Star Wars: Demolition

"The best Star Wars game I've ever played!"

Star Wars Demolition is similar to Twisted Metal, but with Star Wars characters and arenas, which is the result of a Star Wars game that's worth trying out.
In Star Wars Demolition, you can play as 12 characters from the Star Wars universe that each drive their own vehicle, such as Boba Fett (Jet pack), Malakili (Rancor), Quagga the Wookiee (AAT Battle tank from Ep. I), and many others. There are also 8 arenas you can battle on, like Tatooine, Yavan 4, Cloud City, and even the Death Star II! And now for the review.

GRAPHICS: 7.5
The graphics in Demolition are pretty good, with detailed character models and objects. The landscapes are also nicely detailed, but have bad draw distance, but it never bothered me. The explosions are quite good, too, and almost every object can be destroyed, which is a pretty fun thing to do. The walls and objects's textures swivel around when the camera moves, like being under water, but that never really bothered me much either. The lighting affects are non-existing, but things like the twin suns in Tatooine are very realistic. Another thing I like is the battle damage your vehicle sustains with to many hits, which was done very nicely. There are also lots of FMVs, which are very good.

SOUND/MUSIC: 9.2/10
The sound effects are quite good, such as the noise of blaster fire and explosions. Character voices are excellent, and are crystal-clear. The music in Star Wars Demolition is PERFECT, and add allot to the game play. You can also insert the CD into a CD player to listen to the music. While playing the game, you can pause and choose to listen to music from a different arena. Good job, Lucas Arts!

STORY:
Actually, Lucas Arts managed to get a pretty good story for this game, even though it doesn't make much sense in the first place. Jabba the Hutt decides to open up a demolition game, where gamblers and pirates come and blast each other senseless for credits. Each character has a story and reason to be competing, which can be learned in the Tournament chart.

GAME PLAY: 8.7
The gameplay in Demolition is great, you fire your laser with R2, and there are 4 types of arm mounted weapons you can get, and you fire 'em with L2. You accelerate with the X button, the square button activates your brakes, and pressing triangle gives you a rear-view.
There are lots of things in the main menu, like player profiles, 1 or 2 player games, there's an options menu, and you can also view a winning chart for both Tournament mode, and High Stakes mode.
In 1 player mode there are 4 types of game modes: Battle, Tournament, High Stakes and Hunt A Droid. In Battle mode, you choose a arena to battle in, and a character to play as, then you choose who-and how many-opponents to fight. In Tournament mode, you fight in four random arenas (Depending on which character you choose, I believe), and random opponents. Also, the first battle in Tournament has one opponent, 2nd has two, and so on. The point of Battle mode is to try to win with over 10,000 credits, which is essential for unlocking new characters. In High Stakes, you choose a character and arena to fight on, bet a certain amount of credits on yourself, then try to beat your opponent. The first one to win 10,000 credits wins. Then their is Hunt A Droid, where you go around a level shooting as many droids as you can. Smaller vehicles don't have much armor, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since they're hard to hit, though how Boba Fett and Aurra Sing can survive a massive nuclear explosion without taking much damage is beyond my comprehension. The larger vehicles such as the AT-ST and rancor have low speed but great armor, though their weapons are somewhat mediocre, while the normal sized vehicles like the Snow Speeder and...er..Speeder have good armor but great speed but have somewhat weak weapons. So there's plenty of variety between vehicles.

REPLAY VALUE: 8.6
With all the game modes, this game has plenty of replay value. Their is allot of stuff to do so it should keep you busy for awhile.

BUY OR RENT?
You might want to rent it first to see if it matches your taste, but if you know you'll like it, buy it. You'll be getting a good deal because you can get it for about 20 bucks at most stores.

OVERALL: 8
Star Wars demolition is a fun game, and I enjoyed it allot.
This game should not be missed.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/10/01, Updated 11/10/01