REVIEW - Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1993)

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: October 1993
AVAILABLE ON: SNES, Wii Virtual Console
DEVELOPER(S): Sculptured Software, LucasArts
PUBLISHER(S): JVC, THQ (SNES), LucasArts (Wii)
PLAYERS: 1

I don't need to go over this again, but I'll do it anyway: The Empire Strikes Back is without a single doubt, my favourite Star Wars movie. It has most crucial plot twists in the whole Star Wars universe out of all the movies and spin-offs. "Luke... I am your father" must've be one of the corniest lines in all of movie history when the movie came out, but later, it became one of the defining ones of the whole franchise, the basis of all of Star Wars. In 1993, Sculptured Software and LucasArts developed a sequel to Super Star Wars, which had left many seasoned video game players' asses sore a year prior. They refused to tone down the difficulty of gameplay, but graced players with some slack with the addition of a password system. In Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back we basically have another one of the better movie licenses of the 16-bit era, which is nice to return to due to the authentic Star Wars atmosphere, and because it's based on one of the top films of all time... but all that ice really gives me the creeps.

Ready, are you? What know you of ready?

This place is hell. This is the only spot that
was safe enough for me to capture a
screenshot.

Since his defeat and the destruction of the Death Star, Darth Vader has become obsessed with rebel commander trained in the ways of the Force, Luke Skywalker. He finally locates Skywalker and his troops on a remote system named Hoth and sends a myriad of Imperial troops to attack the base and force the inhabitants to evacuate. Guided by a vision of his late mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke travels to Dagobah to seek out Yoda, the last of the Jedi masters, to complete his training. Meanwhile, Han Solo, Leia, Chewbacca and the two droids seek refuge in Cloud City, a colony run by Han's old friend Lando Calrissian.

The moment you slap in this game, you might falsely think to yourself you've gone and bought the same game as last year, just the packaging is different. Have you been screwed? No, the title card clearly states: "Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back". Whew! Indeed, it's the very same engine. In the long run, the game looks better and more dynamic than its predecessor, but by the first quick glance, you won't know the difference. Which is cool, the game really feels like a solid part of a trilogy, rather than a stand-alone sequel. The sound is still absolutely magnificent, even better than before, in fact. Vintage Star Wars music plays throughout, and even more vintage sound effects are the icing on the cake. Excellent work.

That animal's as useless as ever.

I've got to get it out of my system right now: no matter what you think about it, the way I see it I have two options upon reaching the SECOND stage (that's 2nd, Stage 2!). 1. I can swipe a password to the next stage off the net, just as I did back in 1993: I swiped it off a magazine. 2. Or, I can change the difficulty level to Easy. Let's reflect. 1. Passwords are for pussies. 2. If you can't handle any game on a normal difficulty level, you can't claim to be able to handle it at all. So what'll it be? I choose to be a pussy. Yeah, I know: it's ridiculous, it's the second stage of the game, how can it be that hard? Well, let me tell you!

Remember the movie the game is based on? What is the main natural element in the beginning of that movie? Yes, ICE. What was the one natural element from platformers that could've made Super Star Wars even more difficult than it already was? The answer is once again: ICE. You see what I'm getting at, here? It isn't just the ice. In the Hoth ice cave, where you must do battle with the wampa, everything that moves hurts you. There are bats everywhere. Not only are they flying bastards, they're HORDES of flying bastards. There are spikes, everywhere - walls, ceilings, floors. Then there are these large creatures that are able to freeze you by breathing at you, making you easy prey for everything that moves. Finally, there are sharp crystals, sticking out of the ground when you are nearby - there are just small graphical hints of where they're located. Once again, this is the second stage of the game. And I'll NEVER be able to beat it. It's just that simple. I have to use a password to be able to make progress. We're not off to a very good start, but from that point on, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is a quite fruitful experience, a true, ultimate challenge to only the most dedicated players. It gets even more difficult later on, of course it does, but at least the later stages don't have ice. That unholy element is quite enough to make me want to stop trying, and there's so much more than that in this cave of horrors.

Han's last stand.

Upon entering the password, I gasp in terror; that ice cave was only the first of two. However, the second cave's not quite as bad. Since the game follows the movie's plot quite faithfully, we're going to spend a lot of time on Hoth, half of the game takes place there actually, but after these two caves, we're back on the surface and at least most of the ice and spikes are gone. It's pointless to start listing all of the game's most difficult situations that aren't already familiar to those who played Super Star Wars, but I'll mention a couple. I guess a large boss droid stalking you underwater while you're balancing on a block of ice, and a small buff electrifying the water just waiting for you to slip into the wet, is pretty bad. I was going to say the Mode 7 snowspeeder and X-Wing sequences are pure hell, 'cause that's what I remembered about them, but they're not really that bad at all, as long as you can keep a level head; unlike in Super Star Wars, there are no obstacles. Only the enemies are capable of damaging you, which is a bigger relief than it sounds like. The only really difficult thing about the 3D sequences (there are also 2D ones) is that your own vehicle keeps blocking your view!

The X-Wing's easy enough to manouver, but
it keeps getting in your way.

The gameplay mechanics haven't changed much. There's no time limit since it never made any sense in the first game. Since Luke is now better trained as a Jedi apprentice - that's the official explanation - you can use the Force (I've always wanted to say that) to pull off some quite neat stunts via random power-ups. The controls are a bit better, which is somewhat of a relief with all that ice scattered about. There are still three playable characters, but this time you can't choose the character yourself; after all, Luke is separated from the rest of the group most of the storyline's duration, and Han becomes incapacitated at a certain point. Chewie is a bit underutilized this time around. The worst thing about this game - again! - is that the standard 2D stages repeat themselves, even more than in Super Star Wars. There are only three main locations to begin with: Hoth, Dagobah, and Cloud City - that doesn't give much time or space for diverse level design.

"Do, or do not. There is no try." He actually
says that, you know? Yoda's being an asshole!

The game is really hard to review. In terms of atmosphere, I like it more than Super Star Wars, since it's based on a better movie and it's faithful to its plot, and it's also way much better in every way than any game based on The Empire Strikes Back that came before it. The password system really helps to bear it better than Super Star Wars at its bitchiest. Actually I thought this review would turn out to be highly in the game's favor (something like 8.5?), but nowadays, I'm able to see past the artificial qualities of the game a little too well. It's a good, very playable game, no doubt about it, after all it's Super Star Wars in a different setting. But, it's absolutely merciless from the beginning to the end as it is - at least the first game had some slight gradual increase in the difficulty level - and the source of the license alone brings in the singled-out worst element of any platformer that was ever released... lots of it, and on top of all, every possible nuisance from Super Star Wars is still present, from fatal debris to severe enemy powerplay. If you're a die-hard Star Wars fan, and up for some ultimate, sweaty 16-bit challenge, The Empire Strikes Back is definitely on your list of must-haves, but don't beat yourself up if you find it impossible. And remember, true Jedi don't cry.

