advance, though. Jedi Power Battles; that game sucked. The New Droid Army; that game was nearly decent. Attack of the Clones; ...argh, forget it. Revenge of the Sith; well, that was a good game, but it was Ubi's game, while rest of these games were published by THQ. Well, so was Flight of the Falcon, and it follows up on THQ's crappy record. However, it has some small qualities which save it from getting thrown into the deepest Sarlacc pit in the horizon.

Watch the wisecracks, kid, or you're gonna find yourself floating home

Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon doesn't really have a story, it's more like a collective of different settings of space combat that may or may not have been seen in the first three movies. Even though the game is called Flight of the Falcon, you control the Millennium Falcon only in some stages of each "movie". You'll also have access to the landspeeder, Luke's X-Wing and the bike from Return of the Jedi in the rest. There are 14 stages altogether, and let me tell you why they suck... right after I tell you about the huge gap of contrast between the graphics and sound in the game.

Actually, I'll break tradition and take a dive into the audio pool first, 'cause I want to start one review of a bad game on a high note for a change. The music is excellent, not nearly as monotonic as in most handheld Star Wars games, and the soundtrack is comprised of bits of classic Star Wars scores only. The main theme, "The Imperial March" and a few lesser tracks appear, and switch at a fair pace. The sound effects are also very good and just listening to this game creates a good Star Wars mood. Flipping over to the graphics, we see one damn rough presentation with a continuing lag throughout that'll knock your socks off. Some random background art's quite OK, but each moving object looks like the game was made at least ten years before it actually was.

Captain, a swarm of pixelated junk heading
our way!

So, the game is a rail shooter in which you simply control your vehicle, whichever it may be, and shoot at incoming enemy vessels. You can't move forward. Your objective in each stage is to destroy a certain amount of vessels; the needed number is indicated by a bar instead of an actual numeral. At first, I was quite OK with this idea; I mean, I haven't been a huge fan of rail shooters in years, much less of one on a console instead of an arcade cabinet - but who knows? For all I know when I start the game, it could be quite good. Well, I enter the first stage, a mix of scenes in Episode IV, in which my mission is to "fly" the Falcon and shoot a million TIE Fighters to shit before Vader's Star Destroyer catches up to me. When I get over the lackluster graphics, I've already shot down about 20 TIEs. Let's take a look at the bar - it has barely lost half an inch of its maximum length. Turns out million's quite right.

You can use missiles to get rid of large swarms of enemies, but there's a very limited amount of them, and the only way you can refill your stock is to spot a missile power-up coming towards the screen, move to its spot and wait for IT to come to YOU. Can't we just shoot 'em to collect 'em? No, that seems to have been too practical for the developers' tastes. Collecting health power-ups is even worse; you're cannon fodder since you can't necessarily aim at every incoming enemy when you're stuck in the corner, concentrating on aligning yourself just right so you wouldn't miss the item. What happens if you die? That's a good question - and I'll answer it as bluntly as I can: you have to start from the beginning. That's right, there are no checkpoints at all. Even if you have been patient enough to bear this creation that far and managed to destroy all but one remaining enemy vessel to deplete that three-year long bar in the bottom of the screen, you'll have to start over when you die. There's no point in having lives, really.

The bonus stage casts a shadow over the
game.

14 stages, and no matter how thematically different they are, they play out the same. Think about it before you grab Flight of the Falcon and take it for a spin. There is one part of the game I like just for the nostalgic factor, and that's the bonus stage, unlocked after you have beaten the whole game. It's a 2D arcade shooter with the same theme, as traditional as a 2D shoot 'em up can get, in the vein of R-Type and Gradius. As ridiculous as this might sound like, it looks and plays out more consistently than the game itself! This is the first time that any sort of minigame or bonus game has actually outdone the main game in my opinion.

Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon is another sad chapter in the history of Star Wars video games, but not quite from the most melancholic end. As a so-called "hangover handheld", it's almost tolerable since it's just a simple, generic railie and doesn't require that much fast thinking and concentration. I'll be damned if someone can bear to whip it regularly and seriously. It's so boring, ugly and repetitive.

