Funny thing though, it immediately starts up with some pretty cheesy MIDI Star Wars music, which is strange, since the capability of bringing decent-sounding music to games has been going on for quite a while now; I’ve heard better music come out of Star Wars GameBoy Advance games before. I hadn’t witnessed something this cheesy since the bad polygon recreation intro to the Sega 32X Star Wars game over 10 years before!
However, they used actual screenshots from the movies for the menu though; a bit better there.
To hyperspace...and beyond!
Each game, when started, also has a brief onscreen summary of it’s gameplay and what the power-ups look like too, which is also good. And as you’ve probably seen it in stores, the unit/controller is that famous “piece of junk”, the Millenium Falcon, and luckily the joystick is way looser than the crummy ones on the tons of Jakks Pac-Man units...so loose it suspiciously feels like those bad Atari 5200 controllers, but the control responds a bit better than those though (luckily). The pause button’s in a bad spot though, since you won’t find it by feel alone with all the other bumps on the Falcon, so chances are you’ll lose lives as you play anyway before you can find it, once you get used to it.
Oh, so how does it PLAY, then? Let’s see...
Red Leader–wow, a top-viewed scrolling shooter, hadn’t seen any of these before! Brings back memories of Twin Cobra and all, with T. I. E. Fighters swarming in Galaga formation, and shooting certain planet-like objects yields power-ups (just like in a blah arcade shooter called Haley’s Comet that most of you probably haven’t played, as it wasn’t very fun and didn’t do real well because...well, it didn’t do real well because it wasn’t very fun). This also brings to mind The Dreadnaught Factor for the Intellivision and 5200, since you’re battling huge spaceships, but I don’t know how the games compare since I never played it...along with using a bomb function like Xevious as well.
Back to the power-ups...you get a shield and an extra fighter (the latter also seemingly straight out of Haley’s Comet), but at least they’re A-Wing fighters flanking your X-Wing, which is a nice touch. Unfortunately it takes a lotta hits to bring down the shields of the Star Destroyer at the end and you can’t get any power-ups here, so you’ll lose quite a few ships in this area. The graphics on most of these games would be an embarassment on the Genesis or SNES, although seeing the Death Star in orbit around Endor and the Avenger Super Star Destroyer below is pretty cool...but those hilarious-looking asteroids that you must also shoot in other stages aren’t.
Battle of Endor–wow, weird how so many games from over 20 years ago were ripped off! Just like in the Atari Return of the Jedi game, you play Leia on a speeder avoiding trees, although this time the game’s side-viewed rather than the 3/4 3-D perspective than in the original! AGAIN you must shot or dodge the Stormtroopers on THEIR speederbikes! However, you can’t ram them into trees, nor do you get the Ewoks who spring traps on them like in the original, which leads to Chewie manning at AT-ST...JUST LIKE IN THE ORIGINAL GAME! However, this time around you move a cursor to shoot Troopers on foot (don’t shoot the Ewoks by mistake or lose points) and the occasional AT-ST. Expect to take a LOT of damage here, unless you shoot the health power-up, and the Ewok one will summon them to reign hell on the Troopers; oh no! How embarrasingly bad to be offed by these little chubby Bobble-headed creatures! (Yes, bad graphics again...)
And THEN you control Lando in the Falcon...AGAIN just like the arcade game, just side-viewed this time! Again you can’t ram the T. I. E.s into walls...but a power-up that lets you shoot behind you is nifty though...and then you must race back out after shooting the reactor as flames lick your backside...JUST LIKE THE ARCADE GAME! However, the flames were so damn cheesy-looking I would say Infogrammes/Atari isn’t going to sue Amaze for copyright infringement because they feel sorry for them, but I’m sure they’re not actively searching and defending old Atari property anyway.
Assault on Hoth–ever play one of *those* games where you have stationary guns and you must keep away advancing armies? Yes, it’s one of those, where you control three guns shooting at troopers (and having them yell every time you shoot one gets old fast), AT-ATs, AT-STs and Imperial Droids. This one goes on for quite some time, as you get shields and occasionally a speeder will fly overhead and drop down a power-up; a nice touch. Aside from the shield generators looking really cool, the graphics are crap again (the AT-ATs look like cutouts or something, as they’re kinda blurry!), the difficulty level takes a while ramp up, and when is either the fire on the downed speeder in the corner either going to go out or it’s going to explode? That sure does get distracting...
Lightsaber Duel--ugh, I'm not much into those beat 'em up/hack and slash-type games where all you have is a couple of giant onscreen characters and you chip away at the other's energy until they're down, especially when the instructions sum up all the other games' objectives in just one or two sentences...then this one takes entire PARAGRAPHS just to describe the moves and attacks; no thanks! Actually it doesn't seem too bad, but I don't see the point of going to the trouble to memorizing this kind of thing when I want to keep this unit in good enough condition for the nephew to last until Christmas so I think I'll pass. But why the heck's Luke fighting Ben though?
Anyway, this isn't a bad unit, just the games are pretty unoriginal. At first I thought I might snag one for myself eventually, but already I'm having games that last like 25 minutes long each since I'm fairly good at games in general, these games are fairly easy (what the hey, it's like how Star Wars was originally intended: for kids) and most of these I played like 25 years ago or so anyway. So it could be a case of "Biggs, Wedge, lets close it up" and not bother with it, as it'd be the kind of thing you'd just rent from a store (if you could) or play at a friend's, rather than buy.
Still, a couple of the games still have a bit of an addictive quality to them, so I'll give this a 6.5 out of 10; not bad overall.