GRAPHICS : 8.5
SOUND : 9.4
PLAYABILITY : 7.3
LIFESPAN : 8.0
CONCLUSION : 7.6

TRIVIA

a.k.a. The Empire Strikes Back, Super Empire Strikes Back

GameRankings: 79.50%

REVIEW - Super Star Wars (1992)

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: June 1992
AVAILABLE ON: SNES, Wii Virtual Console
DEVELOPER(S): Sculptured Software, LucasArts
PUBLISHER(S): JVC (SNES), Nintendo (Wii)
PLAYERS: 1

The Star Wars series was off to such a bad curve on the NES, that LucasArts decided to ditch their concept of a quick Return of the Jedi game and instead, reboot the Star Wars franchise on the SNES. Although the development of the first game in the Super Star Wars series was rather fast, LucasArts and Sculptured Software managed to make a game that took full advantage of the platform's capabilities and was bound to please true Star Wars fans with its authenticity, and critics with its fluid gameplay. In turn, the game was both criticized and praised for its enormous level of difficulty, on par with some of the most difficult action-oriented platformers in history, including the much feared Ghosts 'n Goblins. How does Super Star Wars fare today? Well, it's not the best and most consistent game in the trilogy - and since it's primarily a remake of the NES game Star Wars, it isn't as faithful to the movie as its followers, but at the time of its release, it was a bombshell, a new standard for a good Star Wars video game - not to mention a good movie license in general.

We'll be destroyed for sure. This is madness.

Cruisin' Tatooine.

When an escape pod from outer space crashes on the desert planet of Tatooine, a young farmhand named Luke Skywalker sets out to investigate. He finds a lone protocol droid by the name of C-3PO, who tells him that the Jawas kidnapped his partner R2-D2. Luke rescues the puny droid and finds a message from a Princess Leia Organa to a man named Obi-Wan Kenobi. An old hermit known to Luke, named Ben, reveals himself to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, a once decorated Jedi knight. Luke joins Kenobi in his quest to save the Princess, and chooses to train as his apprentice in the ways of the Force.

As you can see, liberties were taken with the game's plot and some important threads such as Obi-Wan's connection to Luke's father are left out, shamelessly, but with a true agenda this time: to place less emphasis on drama, and make the game as diversely action-packed as possible. It's made quite clear early on that the purpose of the game is to serve a stripped, alternative plotline to Episode IV, with only the most important key points intact. They could've made a game that followed the movie's plot for a while, then took a whole new turn to something completely awkward, and then abruptly returned to the movie again, making the game look like an incoherent mess; this "alternative plotline" might be daring, it might turn some fans off as an idea, including me, but believe me, the atmosphere is still just right - this is Star Wars, baby. From the graphical design to music, to sound effects, to every audiovisual seam, it's Star Wars in its purest imaginable 16-bit form... and HARDEST.

The game's being a bitch from the very start.

The graphics could be better, but instead of focusing on making the game look good in the good old sense, the developers focused on making it look alive and diverse, and they nailed that job quite proficiently. Parallax scrolling and Mode 7 effects are there from the very beginning, from the famous 3D title card narrative fading into outer space, to landspeeder and X-Wing stages. The cutscenes look good, although like it's been noted by many, Luke Skywalker has an exceptionally ugly mug, especially in the title screen, in which he looks more like a piss-drunk Mark Hamill in 2011 than a strapping Jedi apprentice in 1977. The soundscape of the game is simply excellent. Paul Webb's soundtrack consists of well-fitted adaptations of John Williams' original score and a whole truck full of actual Star Wars sound effects are utilized - from the different noises the lightsaber emits, to the voices of the Jawas, even the blaster sounds real! On top of it all: full stereo sound, baby. Plug in a set of headphones, grab that controller and... may the Force be with you. You're certainly going to need it.

The journey begins... finally.

Let me guess: you're thinking "hey, this one's a remake of Star Wars and it has awesome controls, I'm so going to conquer Death Star this time". Eh heh, think again, bucko; only with perfect dedication and a great, big stroke of luck, will you get past Tatooine. Contra, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Journey to Silius, Mega Man 3, Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom, and of course, Star Wars. These ten games were the first to come to mind when I started reflecting on ten action platformers which have given me the most hell in my life. After listing them, I began to pick them apart: what made them difficult? I can assure you, every single point I made is referenced in Super Star Wars.

Insane, should I say, diabolically precise jumps, slides and platform sequences. Rare power-ups. One hit kills. Corrupting platforms above nothingness. Flying bastards. Enemies coming from all sides. Ultra-fast tempo. My favourite: spikes. Oh yes, and a time limit, but that's only for keeping score, thank heavens. Environmental hazards looming everywhere, and multiple ones at the same time. Debris from destroyed robots damages you. These are all very notable parts of the Super Star Wars experience. There's more, though: ultra-hard Mode 7 sequences in the wheel of Luke's landspeeder and the X-Wing. Downright unfair traps feasting on the art of trial and error. One checkpoint per long stage. No save feature. Like I said, you deserve a round of applause if you make it past Tatooine. Super Star Wars is an extremely difficult, frustrating game. But it is also fun. Why? Because there's virtually nothing wrong with the gameplay. It's a game you want to beat, or die trying.

I don't remember seeing a lightsaber do that to
folk, but... FORE!

You play as Luke Skywalker and for the longest time, you don't have a choice. Even if a lot of the events before Luke's arrival in Mos Eisley are left out, there's plenty to do before that. First off, you need to whip a Sarlacc's ass on a desert to make your way to the crashed escape pod. Then, you need to deal with a pack of rampant Jawas using your landspeeder and enter the first true shrine of unholiness called the Jawa sandcrawler. Then, you need to travel to the land of the sandpeople to find Obi-Wan Kenobi. The man offers you the Jedi lightsaber and has you train on some more sandpeople and their bantha pets. Then, you need to deal with another pack of Jawas, a much larger and more hostile one. Then, you'll finally be at Mos Eisley, where you need to pass through a hangar where casual players come to die. You have to beat a difficult sub-boss just before it, there are enemies and falling debris everywhere, and as if that wasn't enough, there's a metal grabber just waiting to clutch your character and squeeze the life out of him. At this time, you get to choose between Luke, Han Solo and *drum roll* Chewbacca! Everyone's favourite wookiee is in the video game business at long last! Grrrrrauuuuuuurrr!!!