GRAPHICS : 5.0
SOUND : 9.2
PLAYABILITY : 4.8
LIFESPAN : 4.0
CONCLUSION : 4.6

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 43.08%

REVIEW - Star Wars: Yoda Stories (1997)

GENRE(S): Action / Adventure
RELEASED: March 1997
AVAILABLE ON: GB, PC
DEVELOPER(S): Torus Games (GB), LucasArts (PC)
PUBLISHER(S): THQ (GB), LucasArts (PC)
PLAYERS: 1

In 1997, LucasArts produced a Windows desktop game named Yoda Stories, sort of a spiritual sequel to Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures; a collection of puzzle-oriented adventures with a Star Wars theme. Just like Indy's desktop game, Yoda Stories wasn't well received, but two years after its release, it was ported to Nintendo's Game Boy Color, in hopes that it would do better as a handheld game. They ended up with one of the all-time worst products to carry the fine name of Star Wars.

I'd just as soon kiss a Wookiee

During his Jedi training, Luke Skywalker is sent on several errands across the galaxy to investigate disturbances in the Force and just about everything else Master Yoda comes up with.

Let's go back to 1997 for a short, little jiffy. 1997 was a huge year for Star Wars and related merchandise, since it marked the 20th anniversary and the special, revised editions for the whole trilogy. I went to see Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in a Dolby theater, and man, was I pumped up about Star Wars more than ever myself, or what!? I read this review of a game called Yoda Stories for the PC, and it didn't fare too well. I didn't even bother to read the review, I just scooped up the conclusive rating, which was something like 60 out of a possible 100. I thought to myself: it's Star Wars, and back then, anything with the Star Wars brand on it couldn't have been that bad. I forgot my abysmal experiences in the past completely, and when I heard they were making a Game Boy Color port of Yoda Stories, I was pissing myself. When I finally played the game, I was just pissed.

I'm fucking lost.

The graphics aren't really that bad. It's like poor man's Zelda, fairly detailed and colourful. The Star Wars main theme plays ALL THE TIME, in the menu, during Yoda's briefing, all the way through the levels. Not just any version of it, but an off-key MIDI that sounds like it was sequenced by a group of first-graders.

The game is quite easy to explain, and at the same time, it's easy to take care of all the things wrong with it. Yoda gives you a random errand and a key item. You need to travel different locations by foot and "solve puzzles" with other key items to be able to make it to the end and use that given item to conquer the quest. Solving puzzles simply means that you need to find an item and haul it over to some very cryptic location or to some NPC, all the while that lackluster version of the Star Wars theme drills a hole in your skull. Most of this game consists of running around like a moron across an average amount of 20 screens, searching for items, talking irrelevancies with NPC's, and praying for streaks of both luck and patience. Every time you find an item, it flashes on the screen for about ten years before you can move on - you'd think the game crashed or something. I find myself missing Link's quick "look what I found" pose accompanied by the "ta-da-da-daah" jingle every time I find something random in this game.

The items can be found everywhere from some sort of treasure chests to the insides of vehicles. Even tauntauns count as vehicles, which makes one wonder: how does one search a tauntaun for a large key item without gutting it like Han Solo, and therefore killing it? ...My lunch is ready in five minutes, so I'd rather just let that thought be.

Oh, you half-assed landspeeder
sequences, how I miss you.

The lightsaber is the only weapon in the game that has any use, and even that has the tendency of slashing right through enemies, with no visible damage dealt. Sometimes the enemies even magically teleport out of the way, and thirdly, they seem to spawn out of nowhere from time to time. Fourthly - is that a word? - you can't distinguish NPC's from enemies before you see the consequences of contact. The controls are simply horrid. One would think a top-down view automatically results in good traction and straight tracks, but no, Luke moves pretty much the way he wants and keeps bouncing off corners and obstacles.

