Star Wars Starfighter takes place during the events just prior to The
Phantom Menace. Players will get to fly the nimble Naboo N-1
Starfighter, as seen in The Phantom Menace, as well as two new
ships, the Guardian Mantis and the Havoc. Each
of these ships are flown from the perspective of three different pilots with distinct
personalities, a rookie pilot in Naboo's defense fleet, a mercenary, and a
pirate. The destinies of these three pilots cross paths several times
during the game's storyline, which is used to set the stage for the 16 missions
in the game. Completing a mission will advance the storyline and make the
next mission available. In addition to the main objectives, there are also
secondary bonus objectives. Completing these awards medals to the player,
which can be used to unlock the game's eight bonus missions.
A lot of the missions take place in space, and are of the destroy something,
protect something variety. Some of the missions take place on a variety of
planetary locales and include attacking units on the ground as well as in the
air. Players will often receive instructions during the missions which
will provide additional objectives. Unfortunately, it can be a little
tricky to hear the objective in the midst of combat and it is not always clear
as to what must be done to complete the objective. It might take an
attempt or two at a mission before it is obvious what must be done. This
is not as bad as it seems, though, since the missions are scripted and players
will know what to expect the second time through. The scripting and
similarity among many of the missions diminishes the game's replay value,
despite the opportunity to unlock the bonus missions. It is hard to
complete all of a mission's secondary objectives, even on the game's easiest
level, so some players may give up in frustration before ever unlocking a bonus
mission. Many players will progress pretty quickly through the game's 16
main missions, so it can come across as being a little short.
The player is not always alone in the missions, and Star Wars Starfighter
allows players to issue orders to their wingmen. This can be a big help in
some of the missions since the player can order the other ships to defend a key
objective, leaving him/her free to fend off the attackers. Wingmen can
also be ordered to attack a target, allowing fire to be concentrated on some of
the larger key targets.
Gameplay in Star Wars Starfighter is more in the style of an arcade shooter
than a space simulation. The three available ships all handle in pretty
much the same manner, and a lot of the missions can be completed by cycling
through the auto-targeter and keeping the trigger depressed. There is no
throttle - ships travel at a constant speed unless a boost or brake key is
pressed, essentially giving each ship three speeds.
The ships also look very similar, since a heads-up view is the only one
available and the displays for each ship are more alike than different.
Each ship features a different special weapon - Proton Torpedoes for the N-1,
Sensor Tags (drains shields and allows shots to home in on target) for the
Mantis, and Energy Bombs (useful for ground targets) for the Havoc.
Star Wars Starfighter looks quite good - the ships are detailed and the
various effects such as explosions are done well. The sound is also of
high quality, with authentic weapon and ship sounds from the movies. The
soundtrack is a quality mix of tracks, most of which will be pretty familiar to
Star Wars fans.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 69%.
If you are a Star Wars fan and enjoy arcade-style shooters, you'll probably
really like this game. Players looking for a more challenging or in-depth
simulation, though, might be better off looking elsewhere.
System Requirements: 350 MHz Pentium II CPU; 64 MB RAM; 16 MB
Video RAM; 4x CD-ROM; 580 MB Hard Drive Space; Mouse.