A wookiee's good to have on your side in a
bar fight.

The differences between the characters aren't that severe. Han's the best shot, Chewie has splash firepower, and Luke, well, he's an all-around guy with some dastardly Jedi AOE moves, which have good range but leave him vulnerable to many attacks. Of course these moves are not available until you get the lightsaber, 'til then Luke carries a blaster as well, and you can switch back to it at any time. As a matter of fact, usually it's the better choice when dealing with packs of regular enemies. You can also ricochet blaster shots off walls, which is neat and useful. The power-ups include shields, Darth Vader helmets which grant you a score multiplier, lightsabers which increase your maximum health and blaster upgrades, which make the blaster an even more essential weapon - there are no upgrades for the saber. Every once in a while, you might find a thermal detonator, which destroys everything on the screen once it's used. It's only useable for a limited time, so you're lucky if you can make it to a boss with it - it does heavy damage on them as well.

That's one tough pick...

The tempo of the game is simply furious. Half of the time, you'll find yourself just pushing forward by shooting everything in sight or jumping around using Luke's Jedi somersault and praying to the god of your choice that you'll make it out alive. You simply don't have time to stop, there's danger everywhere. From the very beginning, the game takes no prisoners and it only gets worse towards the end. If you make it to the Death Star, give yourself a nice, long pat on your shoulder. If you're still willing to go on, you're a stronger man than I am. There's so much actual physical pain involved in the difficulty level of Super Star Wars (heartburn's a bitch), and such overwhelming frustration due to only three continues and the lack of a save feature, that even after 19 years, I must postpone any thought of even attempting to beat this game.

...But of course I'll go with Han.

The traps are not fun - like a seemingly ordinary lift sending you straight down into a set of spikes - and sure, I must say the difficulty level of the game is more than a bit exaggerated from time to time. The thing that bothers me most, though, is that the stages repeat themselves to eternity. In many stages, like the first one, the land of the banthas, and both parts of Mos Eisley, you're playing the same few screens over and over again. It really feels like there's a wrap puzzle straight out of Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy or The Legend of Zelda, in which you needed to find a correct route to make progress, but there's not, the stages are just that repetitive and lengthy - it's not like there would be a choice of route anyway.

It's diabolical, but it's good - so good that it blew every preceding video game in the media franchise right off the map, and paved the way for a bunch of different, better ones. It remains to be seen if I ever beat this one, it's a project I would not provoke my worst enemy to take on - a save feature would've been a very nice way to increase the product's lifespan in casual use! However, I can easily implore Star Wars fans to try the game out, even if just to see how the Star Wars game was truly born. I personally think the next two games fared better in terms of presentation and some fashion of slack.

GRAPHICS : 7.9
SOUND : 9.3
PLAYABILITY : 8.0
LIFESPAN : 7.5
CONCLUSION : 7.9

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 88.25%

The game was received so well that a PC port was made by Brain Bug, but never released due to LucasArts' desire to draw a clear line between the PC and console games based on Star Wars.

A stage based on the trash compactor scene on the Death Star was made, but deleted due to to memory constraints.

REVIEW - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1992)

NES VERSION (1992)

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: March 1992
AVAILABLE ON: GB, NES
DEVELOPER(S): NMS Software (GB), Lucasfilm Games (NES)
PUBLISHER(S): Ubisoft (GB), JVC (NES)
PLAYERS: 1

Facebook's new poll system works quite well. I asked the simple question: "Best Star Wars movie?", and 17 of 25 voters answered "The Empire Strikes Back". I've got to say, I agree with them. The middle part of a trilogy's often my favourite anyway (Aliens, Saw II, The Two Towers, Dead Man's Chest etc.), but The Empire Strikes Back is special. It introduces a whole new cast of amazing supporting characters, and ends in a whole series of ultimate cliffhangers, which makes it even that more astounishing. It's an amazing movie, one of my all-time favourites. The Star Wars video game series on the NES came to a halt with The Empire Strikes Back; Nintendo decided to go for a reboot on the SNES, which turned out to be a very essential move. Game Boy, on the other hand, went on to get a port of the "Super" version of Return of the Jedi. Was the NES game really that bad and the Game Boy game that good? Yes to the first, no to the second. Or should I say, the NES game is completely useless, and although the Game Boy version is once again better, it's not that special either.

Control, control! You must learn control!

Darth Vader has become obsessed with the young Jedi apprentice Luke Skywalker, and finally locates him in a rebel base on the icy planet of Hoth. While investigating a fallen meteor, which turns out to be the Imperial surveillance droid sent after him, Luke finds himself trapped and has a vision of the late Obi-Wan Kenobi. The apparition tells Luke to travel to the Dagobah system and have the last remaining Jedi master, Yoda, carry out Obi-Wan's unfinished work as Luke's mentor. When the Empire manages to destroy the Hoth base despite strong resistance by the Rebel Alliance, Luke and R2-D2 flee to Dagobah, while Han Solo, Leia, C-3PO and Chewbacca seek asylum in Cloud City.

Yeah, so like I said before, The Empire Strikes Back is most definitely my favourite Star Wars movie. Took me a while to realize that, though - as a kid, I was more into Return of the Jedi, since I happened to be a fan of the Ewoks spin-off. In time, Empire grew on me. It's really rich when it comes to character development, cinematography, everything. Once again, it's just simply amazing. Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, which will be reviewed very soon, is one of the top movie licenses ever. As the case was with the Game Boy version of Star Wars, I had no idea there was also a game based on Empire on the NES and the Game Boy, up until last year when I started to do research on Star Wars games for this blog. Of course I was excited, since Star Wars wasn't half bad. Well, The Empire Strikes Back isn't half good.

That's a lot of ice. Too much ice to go with
these lacking controls.

To quote Leia and Han Solo's banter famous to us geeks, the game is scruffy-lookin'. The cutscenes and digitized portraits of the characters look like shit, the sprites are tiny and thin, and the environments are simply dull. What was it with some sequels on the NES? Why were they uglier than their predecessors? Did the developers really not care? Why did they bother? Once again, too much questions, no answers. Music? IS there music in this game? Well, the Star Wars theme song starts the thing off on a high note, but all we get during the game is a series of random few-second samples, playing on random intervals: some original one, Luke's theme and "The Imperial March". Most of the time, we only hear some really horrible sound effects and voice samples. Even a taun taun's breath emits a ghastly, aggressive sound effect.