Under three minutes, Star Wars: Yoda Stories turns from an extremely mildly entertaining, little handheld bundle of irrelevancy into an extremely boring game - one of the most literally boring games I've ever played. It can't quite match Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones when it comes to the most horrible, useless video game merchandise released under the Star Wars name through all eternity, but it really isn't much better. I just hope I can sleep without hearing that God-awful tune play in my head for the whole night.

GRAPHICS : 7.5
SOUND : 2.0
PLAYABILITY : 3.5
LIFESPAN : 3.2
CONCLUSION : 3.3

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 34.92% (GB), 50.00% (PC)

REVIEW - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996)

GENRE(S): Action
RELEASED: December 1996
AVAILABLE ON: N64, PC
DEVELOPER(S): LucasArts
PUBLISHER(S): Nintendo (N64), LucasArts (PC)
PLAYERS: 1

Shadows of the Empire was a very interesting Star Wars multimedia project originally conceived in 1994, which went into production two years later. The first Shadows of the Empire release was a novel by John Perry, accompanied by a "soundtrack CD" composed by Joel McNeely; he was personally recommended by the great John Williams who, of course, had composed the music to every Star Wars movie. Then, came a short series of comic books, produced by a team of six, led by publisher and owner of Dark Horse Comics, Mike Richardson. In December 1996, the most known merchandise to come out of the Shadows project emerged, a 3D action game originally exclusive to the new Nintendo 64 system. The game was received quite well, well enough that it saw release on the PC a year later. As a game, it's a mix between a traditional third-person "shooter", and an early version of Rogue Squadron. The events take place during and after the events of The Empire Strikes Back. So, is it interesting? You bet your ass it is. Is it good? Weeeeell, it could be better.

Watch that crossfire, boys

Dash Rendar is a mercenary, an old acquaintance of Han Solo's, who helps Luke Skywalker and his companions in their battle against Prince Xizor - a tyrannical alien overlord bent on taking Darth Vader's place as Emperor Palpatine's right-hand man.

There are couple of things slammed to our faces at the get-go of Shadows of the Empire, that stick out like sore thumbs to any Star Wars fan. There is close to no reference to the Jedi in the game. Luke, who appears as a supporting character, isn't quite a Jedi yet, and Dash Rendar is one of the only Star Wars video game protagonists who never even considers carrying a lightsaber or utilizing the Force. The story of this Dash guy divides opinions; all that you do in this game has such an impact you'd think there was a mention of him somewhere else than just the Shadows of the Empire sidestory, or the new villains who feel like all but leftovers from George Lucas' desk when he was writing Episode IV. It's also notable that the story of the video game is just a part of the whole Shadows of the Empire storyline; you'd need to read the book, as well as the comic book series, to see the whole gig. So, what can we make of all of this? Well, to be frank, that the story isn't very good and the game feels artificially incomplete. It's all up to the factor of playability, which isn't very high, but the game definitely passes the tolerance test.

Hey man, watch your step.

I remember playing this game when it was brand new, and I thought it looked about a million times better than any other Nintendo 64 game - it was a launch title in Europe. Well, it does. The gameplay graphics are quite good and if I didn't know better, I'd say it's a PlayStation game... uh, let's make that a Saturn game. The cutscenes are influenced by the comic book series, and their cut-out style is really off, I don't like them at all. There is very little voiceover work in the Nintendo 64 version; the only voices in the game belong to enemies and droids during gameplay, while the cutscenes and mission objective screens feature text only. The music's from the CD that was released to accompany the novel, composed by Joel McNeely... or should I say, adapted note-by-note from Mr. Williams' original score, with a few additional tunes, like Prince Xizor's theme song, thrown in. Great music, nevertheless, and the sound effects are top-notch - pure Lucas quality.

For the most part, Shadows of the Empire can be described as a first-person shooter in the wrong body. It's like Doom or Quake in third person. You have distinct objectives in each stage, but to reach those objectives, all you need to do is move forward, shoot enemies, use elevators and push some switches. There's really no more in-depth action than that. You can even change the view to first person whenever you wish. The thing that separates Shadows of the Empire from an everyday shooter of that time is the importance of combat strategy and a bit of poor man's stealth action in the several boss fights.

