Star Wars Starfighter

"Take that evil sith lord."

General/Summary: We all have been exposed to Star Wars in more ways than one. We've seen the movies, played the games, read the comics, played the toys and even consumed some of the food-beverage that supported George Lucas' franchise.

When LucasArts first signed on for the PlayStation2, I was worried because that company has a history of producing games that lacked goodness and relied too much on the series title. SW Episode One The Phantom Menace on the PlayStation was pathetic. Jedi Power Battles was too shallow. Masters of Teras Kasi had one of the worst controls for a fighting game. And the list goes on.

As I mentioned a while ago, LucasArts presenceon the PS2 had me worried. Not only is the history evident, but they also lost what used to be goodness on their part of game programming. The last good Star Wars game I had was on the Super NES.

When Star Wars Episode One Starfighter was first shown, I thought that this game was nothing but a great-looking and bad-playing game. I thought it would be another Masters of Teras Kasi (cool idea, bad gameplay).

But to my great surprise, I was proven wrong by Lucas and his team of game programmers!

Starfighter greatly entertained and involved me from the start! Was there a moment when I felt bad about the game? None whatsoever! Like other games on the PS2 (Tekken Tag Tournament, Ridge Racer V, and Onimusha come to mind), Starfighter is (surprisingly) full of greatness and pure enjoyment!

Starfighter, as a PS2 game, is a great relief for any PS2 owner who hungers for good gaming. As a Star Wars game, Starfighter is the best game of the franchise I played in many years! I felt very sorry for George Lucas on past mediocre games, since his name is involved with them. With Starfighter, I'm proud of George Lucas and his decision to develop for the PS2!

I sure hope that a sequel or newer version of this game would be made and released soon. The PS2 needs more games like this, and specifically the best flying shooters. Ace Combat 4 is still far away, but Starfighter makes the wait painless.

Still don't get it? I must say that Starfighter is one of the best games of the year and easily the best sci-fi flying shooter! You must be this game for your PS2 now and enjoy! Highly recommended, and now's the time to buy, fly and fire!!!
Gameplay: Remember those spaceship battles from TPM? Well they're all here and added with extras! The story took place around the time of the movie's story but with a twist.

There are 3 characters designed for you to portray as. Each character has his/her own strengths, weakness, advantage and the like. You get to play each character as the situation changes.

As if playing 3 characters is not enough, you get to fly a good variety of vehicles! Not only will you fly the starfighter, but also the Mantis and the Havoc. Like the characters, these crafts have their differences and advantages based on missions.

As a star pilot, you get to feel that instantly when you play. This is not just some lone-fighter-fighting-all-enemies type of game, but you have the option to actually give commands to your flying companions! There were times when I want a few of my fightermates to act as a decoy, so I could sneak in through enemy territory, and that was what happened!

Some of the strategies you could think of can be done here too. I had one where my team would fly away when the enemy fighters chase us, and had my team go after them when the enemy fighters are flying the opposite way!

Controls for this great game are perfect! Some people may think that this game has a PC interface, which is complicated. LucasArts did a great job implementing all those options into one single PS2 controller. Want to give commands? Don't type or look for a keyboard, just click!

There are over 12 missions for you to take on, and each mission has a very important objective, which would make a lot of sense if you were really a fighter in the story. Nope, there's not a single boring mission. Everything is great. Everytime I play or repeat the missions, something new comes out!

Of course it would not be a SW game without weapons. You have a wide variety of weapons to use here like the laser cannons (too common), photon torpedoes, Nano missiles, energy bombs and more! Each weapon is different and has its own features!

The gameplay is very involving! There were times when I led my team into a battle which had a sky full of enemy spaceships, all swarming like bees against us! It's one of the greatest experiences I ever had!

Any flaws? Well, if you lose in a mission, you have to restart everything. This flaw is very common but because the game's missions are so great and intense, repeating the mission can be tiring.

Other than that, Starfighter has excellent gameplay overall!

Graphics: Starfighter's graphics are among the very best I've seen for a 128-bit game, and this is easily the best looking game LucasArts has ever made.

The use of the PS2's special effects and polygon-processor is put to great use here! If you thought the battles on the movies were great, then this game will more or less exceed your expectation!

There's a lot of detail added to the graphics of this game. I remember one sequence in the battle where I shot an enemy fighter in the sky with my laser and boom! The craft is destroyed with a great show of special FX! Not only that you get to see debris from the ship!

About the debris from blown ships, you'll notice that they are not generic looking debris, but rather specific looking! If you calculate and observe how the ship explodes, you'll notice that undamaged parts get separated from the blown parts and drift off! Man, that's how detailed the graphics are, and this is just a small portion of it!

Similar to the movie, virtually all the time th game uses special effects! Example: when my ship enters the atmosphere of a planet, you can see how realistic and detailed the sunlight is, and you can see how the atmosphere's color changes when your ship descends!

As if the ships were not detailed enough, so are the planetary terrain! The mountains and forests look so realistic! You should try flying your ship near them, and observe what little looking details you can find on them!

Currently the best looking flying-shooter game!

Sound: Like the movies, the sound effects and music of this game re of top-notch quality! John Williams' musical score of the movies are perfectly ported here, and not only that, they fit well with what goes on screen! Some new music was added too.

Since this game has a lot of voiceovers from the characters and wingmates, it is very fortunate that the game's voice acting is nothing less than excellent! There were a few voices who acted weirdly but overall a very good cast of voices were present along with very good voice acting!

The sound effects are all of top-notch quality, like the movies. Sometimes I wondered if the sounds I heard where straight from a VCR playing TPM loud, but realized the sound came from the PS2 through my TV!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/11/01, Updated 05/11/01