Once again, when we start the game we could go all fanboy/girl on it. In the game, you willingly enter the wampa's cave and your actual objective is to fight it for no apparent reason. I won't do it, though - rant it to death I mean. The game is really not worth it. The ice cave is like a maze, and it has a lot of dead ends. You pretty much need to find your lightsaber first, as Obi-Wan oh, so disruptingly states in a sudden dialogue screen that just appears out of nowhere after your first few steps. Initially, you ride a taun taun, which you can dismount at any time. It's really weak. Apparently it takes damage from your lightsaber, dies from the first slip to cold water whereas you can afford three or four slips, and controlling it and blasting away at surveillance droids at the same time is hard. The taun taun has absolutely no use in the game besides the extra health meter. You might think only a large animal companion like the taun taun would allow you to jump higher, but that's not true either. You can actually jump much higher than a taun taun by using Luke's superjump ripped straight off Super Mario Bros. 2. An even more powerful superjump is your first Force upgrade in the game.

The gameplay's quite putrid, Star Wars was way more co-operative. There are invisible walls all over the place. You can shoot in any direction, but whenever you crouch, Luke pretty much decides on the direction himself, like in many NES games that have this sort of multi-directional feature. The lack of traction rears its ugly head one more time, and you can pretty much guess how much of a nuisance it is in a place that has tiny, moving, and moreover, ICY platforms with crazy droids flying over them and shooting at you.

Yeah, that wampa's definitely mooning you.

Hoth is a freaking nightmare! Perhaps not quite as nightmarish as the rest of the game, but enough of a rocky start to convince you that you're not dealing with a very good game here. First, you've got to find a lightsaber and the Force jump ability from the dead-end-laden ice maze, and then, climb up a vertical chasm of ice to reach a wampa and kill it. Once again, don't you go pointing out that Luke was trapped by the wampa and killed it in a desperate struggle for his life, and was then rescued by Han Solo and taken back to the rebel base. That would be a fanboy rant, and we don't want none here. So, you've got to kill the wampa, get out of the cave and then... go right back into the cave from the other side. What the obiwankenobi is going on here? Oh, so now we have to look for the droid, the "meteorite". Right. Where is it, then? We searched everywhere, right? No. There's a secret passage hidden in there we need to use to find a couple of more secret passages, and another wampa to kill, before we'll finally be able to find what we came here to find... and get killed by it. And forced to start this section of the first stage all over again. It might've already been an hour since we started playing, and we're still stuck in the first damn cave. Boring! The droid is unbelievably tough, but just like in the wampa's case, there's a lightsaber tactic that never fails.

Scruffy? Well, these are the best graphics
you'll get out of this game.

OK, so when you're finally done with the cave and its annoying bosses, you'll find yourself back at the base, piloting a small fighter and shooting at AT-AT Walkers. This stage looks relatively cool, but you guessed it, it isn't cool at all. Remember the harpoon Luke figured to use to tie the Walkers' legs together and knock them over in the movie? Well, that harpoon is in the game but it has no use. OK, sometimes you might hit the legs out of pure luck, but sometimes the harpoons just fly downright through the robot bastards! You only have five of them, and ten Walkers to destroy; the ones you can't harpoon (that's all of them, usually) you just simply circle 'round and shoot. If a Walker manages to destroy your ship... well, that's just tough luck! Luke has to get a new fighter from the field while hunted down by huge numbers of stormtroopers, and it's incredibly hard to enter a new ship. You have to time your jump to the cockpit just right or else Luke'll just jump around in place, as effortless cannon fodder to the troopers.

After the AT-AT massacre, it's time to evacuate the base in perhaps the longest stage of the game... which again, has two boss fights. Another Walker, and another Imperial probe droid. Wow. Imaginative. At this point, my final opinion on the game started to change a little. From the beginning, I had thought it was shit, but at this point, I was kind of getting used to its worst qualities, and just thought it was so boring that if I ever beat it, I will never so much as spit on it again. Your primary objective here, by the way, is to save Princess Leia from something. While you're doing it, Obi-Wan appears - a bit late, I'd say - and tells you to go to the Dagobah system. Well, that then becomes your primary objective. So to hell with Leia, I guess, we're off to find an ancient Jedi in a freakin' swamp. I'll speed this up a little, now, 'cause it's the end of the game I want to make a special note of.

Like AVGN said in his review, the Dagobah swamp is ridiculous. It's this game's Death Star; conquer it, and you've basically conquered the game. What I wanted to say - and this is not a fanboy rant, I assure you - is that it's clear this game was rushed, and perceived as no more than a quickie just for the fun of it by Lucasfilm Games. It was never meant to be good. You know why it's obvious? 'Cause the story ends here, in a totally different way from the trilogy. It's like they always knew they wouldn't make a Return of the Jedi for the NES, so they screwed the movie's plot altogether. There is no reason for this game's existence, not even for Lucasfilm. They weren't really expecting to make money, and they didn't, the game was a flop.

They decided to make up for his nearly complete
absence in the previous game by overutilizing
him. You'll see.

So, it's like this - the alternative 8-bit theatrical release of The Empire Strikes Back or something. Luke completes his training on Dagobah, then you have to take out 20 (!!!) Cloud cars and 32 (!!!) TIE Fighters in the same way you took out the 10 AT-AT Walkers, without the harpoons though. The purpose of this, of course, is to rescue Han Solo and to kill his captor, Boba Fett. For those of you who don't remember, both of these events actually took place in Return of the Jedi, on a whole different planet. Well... then it's Princess Leia's turn to be rescued, as she is kidnapped by the Sith Lord himself, Darth Vader. The boss fight against Darth Vader takes about three years. There are six phases in the fight, absolutely no notion of the greatest "holy shit" moment of the whole original trilogy - Vader's revelation of his true identity - and Vader pretty much dies in the end of this fight, or rather proclaims he'll be back just like any video game villain. In the movie, he won, and Luke was the one to take a rather nasty fall. Luke was also the one that came to Vader in the third movie, not the other way around. But again, it's clear that this game wasn't made to follow the rules.

The Empire Strikes Back is an occasionally near-playable, but useless, hapless and extremely boring game for the NES. It's moderately ugly, it sounds absolutely horrible, it's ultimately tedious to play no matter how you look at it, and as a canonical, official piece of cult Star Wars merchandise, it doesn't quite work since the story and atmosphere are both full of holes. I suggest you look into the better, and moreover, COMPLETE trilogy of games on the SNES before even testing this one out.

