Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles

"Long Long Ago...."

-Visuals 8/10-

Clean and crisp, you have plenty of neat things to look at. From the extensive moves, to the movie type locales that you've seen in the film, and a few that you've only read about in the books, you'll find yourself on a visual roller coaster that keeps the pace, with detail, flare, and alot of eye candy. Placing you in the shoes of a Jedi player, you'll see that the special moves are sculpted after what they looked like in the movie. This is something nice to see, a little continuity in the movie to game transfer.

Shadowing and colorization is key here, in which everything from effects to fog, to laser blasts being deflected back and the sparks that you see from the downed robot warriors makes for a visual treat. Nothing was taken for granted, and for a change, the characters don't move like stick figures.

-Audio 8/10-

John Williams would be proud of this one. Every stage has music from the movie, and it's brought to you in perfect stereo quality. You'll see, or rather hear, everything from the orcestra to the hum of the lightsabre coming across in crystal clarity. When listening to the game, you'll find yourself wondering if this was also done in THX sound by the way the bass thumps in your stereo speakers.

-Control 8/10-

While a little confusing at first, the game controls revolve around a jump, a hard slash, and a chopping motion with the lightsaber. Combinations are a key thing here, in which the more hits you connect, the more points you rack up. Special moves are contained to one button on the shoulder of the PSX control, and moving your character around the stage is fluid and responsive.

-Gameplay 8/10-

It's your basic hack and slash, with a bit of secret finding in between. Puzzles are non-existant, and the two player mode is especially fun in which your partner can run interference while you go from the side and take out the enemies. No longer are you just contained to a simple block, but with a little timing, you can deflect the shots that are fired at you right back at your opponents without breaking a sweat.

Secrets abound, you can unlock several different things by finish the stages with a maximum score. When you do so, you unlock new and more powerful combinations that you can use, on top of more special moves that you can use to take out a wide range of enemies. This adds to the fun in trying to break and destroy everything on the stage.

-Overall 8/10-

This is one of the few games by Lucas Arts that actually came out pretty good. While the game looks and sounds good, you'll have a hard time finishing it more than once, as the levels never really change, and the secrets are really quite minimal. When it's all said and done, you'll find that the game is worth at least the three day rental from Blockbuster, or worth picking up at your local store for about 30.00. Either way, you won't be sorry that you played this title.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/00, Updated 12/10/00