Star Wars: Starfighter: "Verrrry Interesting...But SCHTUPID!"
Written: Mar 30 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Best attempt at dogfighting with a console stick so far.
Cons: Mission defy logic, enemies only difficult due to sheer numbers.
The Bottom Line: Whether or not your a fan of Star Wars will determine whether you want to rent this or own it.
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| Alkaiser's Full Review: Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter for PlayStation 2 |
I don't know why people insist on making flight sims for consoles. There is no way to give a player the same amount of control that they would normally get with a flight stick. In exactly the same way you can't expect a PC player to play a first person shooter on a console without a mouse, you will never get a flight sim enthusiast hooked on a console flight sim without his flight stick.
Starfighter does the best job so far of attempting to replicate a control system that makes sense without you having to do finger acrobactics to control your ship.
Normally, the morons who make space flight sims will force you to keep accelerating, instead of letting you maintain a speed. Colony Wars was like this, and it irritated the hell out of me for two reasons, first, the most strategic position in dogfighting is be behind your target. That way he can't shoot you. When you have to keep accelerting, you're busy alternating between trying to match the enemy's speed and shoot. Not very convenient.
The second reason is that it's the damned ANTITHESIS of the way actual physics works. In space there's no air resistance...if you push off of something, you'll keep going...forever. That's why asteroids move so fast...there's nothing to stop them in space...so they keep going. Someone has to explain this to the guys who make space game.
Starfighter sets you at a constant speed and lets you adjust it with your brakes or your afterburner. This set-up poses a problem for me because the guys at Lucas Arts decided not to let you do a full stop. This gets annoying when you want to tail slower moving ships, or pick off mines or other stationary targets. You can just stop, clear out the area, and move on. Aside from that, the controls are ok.
The storyline isn't all that great. You take over 3 badly rendered characters and their stories intertwine so that they have to all work together to save the planet of Naboo. Well, not "save" outright, but "save" just enough that the characters in the movie can "save" the planet just enough that they're safe...for now. That's one of the things I hate most about the Star Wars universe and the video games. Your character never makes a difference. You already know what's going to happen in the grander scheme of things, so you're just the set-up guy for the characters in the movies, who are just the set-up guys for the characters in the next movie.
That, and every game starts the same way. I mean, I'm all for tradition and all, but after 4 movies, and 10+ games, it's time to move on. Same music, same intro, blah, blah, blah. Not that it's bad, per se, just old and boring. I mean, Bill Gates didn't get ahead by just making new version of DOS...for nostalgia.
The opening intro CG is the perfect introduction to the rest of the CG in the game. Parts, like space stations or big ships look nice. People, and the Naboo starfighters, or anything that's supposed to be shiny or shimmery look like "crap".
You finish your first couple missions as Rhys, and of course, you lose your wingman. You know you're going to lose her because she's Asian, and Asian people either don't exist in the Lucas world, or they die quickly. Anyway, you lose her in basically the most cliche way possible, and then you switch characters, until you've played as all 3 of the main characters.
Each character has a different ship and a different "special" weapon. Rhys pilots the Naboo Starfighter which has proton torpedoes. They do almost no damage to anything except dropships. Vara pilots something strange that has something like an energy rifle that recharges. It does no damage at all that I can tell, and this makes her fighter the most useless craft in the game. Nym pilots a bomber. He's got these odd energy bombs, and they do decent damage. Given the choice, I'd probably fly his ship all the time if I could.
The missions are kind of interesting, and they stack you against a lot of enemies. Apparently LucasArts decided to send you against masses of enemies that couldn't kill you one on one if you parked instead of including any quality dogfighting in the game. The only time enemies will actually kill me is if I have rammed a couple objects on the way to the fight.
I've gotten all the way to Mission 11 in a bit under 6 hours. From what billservo's review says, there are only 14 missions, so I'm nearly done with this game, but I've stopped temporarily because of the game's biggest flaw.
Stupidity.
Mission 11 has you flying to deliver supplies to the Naboo Resistance by flying through the same canyon you flew through in Mission 1. Early on you find out that there are enemies waiting for you inside the canyon. So, what would any sensible fighter and convoy pilot do? They'd get the hell out of the canyon, because once you're out of their line of sight, they can't shoot you anymore.
But, that's not the Lucas way. You MUST fly through the canyon because the canyon-type scenes are the most popular bits of the Lucas movies. Everyone loves the speeder bike scene, everyone loves racing part of Phantom Menace, everyone loves the Death Star run. So you have to fly through the canyon, even though it's stocked with tanks and enemies, and defies everything that is common sense in the world. If you, through sheer cowardice, or perhaps in an attempt to make an effective strafing run at the enemies, try to pull up out of the canyon the game has an aritificial ceiling to pull you back down, frequently, right into the canyon walls, killing you. Shame on you for trying to break the Lucas traditions! Now you must die!
When I tried to solve the mission the other logical way, by flying ahead of my convoy and eleiminating all the enemies along the way, one of the fighters flew off into space, past the artificial ceiling, and I couldn't shoot it...meaning I couldn't finish the mission. When I tried to get a lock on the puck with my torpedo, the artificial ceiling pulled me back down...into the canyon walls.
Not as detrimental to the gameplay, but it still irks me to no end is a quote from Nym on Mission 10. You're flying against tons of droid fighters attack frieghters, etc. So, like 15 of them fly at you, and Nym says, "We're outnumbered, but we're not outgunned." IDIOT! You are outgunned if you're outnumbered! They have two guns per ship...so do you...you're outgunned 30 to 8. Maybe you're not outCLASSED, but you're sure as hell outgunned.
Bottom line...decent game, but its shortcomings hinder it from being excellent, as does the fact that it's a space flight sim without a flight stick for you to use. Worth a rental, borderline purchase, but the artificial ceilings killed the game for me.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Alkaiser
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Member: Clayton Chan
Location: Irvine, CA
Reviews written: 655
Trusted by: 344 members
About Me:
Broke the 700 pound mark on my leg lifts.
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