GRAPHICS : 6.0
SOUND : 5.1
PLAYABILITY : 5.1
LIFESPAN : 4.5
CONCLUSION : 4.9

---

GB VERSION (1992)

The Empire Strikes Back on the Game Boy looks a bit more sufficient, relatively speaking, than the NES version. It's once again a direct port, and nothing about it notably differs from the NES game. If there's something wrong with it, it's the brightness. The game looks extremely faded and old. Listening to this game, I kind of understand why they chose to not have constant background music in the NES version. Repetitive? At the very least!

The difference in control and comfort of gameplay is initially exactly the same as between the NES and Game Boy versions of Star Wars. The controls respond a bit better, traction's better, and what still amazes me, there are less invisible walls, which are usually Game Boy's biggest problem with any platformer, including its flagship Super Mario Land! However, this one's a bit too stiff. The lightsaber has crappy range, and collision detection altogether seems to be at a fatal low. Not only do crystal clear hits from the lightsaber ultimately miss according to the program, but shots from the blaster sometimes go straight through the enemies! Oh yeah, and guess what? Any boss takes a million hits to kill as it is.

Not this icy shithole again.

Seriously, if you don't have the upgrade that boosts the power of Luke's lightsaber, which you don't even get before the rebel base evacuation to my knowledge, you might find yourself beating a single, simple boss like the wampa down for five to ten minutes. You know the worst thing about this? This holds true to each and every AT-AT, AT-ST and TIE Fighter in this game. Still doesn't rattle your bones? Well, just imagine the stages which are based on destroying robots and starfighters. Yep, they take forever. The fact that your own vehicle doesn't really have breakneck speed - in fact I've seen beards grow faster - doesn't really help the situation. Well, at least the harpoons work this time, and there are less enemies to destroy in both shooting stages. I actually counted that if even if you use rapid fire on an AT-AT, it loses one whole tick of health in ten seconds, and it has something like nine ticks, altogether. So it takes at least a minute and a half to down one of those bastards without a harpoon, which incapacitates them immediately. Of course, you lose the same amount of health from every smallest hit - a lot. But you can't really die in the AT-AT battle... if you manage to stay awake throughout the ordeal.

The ST's not exactly the most
agile mount.

It's slow, it's boring and it has most of the quirks that the NES version has, but at least it's fun and comfortable to play to some extent in comparison, as long as there's no sound; it's all about brief samples of the best of Star Wars, on an endless, irritating loop. Luckily Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back came along very soon and erased these two games from our memories quite efficiently.

GRAPHICS : 6.3
SOUND : 5.0
PLAYABILITY : 5.5
LIFESPAN : 5.0
CONCLUSION : 5.3

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 66.50% (GB)

REVIEW - Star Wars (1991)

NES VERSION (1991)

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: November 1991
AVAILABLE ON: GB, GG, NES, SMS
DEVELOPER(S): NMS Software (GB), Tiertex Design (GG, SMS), Beam Software (NES)
PUBLISHER(S): Capcom, Ubisoft, Nintendo (GB), U.S. Gold (GG, SMS), JVC, Lucasfilm Games (NES)
PLAYERS: 1

It's the biggest movie series ever... wait, it's more. It's everywhere. TV, literature, comic books, toys, video games, it's even the source of a worldwide religion. When George Lucas made Star Wars (now known as Star Wars - Episode IV) in 1977, he simply couldn't have predicted what kind of a cultural phenomenon it would become in a matter of years, how big of an impact his little sci-fi fairytale would have on the world. Even if you haven't watched one Star Wars movie in your life, you know who Luke Skywalker is. Or Darth Vader. Or Chewbacca. You know the trademark sounds of Star Wars - the Wilhelm scream, the sound of an unfolding lightsaber, Darth Vader's heavy breathing, Chewie's angry grunt. That goes to show how much Star Wars is referenced to in every other movie or TV show, it's so big. Video games on the subject were inevitable, ever since the concept of video games was born. The first home console game based on Star Wars was released in 1982 - The Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision. Since then, Star Wars has spawned nearly 60 different games on multiple platforms: RPG's, shooters, platformers, video board games, racing games, one-on-one fighting games, you name it. There have been so many different sub-franchises, that there is no way to come up with a sensible order to reviewing Star Wars games. I'm going to do the best I possibly can, and I'll start with the first Star Wars game I ever played, Star Wars on the NES.

There will be no escape for the Princess this time

Where's his "off" switch in this game, anyway?

While cleaning and repairing a droid for his uncle, a young farmhand named Luke Skywalker finds a cryptic call of help from its databank, left by Princess Leia of Alderaan, to an old hermit known to Luke as Ben Kenobi. After a group of Imperial scouts destroys his home and slaughters the remnants of his family, Luke joins Kenobi in his quest to free Princess Leia from the clutches of the Galactic Empire and its dark lord, Darth Vader. At the same time, he becomes fascinated with Kenobi's stories of his long-dead father Anakin Skywalker, and decides to train himself as a Jedi knight in his footsteps.

Warning: a Star Wars geek here, at least to some extent. I've never really been interested in anything besides the six movies (or just five of them, actually...), so I've missed out on a lot of the critically acclaimed novels, comic books and since they didn't exist when I was a kid (God damn it!!!), the line of Star Wars Legos. I've missed out on a lot of important Star Wars video games too, most of them because, once again, I never was much of an avid PC player. However, I have grown to play and even like some PC games related to Star Wars, and at the same time, the amount of Star Wars games on THE LIST - even before it physically existed - has grown to such heights that I can no longer prolong a marathon, which has a subject of this much significance to me, and just about every other person on this planet. It was the first Star Wars game I ever played, it's based on the first movie which I have completely memorized from angle to angle, line to line, so there's not a more fitting kick-off for the marathon than Star Wars on the Nintendo Entertainment System. To make it absolutely clear at this point: this is the internationally available game, not the Namco game of the same name released on the Famicom in 1987. It's a whole other game, although similar in style... and nearly as frustrating. Far from awful, though.

The graphics of the game are good, should I say superb, even, on the NES scale. The cutscenes look great and really authentic, I guess Lucasfilm paid good bucks to Beam to make Alec Guinness look like Alec Guinness and capture every seam of C-3PO's body instead of just making him a golden matchstick man with bulging eyes. It's an 8-bit Nintendo game and not even from the most recent end of its library, got to hand it to 'em. The music's good, too. Some John Williams originals, some remixes, some original music which might be a bit repetitive, but quite decent and none too far from the atmosphere.

Ben Kenobi? Boy, am I glad to see you. Like
really, really glad.