I'm going to get to this sooner or later, and I think it's better that I do it sooner: the controls in Shadows of the Empire are not that good. Under certain circumstances, they are even God damn horrible. To my surprise, I had no problems with the controls in the first stage, which is a shooter set in the battle of Hoth - seen in many Star Wars games to date, and each time it has been a nightmare. Like in Rogue Squadron, which came out later, pretty much the only efficient way to do away with AT-AT's is to make them trip by tying their legs together with a tow cable. To my surprise, the tow cable is very easy to use, much easier and more comfortable than it was in Rogue Squadron... which, again, _came out later_ and was made by some of the same people. Fascinating.

Aren't I dashing?

During the on-foot escape from the Hoth base, the bad controls come to play. Let's not avoid the subject any further: the biggest problem is jumping, without a doubt. This is the first time I could really use some invisible walls! First of all, the game has some of the floatiest jumps I've ever experienced, and very sensitive analog control. The tiniest push of the analog stick during a jump, whether it's an accident or a reflex brought on by tension, might send you down into a chasm, screaming like Wilhelm, because there are so many damn narrow walkways with bullets flying everywhere around you while you cross them. The oversensitive analog controls also rear on the ground; whenever there's a sharp corner on the walkway, you need to be extra careful when you turn around that corner. If you take one wrong step, you might trip over the edge. In turn, being that careful makes you easy blaster fodder to enemies you simply couldn't have aimed at and done away with before you reached that corner.

I'll go over a couple of more stages. The game's diversity is definitely on the mark, but one thing binds all levels and styles of gameplay; totally needless length. Some levels seem to last forever, like the next two. The first one is another shooter stage probably somewhat inspired by that kinda cool stage in Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, in which you controlled the Millennium Falcon's turret in a full 3D environment. Well, here you control Dash's ship, The Outrider - which is like a miniature, poor man's version of the Falcon. The "full 3D" comes a little overdone; The Outrider's stationary, but you can use the turret to shoot in any direction. Your objective is to shoot down bombs and asteroids, and destroy a few TIEs. "A few" is something like 70; like I said, it carries on forever. It's best to do this in first person, since the camera is your worst enemy in this already highly tedious stage.

The next one's a nightmare. Not only does it have one of the most annoying boss fights in the game against a formidable droid mercenary that carries firepower straight out of hell, it also features moving platforms and to top it all off, a LOT of jumping between them. Oh yeah, and once again, the stage indeed carries on and on, for ages. It's probably sensible to mention at this point, that upon losing all your lives, you go back to the beginning of the whole mission - not the last checkpoint, or the beginning of the last part - but the beginning of the whole thing. In stages like these, your lives are drained very quickly if you cannot learn to master the floaty jumps. One tiny failure to time your awkward jump correctly equals death, there are no second chances.

I guess I'll do one more stage, Boba Fett's base, since it introduces a special item in Boba's jetpack. The jetpack is really, really awkward to use. It's incredibly hard to shoot while flying this thing, and it becomes more and more of a basic part of the gameplay as you go... and yes, you definitely need it in the boss fights against Boba and his ship. You die whenever falling from a great height; these boss fights, for one, require you to fly to great heights. It's too bad if your rocket fuel runs out when you're five miles up in the air, focusing on the battle rather than how much gas you have left. You should also take into account, that descending without really using the throttle consumes fuel in this game. The jetpack is Satan's work.

Might be a good thing to learn how this
wretched thing works before heading into
anything serious.

OK, that pretty much covers most of the different ways of the game. One more vehicle is introduced once you make it to Mos Eisley, the swoop, and it's quite hard to control in itself, but if you've survived everything the game has thrown at you at that point, it shouldn't be too much to handle. Shadows of the Empire is a quite hard game, although most of its challenge comes from the increasingly quirky controls. It hasn't got that many missions, only ten of them, but since all of them are quite lengthy, it'll take you a while to clash through it. Also, each mission has a number of Challenge Points. You can collect these icons by achieving certain goals or finding secret passages, to mention a couple of obvious examples. Collecting even a few of them results in extra lives in the end of each stage, and collecting ALL of them on a certain difficulty level results in some mediocre bonus features - such as friendly wampas, yay!

