Star Wars Starfighter

"Episode I Action on the PS2"

I'm not the kind of person that rushes to the bookstore to find a new Star Wars novel or has a chat group to discuss the technical errors in The Empire Strikes Back. Nor am I that kind of gamer that goes crazy over every Star Wars release. However, a couple years back I popped Rogue Squadron into my Nintendo 64, and it turned out to be a rather fun (and very challenging) experience.

Starfighter, in fact, is quite similar to Rogue Squadron. You man several of the vehicles from the Star Wars universe and use them to fight against the large evil in the galaxy. The settings, however, make for a big difference. Rogue Squadron takes place in between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, while Starfighter takes places roughly around the time of the events in The Phantom Menace. This makes for different settings, different crafts, and different enemies. Even with these differences, though, the game still has the same basic feel and design of Rogue Squadron.

Starfighter's fourteen normal missions tell a new chapter in Star Wars history. All of this is brought together by wonderful special effects and CG cutscenes in between select missions. After these normal levels are completed, players are challenged to unlock bonus levels. The ten bonus levels either present a game, some far-out situation, an incredibly difficult mission, or a combination of the preceding. The only way to unlock these missions is to score bronze, silver, and gold medals in the normal missions. These medals are obtained by completing special objectives which make you go out of your way and perform a particularly astounding feat of skill.

Since Rogue Squadron is basically the predecessor to Starfighter (and the only other Star Wars game of this type that I've played), there will be several references to it. So, does Starfighter stack up to the fun and challenge of Rogue Squadron?

GRAPHICS: 9.25
Starfighter definitely has some nice graphical touches to it. You'll see huge explosions, glowing shields that are being fired at, and dozens of enemies firing missiles and lasers at you without even a hint of slowdown. The vehicles, buildings and enemies look excellent. Even better is the long distances that you can see things from (there's practically no pop-up), which really enhances the feeling of the game. But, of course, these great graphics are nothing compared to the beauty of the CG cutscenes... well, most parts of them, anyway. While the environments and objects in the cutscenes look spectacular, the human characters don't really look like humans, and their animations are jerky and inaccurate. Every other aspect of the graphics in the game is very good, though, especially considering how much is going on onscreen at once.

PLAY CONTROL: 9.5
The play control is a huge improvement over Rogue Squadron, where controlling crafts felt rough and more difficult. In Rogue Squadron, every movement of your vehicle is smooth and pleasing. It just feels great flying around because it's so pleasant to control. A new roll feature has also been added, which really helps when you get turned upside down. The controls themselves are essentially the same; lasers, missiles, break, and boost being the most used.

SOUND: 8.75
The music blends in nicely to the feel of the game, but perhaps it blends in too much, as it won't really stand out as anything exciting while you're playing. While you're watching the cutscenes, however, it's a completely different story. The acting and sound effects in these are very good. It actually sounds like you're watching a Star Wars movie. The game also has some familiar Star Wars music scattered about. As for the sound effects, the laser fire, explosions, and screaming fighters all sound great.

STORY: 7.25
While the cutscenes are excellent in the audio and visual aspects, they leave something to be desired in the telling of an interesting story. Actually, there really isn't much of a story. Basically, the events are strewn together with proper connections in between, without much going on in the way of plot. However, the overall setup of being part of the resistance forces is pretty cool, and some things do happen to the characters and they develop a little. Overall not very exciting, but it does the job.

INNOVATION: 6.5
Starfighter, unfortunately, doesn't really bring anything new over the same concept that was introduced in Rogue Squadron and the games before it. Some new scenarios have popped up with the introduction of the new vehicles and graphical capabilities, but there really isn't anything drastically different from Rogue Squadron in this game.

LENGTH: 5.75
Completing Starfighter will a be a breeze, and can be done in 5 hours without much trouble. The fourteen missions won't last very long, especially if you play it on easy your first time through (which, as you may have guessed, makes everything super-easy).

REPLAY VALUE: 8.75
LucasArts probably realized the short length of the game and decided to make it up in the replay value category. Each of the normal missions challenges you to get bronze, silver, or gold medals through completing a certain number of bonus objectives. There are also three levels of difficulty. The biggest aspect of replaying, though, is the bonus stages. There are ten whole bonus stages in this game, with the same difficulty/medals challenges as the other levels. However, to unlock these bonus stages, you must get a certain number of medals from the normal game, inspiring you to go back and play the levels over and over. A lack of multiplayer and searching for hidden items (like in Rogue Squadron) kept this category from going to the top, but it still offers a lot to be done after the game is completed.

ENTERTAINMENT: 9.0
Even moreso than Rogue Squadron, Starfighter is tons of fun to play. Tailing an enemy ship then blasting it to oblivion gives one a great feeling. There is a good variety in the level types and designs, giving you a different feeling each place you go. Speaking of variety, this is a thing Starfighter lacks. I didn't really feel there was much variety in the missions. Every level was basically ''protect this person and destroy a bunch of enemies''. The loading times can get annoying, but are bearable. All in all, you'll have quite a bit of fun while playing this game with a few minor complaints.

OVERALL: 8.0
Precise Score: 7.98077

If you liked Rogue Squadron, you'll like Starfighter even more. It improves on almost every aspect of Rogue Squadron (the main exception being length). Starfighter brings a lot of action and adventure to the table with familiar and unfamiliar Episode I ships and locales. If you've never played Rogue Squadron, Battle for Naboo, or a similar game, you should definitely check this out and see if it's to your liking. In terms of sheer fun alone, Starfighter stands with the best PlayStation 2 games as of this game's release.

PROS:
- The targeting system. With locking on and a little arrow showing where your enemy is, it makes searching and searching for one little bomber a thing of the past.
- Enemies. There are quite a few different types of enemies, several of which viewers of The Phantom Menace will recognize right away. Each enemy has different movements, power, and attack patterns.
- Large levels. There's lots of terrain to cover in these areas, which creates more epic battles and new places to find.

CONS:
-The targeting system. While it provides relief in not having to hunt for every tiny little enemy, it also makes the game ten times easier.
- Only a few ships available. It would have been nice to have been able to control more than three different vessels in the game, and like in Rogue Squadron, if you could choose which one to use before heading out on a mission.
- No multiplayer. Some of the bonus levels are practically designed as multiplayer games. While a standard combat multiplayer likely wouldn't be very entertaining, some of the fun bonus games could be.
- Details. In Rogue Squadron, you could fly around and find tiny little stormtroopers and creatures, as well as small, remote cottages and other places. In Starfighter, there seems to be less of these details.

While Starfighter is a very enjoyable game, it's length alone makes purchasing the game debatable. If you think you'll enjoy playing the missions over several times to get medals and complete higher difficulties, there will be enough for you to do to warrant buying this game. If you satiated your hunger for this genre with Rogue Squadron, Starfighter won't offer anything new for you to feast on. A rental for this game is definitely acceptable as you will still be able to see everything in the game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/01, Updated 04/27/01