I've reviewed a lot of games, that are based on movies I really like. The Addams Family, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and of course since you're expecting me to say it, Home Alone. Some of these games have been quite decent, some of them have just simply sucked. When it comes to movies I like, the first three Star Wars movies have their very own V.I.P. slot in my all-time Top 5. When Star Wars, the game, came out, I had just recently watched Episode IV for the first time in my life. When I heard that a game had come out based on this amazing movie, and especially when I heard my friend's mom had bought it for him, I was just oozing with excitement, in lack of a better word. In this game, I can play as Luke Skywalker and have my own lightsaber. Ooooooh, I can play as Han Solo, too? THE Han Solo? THE singled-out best character in sci-fi ever? ...It didn't matter what the game was like. I would've played it anyway. And I did, for the longest while. Until it hit me: I was NEVER going to beat it. Here I am, 19 years later, searching for the core meaning of "never", once again.

It has been a habit of mine to nitpick whenever a game is based on a movie I like, but I must say it's quite unfair in the case of Star Wars. For an 8-bit game, it's surprisingly true to the movie. OK, just to get some stuff out of the way: I don't remember Luke invading the Jawa sandcrawler with his blaster blazing to save R2-D2. Save him from what, exactly? Are the Jawas such lousy, heinous businessmen they kidnap the robots they first sell for good money? I don't get it. What's the deal with the tall, two-legged cave monsters that look and act like Chozo in Metroid? Where's Obi-Wan's crib, why does he live on the bottom of a damn cave? The game raises a lot of questions, but a few gaps in the plot and atmosphere are not the problem. Cryptic ways to make progress and goofy gameplay are. Oh no, this ain't going to be an easy trip, not for the mind, the body or the spirit. You must learn much more than the ways of the Force to beat this bad motherfucker.

The moment you press Start, you see a pretty impressive cutscene of an Imperial ship shooting at Princess Leia's escort, and then, C-3PO and R2-D2's escape pod crashlanding on Tatooine. Awesome atmosphere, right from the start. We are told that Owen and Luke bought two droids from Jawas. Well, then C-3PO shows up on the screen and tells Luke not to deactivate him (sir), it wasn't his fault. R2-D2 is "faulty and malfunctioning", and disappeared, babbling on about his mission. Quite a fast tempo to all of this, but at least everything's going in accordance to the movie. Owen and Beru are never seen, nor do they get killed, though - it's a Nintendo game! Anyway, the game begins from the Tatooine desert and we're controlling Luke's landspeeder from a top-down view. Sorry, did I say controlling? We can't, it automatically moves into a cave. Welcome to the primary user interface: a 2D platformer. Luke looks like Jay in the European version of Journey to Silius, almost identical actually. Jumping isn't fun. Luke has minimal traction, and there are many small platforms, with spikes or sharp stalactites all around. If that isn't enough to convince you of the game's unfair ways, falling from heights also kills you or at least drains a humongous portion of your health. The health bar is there for nothing. There is absolutely nothing in this game that would only take one single tick away from your health bar; just a small drop of acid takes two or three. A head-on collision with some enemies such as Tuskens and those Metroid rip-offs I mentioned kills you instantly almost every time. Your objective here is simply to get to the end, and get a blaster with a faster firing rate. There's a sign on the cave wall that says "Exit" - pretty funny. What is this, some sort of torturous theme park?

Like I said: much more than that, I'm afraid.
Could we skip to the infinite patience of the
Jedi already?

When you get out of the cave, you simply have to... yeah. What? You're left with nothing, no clue to follow. You just have to navigate the desert yourself and whenever you find a cave you can enter, you should check it out. In the upper-left corner of the "map", there's a parked Jawa sandcrawler, and C-3PO says his scanners show R2-D2 to be inside the vehicle. Those low-down, cutthroat sons of bitches! This is where the platforming gets medium-nasty (believe me, you ain't seen nothing yet... just wait for the Death Star) - Jawas jump at you from everywhere and anytime, and then we've got these conveyor belts that shoot Luke straight into a set of spikes if you so much as blink, unpredictable falling platforms which I seriously think are impossible to survive fully unscathed, and wall panels that boost your jump to incredible heights in a place that is this unsafe. When you finally find R2-D2, he's a couple of strips of short conveyor belts away. Short, as in if you do one mistake while jumping over them, you'll fall. You'll probably lose health because of that, and you'll have to reroute to the start of the jumping sequence. Fall again, and you're dead. God. Oh well, when you get to him, C-3PO once again speaks - he never shuts up, that's authenticity for ya - and says R2-D2 claims to be the property of a General Kenobi. After that, you're once again out in the desert. Time to find Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi.

Oh, Chewie said that? Where is that oaf of fur,
by the way?

That's not easy, mind you. You still have no clue where to go, there are quite a few caves to be explored, and none of them matter except that one, which Obi-Wan... lives... in. There are some shields for the Millennium Falcon - explained later - to be found in the rest of the caves, but that's pretty much it. When you finally find the right one, it isn't made very clear that you're on the right track. "Exit" turns up first. What you need to do is go into the opposite direction, to the other end of the cave bottom, to finally find Obi-Wan Kenobi. So, if you have R2-D2 with you at this point, Obi-Wan leaves with you - if you don't, you'll have to get the droid and come back again. My Jedi instinct is telling me I should go to Mos Eisley to negotiate with Han and Chewie. But... eh? I'm once again in the desert, and I'm thinking that I've explored every corner there is. Oh, but I have Obi-Wan in my group now, perhaps I should select him. I'll do that. Cut to Kenobi's face. "The ways of the Force are very mysterious." Cut back to the game. THAT'S IT? Tell me what I'm supposed to do, old man! Aargh! This is like Daniel LaRusso trying to get a proper sentence out of Mr. Miyagi! Well, I didn't explore every corner, it seems. The bottom-right corner is a quite obvious gateway to Mos Eisley. I enter it, and after an hour and a half of gameplay - or should I say chasing a wild goose - already, I'm done with Tatooine, and the damn landspeeder, and all those enemies you can only randomly kill by using its turbo gauge. You guessed it, though, I'm heading into something worse.

Don't mess with me, I'm to be a Jedi.