The game really isn't that rewarding, or poetically enchanting, or a masterpiece in gameplay, but it's not all bad, and far from being the worst Star Wars game ever. It's a game a true Star Wars fan and completist must try at least once, due to its very own, curious placement in the timeline of the franchise. It doesn't matter if you like the story or not; I don't, but I know people who can't get enough of Star Wars. They treasure even the crappiest storyline threads.

GRAPHICS : 8.7
SOUND : 9.0
PLAYABILITY : 6.8
LIFESPAN : 7.0
CONCLUSION : 6.9

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 74.97% (N64), 62.00% (PC)

Dash Rendar in Nintendo 64 version of the game was partly modelled after George Lucas.

Dash's ship, the Outrider, is seen leaving Mos Eisley in the Special Edition of Star Wars.

REVIEW - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)

GENRE(S): RPG
RELEASED: July 2003
AVAILABLE ON: MAC, PC, Xbox
DEVELOPER(S): BioWare
PUBLISHER(S): LucasArts
PLAYERS: 1

In the summer of 2000, while working on the sequel to their smash RPG Baldur's Gate, BioWare announced they were in cahoots with LucasArts to create a role-playing game based on Star Wars. LucasArts gave BioWare a choice: they could either take the easy and automatically lucrative way out and make a game based on Episode II: Attack of the Clones, or they could create an original storyline set thousands of years before the events in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Since creativity has been one of their most important traits through time, BioWare chose the latter option and created their very own chapter in the Star Wars saga, which they baptized Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The game's development took three years and not only did the game take the Star Wars fanbase by storm, it was also a critically acclaimed RPG, another glorious chapter in BioWare's success story. A while ago, I did a review of Dragon Age: Origins; now it's time for me to take a step back and see what all the KotOR fuss was about back in the day, and why it's nearly always mentioned in the same sentence as Dragon Age. It's pure Star Wars, it's undoubtedly a great RPG - not a bad start if you ask me.

Impressive. Most impressive.

STARRING
Jennifer Hale : Bastila Shan
Raphael Sbarge : Carth Onasi
Rafael Ferrer : Darth Malak
John Cygan : Canderous Ordo
Kristoffer Tabori : HK-47
Kevin Michael Richardson : Jolee Bindo
Courtenay Taylor : Juhani
Edward Asner : Master Vrook Lamar
Cat Taber : Mission Vao
Robin Atkin Downes : Griff Vao / Mekel / Vulkar Mechanic

Darth Malak, an exceptionally malevolent Sith Lord, manages to shake the foundations of the Jedi order with such force, that most of the Jedi either turn up dead or turned to the Dark Side of the Force. He then leads a full scale revolution against the Republic. You are a mysterious, recently enlisted servant of the Republic - your mission is to learn the ways of the Force and defeat Malak. You can either bring peace to the galaxy as a legendary Jedi Knight, or attempt to take Malak's place as a Dark Lord of the Sith.

My biggest complaint about the PlayStation 3 version of Dragon Age: Origins, in a nutshell, was the simple fact that it was a console game. I've had many people telling me I should test the PC version, and judging from what I've seen, I believe it; I believe the game is at its best on the PC. The user interface is wholly different. But, I am not a PC player. It's both personal preference and the fact that my computer is not much more than a workbench. It's kind of old, not optimized for gaming and there are always these random hardware problems usually related to memory. These hardware problems made it very difficult to me, almost impossible, to play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It's one of the latest games this old piece of shit runs. So the game indeed runs well in itself, it's the faulty RAM that spat in my face on steady intervals. I pushed on to beat the game once - it's a BioWare game, so that's basically just scratching the surface - but on my computer, even that's an accomplishment. An accomplishment I was willing to make, because Knights of the Old Republic is one excellent game. The best Star Wars game ever made. Easily. Although older, its most important gameplay qualities and the fact that it's not just based on Star Wars, but has a whole new, original, intriguing story based on the best sci-fi franchise of all time, guarantee an even more gratifying role-playing experience for me on a personal level than Dragon Age: Origins. The comparison is easy to make, since it's such a similar game.