Mos Eisley's cantina has enemies you can't kill with your blaster OR your lightsaber. That's: CAN'T KILL. As luck would have it, these very same enemies, on the other hand, have flamethrowers with incredible range, and they can easily burn half of your health bar to crisp with just one hit. From the other end of the cantina, you'll find Han Solo, and then you'll have to backtrack to the front door. But, you can do it by using Han or Luke, whichever you prefer. Han Solo would be an obvious choice, but he sucks. Luke has just gained the lightsaber, which is an excellent weapon, and Han still uses a blaster which has bigger bullets than Luke's, but it's just as weak. So, if you happen to die in the cantina, you simply have to talk to Han and try again. But, if you die OUTSIDE of the cantina, you'll have to re-enter the place, run to the other end, talk to Han and then, try again. Marvellous. This is the first of many points in the game I really wish it to be totally unplayable, and not a Star Wars game. I'm compelled to continue. Your objective is to get to the hangar where the Millennium Falcon is stored. The hangars are guarded by guys with jetpacks, who kind of look like Boba Fett. These guys are found in every NES game, Star Wars is finally a game they're in for a reason. Not in every NES game are they impossible to hit, though, and not in every NES game do they shower you with bullets that are impossible to dodge. Remember the health bar's non-usefulness? Well, guess what entered the fray once again. So, one of the guys was able to kill me. Big deal. Oh, I have to go back to the cantina and get Han Solo AGAIN?! And the hangar I'm supposed to get to is still a good rock throw away? Red rum, red rum, red rum.

"I've been looking forward to this for a long time."
"Yes, I bet you have." BANG! One of my
favourite scenes in Star Wars, vintage Harrison
Ford.

Well, next up we have a "shooter" sequence. We're not shooting anything, though, we're simply dodging asteroids - or the remains of Alderaan, whatever - and the more shields you have gathered for the Falcon throughout the game work as your health. So yeah, if you haven't gathered any, it's OHK! Fair! And guess what? There's no going back; not even the continues will help you, you'll have to restart the game if the sequence turns out to be a trap for you! Upon conquering this sequence, we can engage in light-speed towards the Death Star, where we'll gain a new playable character in Princess Leia. And this, my friends, is where this review unceremoniously ends. I simply cannot get past Death Star. Every little thing that has been wrong about platforming controls, and the environment as of now, is ten fold worse on the Death Star. You might do fine up until the point you have to escape the station - this is when you'll have to face some just heinous obstacles like the longest jump of the century, and a room literally surrounded by spikes - and which has zero gravity. From what I've read, there are only three shooter sequences to go after that: the Falcon's escape from the Death Star, the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter battle in space, and then the legendary final scene in which Luke uses the Force (and Han Solo's unexpected help) to destroy Death Star with one single shot. I'm so close, and yet so far. The game is simply merciless. There indeed will be no escape for the Princess this time!

Chewbacca is nowhere to be seen and Darth Vader (the greatest movie villain of all time - BAR NONE!) only appears in the Game Over screen, the game is frustratingly difficult and the controls really aren't even near perfect, but Star Wars still holds a fair deal of sentimental value to me, and even today, I can easily recognize it as relatively real, authentic Star Wars merchandise. Certainly not the worst movie license of the times out there, far from it. Even nice to return to, once in a while, to tear up a few excessive nerves.

GRAPHICS : 9.2
SOUND : 8.7
PLAYABILITY : 6.1
LIFESPAN : 7.0
CONCLUSION : 6.4

---

GB VERSION (1992)

Up until last year, I had no idea a version of Star Wars was also made for the Nintendo Game Boy. This one was developed by NMS Software, and published by Capcom in the U.S. and Ubisoft in Europe, exactly a year after the NES game. I was expecting a similar, but notably different ride, but what I got was a 100% faithful port of the previous game - and you wouldn't believe it, but it's better! A Game Boy port of an NES game, better! BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA!

The graphics are as much of exactly the same as they can possibly be on a small, black 'n' white screen. The sprites are bigger, the cutscenes have only tiny portraits of the characters' faces, and there's a capacity-related nuisance which affects gameplay to some degree - you can't see the direction of conveyor belts. It's all too detailed, as well; enemies have a violent tendency to mix with the background. The music's identical to that of the NES version. Still works, and I still think the cantina theme from the movie is better in the game than it was in the movie!

Would be nice to see where
I'm hurled to next.

Game Boy's rendition of Star Wars sports definitely better controls than its NES counterpart, which is another case of WTF; from the beginning of Game Boy's lifespan to its very end, its biggest problem was bad control. That, and invisible walls, which are definitely here. However, I haven't bumped into any horizontal ones, just vertical, and they aren't nearly as dangerous in this game as horizontal ones. It's considerably easier to perform running jumps, jump precision is more forgiving and enemies aren't quite as hard to kill. You can even kill the flamethrower bastards down at the cantina now, which is a big plus, but only with the lightsaber. On the downside, the lightsaber's range is really sucky. You have to time your hits perfectly, and get quite intimate with enemies to score a hit - and yep, accidental collisions with enemies spell just as much trouble as landing on spikes. The health bar doesn't stand for shit.

Still just as confusing and
cryptic. Good thing I had the
right path fresh in my
memory.

One weird thing about the game is that once you get Han Solo, your character sprite automatically changes to that of his, like in the NES game, but when you attack, Luke flashes in his place. You need to go to the character select screen and select Han Solo before you can actually use him. Hmm, curious. Quite an amusing glitch. What is NOT an amusing glitch is that if you die inside the cantina, Han's gone from your party and you CAN'T get him back before you exit and re-enter the cantina, and run all the way back to him.

Even that huge nuisance pushed aside, the Game Boy version of Star Wars is still better than the NES version. It's notably easier, also. You don't have to get one Falcon shield in this game, the asteroid stage is a piece of cake since you don't have to do anything else but steer the Falcon to either one of the bottom corners of the screen and remain there for its whole duration. It's amazing how much effect better controls have on the Death Star. So, I wouldn't go proclaiming this the Star Wars game of the ages, but considerable Game Boy entertainment.

GRAPHICS : 8.5
SOUND : 8.5
PLAYABILITY : 6.7
LIFESPAN : 7.0
CONCLUSION : 6.8

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 64.92% (GB)

Dragon Age: Origins DLC Guide

WARDEN'S KEEP

RELEASED: November 2009
INFO: A downloadable quest pack for Dragon Age: Origins, available for free to those who purchased the Digital Collector's Edition of the game. A young man back at the Warden's campsite would like the Warden and his companions to look into his grandmother's dark past as a Warden and possibly clear his tainted family name, by investigating an isolated fortress known to the Grey Wardens as Soldier's Peak.

REVIEW: I enjoyed this quest. The download's reasonably priced, seeing that it comes complete with two new low-level Trophies/Achievements, fabulous new equipment for the game, and new - albeit unholy - talents for all three classes. It's short, yet moderately challenging in terms of combat, which means it's a quite gratifying hour of level farming. 8.5 / 10

THE STONE PRISONER

RELEASED: November 2009
INFO: A downloadable quest pack for Dragon Age: Origins, available for free to all who purchased a new retail copy of the game. A merchant presents the Warden with a control rod for a seemingly disfunctional golem. The captive villagers know the secret behind freeing the potentially dangerous stone prisoner, but the Warden and his/her companions need to help them with their predicament in order to learn it.