Just equipped myself with two vibroblades
and I'm ready to kick some ass. You just keep
unlocking those doors, a'ight? And get me a
damn coffee.

Some characters look exceptionally blocky (like Grand Theft Auto-blocky), but I can't help it, I find Knights of the Old Republic quite sweet-looking. It lacks the certain graphical fluffiness and run-of-the-mill look of the usual movie license, which once again drives home the fact that it's a completely original game - and although it might not look like it at first, it's quite huge. Especially exterior areas; as small as your actual playfield might be, the landscape looks like it stretches to eternity.

Jeremy Soule is no stranger to composing music for quality RPG's. He started his career with the soundtrack to Square's first wholly American production Secret of Evermore in 1995, and went on to compose the music for BioWare's Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights, as well as Bethesda's Morrowind and Oblivion. He's apparently no stranger to John Williams' work, either. The partly ambient soundtrack - the ambience is part of the experience - is filled with subtle references to Williams' most classic, vintage Star Wars compositions. It sounds magnificent, I don't remember a non-Square RPG making such an impression on me when it comes to the music.

There's always another side to the coin, though; the quality of the voiceover work varies greatly between excellent and just OK. The primary cast list is absolutely filled to the brim with TV and voiceover staples including Jennifer Hale, Kevin Michael Richardson, Robin Atkin Downes and hell, Ed Asner, but no matter how much even these veterans try to keep the show together, I don't quite feel a huge effort made by the supporting NPC cast. Also, it's a great thing that aliens speak in their native Huttese (the subtitles are in English, of course), but God damn it, do those off-rhythm rants last forever or what?! Let's exaggerate a bit: the subtitles say "Hello.", while the Huttese translation is "Uggamuggala ugga habalahu blahblahblah ploploplop mathafaka Han shot first". Since about 10% of the script is in Huttese, I couldn't help but skip some conversations even on the first time of playing. It's never happened before. Sounds very authentic, though, I'll give 'em credit for that.

The story of the game holds the dedicated Star Wars fan in a tight grip throughout. In the very beginning, you really don't know what's going on in the game, but before long, the story begins to flow smoothly and remains quite consistent right until the end. The player character and his/her origins remain a complete enigma for a lengthy while, and while I didn't quite feel the "grand revelation" concerning 'em from an originality standpoint, it sat well with me. It's a good thing BioWare didn't force this as a "prequel to a prequel", and try to come up with some way to link this up to the movies or any other works in the Star Wars franchise, but strictly made it an original, deep story based on what they knew of the Star Wars universe and its subtleties - and a good one, to boot.

When you start the game, you get to create your character. You can choose a male or a female; the choices for facial features are quite narrow but sufficient considering the times. Knights of the Old Republic is a different RPG in the sense that there's no stand-in for a mage. One of the main quests in the game requires you to undertake Jedi training - one of the coolest quests, ever. - and once becoming a Jedi, you can use some form of magic regardless of your starting class (JEDI MIND TRICK! JEDI MIND TRICK! OH, THE GLORY!). So, there are still three classes for you to choose from, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Soldier is quite self-explanatory, he's the tank with the most HP and strength, BUT he is weak at verbal persuasion and stealth. Scoundrel excels in both of a Soldier's weakest qualities. Scout is most definitely the most balanced class in the game and recommendable for new players. They are quite efficient in every skill a casual player could take advantage of.

When you become a Jedi, you can decide on what type of Jedi you want to be, in addition to your class. It's kind of a "sub-class". Guardians are most efficient at settling things the old-fashioned way, with their lightsabers blazing. Consulars place more trust in the gift of the silver tongue, and once again, Sentinel is the most recommended Jedi class for new players, since they're semi-adept in all skills. At times, you don't need to fight or even talk your way out of a sticky situation, you can look for an alternative solution, like hack a terminal to get a defense system do your dirty work for you. There are a lot more choices than you might think at first.

The main theme of the game is the thin line between the light and dark sides of the Force, which is just about the coolest karma system ever, in any game, and although Knights of the Republic is somewhat "aged", it also works pretty darn neat. Mostly, the balance is based on your dialogue choices, but also some of your concrete actions. As a cool detail, an abundance of "dark" actions makes your character's facial features change - his eyes and skin change colour, just like in inFamous years later, in which your character gradually became dirtier and actually started to look like a Sith as we know them in the Star Wars franchise whenever you pulled enough evil stunts. The dialogue itself could flow a little better; the same dialogue choices keep popping up on the screen instead of just disappearing once used.

I could've just borrowed my friend's Xbox to play the game, but I necessarily wanted to experience it on the PC, because of BioWare's knack for producing notably more comfortable user interfaces for the PC, which I mentioned many times while I was reviewing Dragon Age: Origins. I don't regret it one bit; the menu system and the combat system in Knights of the Old Republic are amazing. The self-pausing combat system feels and looks a bit awkward at first, but it is easily taken to heart. All of the necessary icons for each situation of the game are right there on the screen, you don't have to use an extensive menu for all the extensive actions in the game. You can just sit back and enjoy, for whatever reason you'll find the game enjoyable. You WILL find it enjoyable. It's the kind of game that has something for both, fans of RPG's and fans of Star Wars, and for fans of both RPG's and Star Wars, it is an amazing trip they can't afford to ignore. Have I said that enough times already for you to believe it? Whenever you buy stuff, it's hard to compare new equipment to your existing inventory, which is pretty much the only downside to every imaginable menu in Knights; they're very easy and comfortable to use for the most part. In the beginning of the game, the Republican "credits" (money) are very scarce to come by, and you will face this problem and be forced to buy stuff on instinct.

My soon-to-be goody two shoes Jedi Knight.

I've only scratched the surface here, but still went over the most important basics. If you've played a BioWare game before, you'll know how this works behind all that fancy Star Wars schtick. It's all the same, with a different name... and it's of awesome quality, there should be no doubt about that. The game is very vast, much bigger than you'd expect it to be. There's a neat array of sidequests and "minigames", a well-functioning fast travel system, ten playable characters and two wholly different endings. To get a different ending pretty much requires you to start over, you can't just save at a certain point and do the ending differently, because everything you do _throughout_ the game, your light and dark actions, affect it. So, you need to play the game through at least twice, and with a totally different attitude, to see everything there is to see. Since I've only done it once (or struggled through it... God damn this %/#(")! piece of shit computer!), I might be exaggerating with the lifespan a little here, but this game was going to be highly rated based on gameplay alone.

I've repeated myself a few times here, but I'll say it one more time. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is easily the best Star Wars game out there and a standard for both Star Wars games and BioWare RPG's. I don't know how the user interface in the Xbox version really works, but I'm willing to bet I did the rational and pretty much only sensible thing by playing this game on the PC instead, and that the Xbox version would've come a few points short of a niner. Whichever the version, I must say that on my account, Knights of the Old Republic is one of the most intriguing RPG's of the 21st century. What is it about it? The theme? No... that's not true! That's impossible! ...Wait. I searched my feelings. I know it to be true.

GRAPHICS : 8.9
SOUND : 8.8
PLAYABILITY : 9.4
LIFESPAN : 8.5
CONCLUSION : 9.1

TRIVIA

a.k.a. Star Wars: KotOR

GameRankings: 93.25% (PC), 94.25% (Xbox)

Vima Sunrider from the Tales of the Jedi comic book series was originally set to take Bastila Shan's place as the lead female of the game.

The Ebon Hawk is partly modelled after the Millennium Falcon, Zaalbar after Chewbacca, T3-M4 after R2-D2, and Darth Malak after Darth Vader.

Mission Vao contributes the line "I have a bad feeling about this.", which is said in every Star Wars movie.

Bendak Starkiller's name is derived from the name George Lucas originally gave Luke Skywalker. Later, Starkiller became the Sith name of Galen Marek in the Force Unleashed series.