REVIEW: The most essential downloadable content for Dragon Age: Origins, bar none. Easy for a buyer of a new copy of the game to say, of course, since otherwise it costs 15 dollars/euros - but I'd say I'd pay that sum if I knew all of what The Stone Prisoner is about. Once again, there are two new low-level Trophies/Achievements and some fabulous new equipment to be collected, a new (not to mention extremely essential and humorous) companion and a whole new type of equipment for her, and on the top of it all, a total of two entertaining sidequests to be conquered. Excellent stuff that set the bar a little too high for Dragon Age DLC from day one. 9.3 / 10

RETURN TO OSTAGAR

RELEASED: January 2010
INFO: The final downloadable quest pack for Dragon Age: Origins. The Warden and his companions meet a member of King Cailan's personal guard, who tells them of a chest Cailan left back at Ostagar to be inherited by the Grey Wardens at the event of his death. The party returns to the field of its most memorable battle to find the chest and kill the darkspawn that have taken the place for their own.

REVIEW: This one was a bit "meh". Sure, it has some new equipment - that's the purpose of the whole quest - but there's only one new Trophy/Achievement, it's an easy run in an already familiar setting, and there are no new tricks to be exploited. It's as good of a download as any for true fanatics, but unlike the two quest packs that came before it, Return to Ostagar can easily be left ignored by casual players. 6.5 / 10

THE DARKSPAWN
CHRONICLES

RELEASED: May 2010
INFO: An add-on for Dragon Age: Origins. In a wholly alternative timeline, your Warden died in the Joining and therefore, never took part in the final battle in Denerim. Alistair is the last surviving Grey Warden, and you're now a Hurlock Vanguard, given the task of killing him and his companions.

REVIEW: Say the name. "The Darkspawn Chronicles." One more time. "The Darkspawn Chronicles." Needs more feeling! Come on! "The Darkspawn Chronicles!" OK, you definitely want to buy it since it sounds so cool, so now: play it. Sucks, huh? The story's quite silly but that's easily expected, once you get to play it you'll see there's none of that Dragon Age magic here. It feels like you're playing a demo with the sole focus in fighting. They could've easily made this an interesting, intricate quest, in which you would've controlled one of the intelligent darkspawn from Awakening, but no, they decided to base this linear, hour-long stroll around a simple-minded Hurlock on a Denerim-sized killing spree, jumping from "quest" to "quest". He can possess other monsters, that's kind of cool. But can you customize your darkspawn? Can you assign abilities? Can you do anything that you've grown accustomed to playing any previous Dragon Age product? No. Sort of. Yes. You can kill. A lot of folk. Too much folk. I don't know about you, but I felt really, really awkward about chopping Oghren's head off. 'Twas a waste of time. Suitable for a completist who wants his hands on three new Trophies and a new weapon for Origins and Awakening. 5.0 / 10

LELIANA'S SONG

RELEASED: July 2010
INFO: An add-on prequel to Dragon Age: Origins. The Orlesian bard Leliana recounts her story of doing all sorts of dirty work for a woman named Marjolaine, and how she was betrayed by her.

REVIEW: Let's face the facts. Leliana is one sexy broad - although her accent is horrible - and my favourite rogue companion to use, but does she really have any true purpose in Dragon Age: Origins when it comes to the story? No, and Leliana's Song proves it. It's no Dragon Age, instead it's a slightly humorous, linear action game of general rogue-like mischief that runs on the Infinity engine. There's no mention of darkspawn, Blights, Grey Wardens or anything fantasy-related. Even the music's very different from the retail - quite repetitive, folk-oriented stuff. There are a couple of new funny, yet stale characters, easter eggs, new equipment and three new Trophies to be enjoyed; all in all, Leliana's Song is decent one-time fun, but might turn some Dragon Age fanatics off. There's also a weird glitch of repeating cutscenes and dialogues. 6.7 / 10

THE GOLEMS OF
AMGARRAK

RELEASED: August 2010
INFO: An add-on sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. The Grey Warden returns to Orzammar to accompany a dwarf in search of his brother, who went missing on an expedition for ancient secrets of golem construction in the Deep Roads.

REVIEW: In spite of a huge glitch that might turn up and coldly disrupt your progress in the seemingly unpatched PS3 version, The Golems of Amgarrak is a keeper. It was the least promoted DLC for Dragon Age: Origins, and to my huge surprise, I really enjoyed it a lot more than The Darkspawn Chronicles or Leliana's Song. The three Trophies don't come cheap. The Golems of Amgarrak is HARD as it is, and you have to beat the final boss on Hard or Nightmare to score all three Trophies. The boss isn't really that hard, but he has a ton of annoying buffs. What's cool is that you can either create a new character - not recommendable - or import your Grey Warden from the retail, OR the Warden-Commander from Awakening. Doesn't make things a whole lot easier, since your party is still a quite weak bunch of chumps, but it helps out a great deal anyway. A challenging and fairly entertaining quest, three new Trophies, new efficient equipment for the retail and Awakening as usual... yep, I'd buy it. And I did. 8.0 / 10

WITCH HUNT

RELEASED: September 2010
INFO: The final add-on for Dragon Age: Origins, and a sequel to the events in both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening. It has been two years since the Blight ended and Morrigan disappeared. The Warden-Commander sets out to find the Witch of the Wilds and settle the score with her, in better or worse. This witch hunt leads the Warden and his new companions on the trail of an ancient elven secret.

REVIEW: It's no secret that I'm a Morrigan fanboy down to my heart and soul, and the main reason I wanted to see through the rest of the downloadable content was so that I could take on Witch Hunt last, like it was meant to be. It offers true closure to the Origins storyline - more threads of it than one would think - and, naturally, it marks the long-anticipated, though only brief return of the best character in the Dragon Age universe. Witch Hunt ends the storyline and the series of Origins DLC with a high note. Your decisions in Origins and Awakening affect the storyline, although the ending you got in Origins seems to make no difference at all. In case you refused Morrigan's offer, she even goes as far as to mention that - but you still live, there's still no explanation to it! As far as gameplay goes, I enjoyed this quest very much despite its easiness, the emptiness of the Ariane character and the pure nuisance that is the mage Finn. There are four Trophies to be had here, one of which requires you to once again slay the final boss on Hard or Nightmare, but he's not nearly as hard as the one in Golems, actually quite easy. Oh yeah, and some new equipment, of course. All things considered, Witch Hunt is well worth its price of seven! 8.9 / 10