Well, it’s time for the obligatory Star Wars post.
Originally, I wanted to revisit and finish Star Wars: the Force Unleashed on
the PS3. Then, I suddenly remember this old gem from my teen years. I saw it on
Playstation Network and had to play it again. I don’t know what any of us
expected when we saw a familiar figure dressed in Mandalorian armor in Star
Wars: Attack of the Clones. I thought it looked kinda cool, and hey, Jango Fett
lived up to that coolness even though he gets beheaded at the end of the movie.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the last time we’d seen Boba Fett’s daddy.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter was a third-person action shooter
that was released in 2002, sometime after AOTC was released on video and DVD.
It was developed and published by Lucasarts during what was pretty much their
zenith. They were churning out all sorts of Star Wars games throughout the 90’s
and early 2000’s. While you would get something horrid like the Masters of
Teras-Kasi (ugh), you’d also get good games like KOTOR and Jedi Academy. They
even got Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett) and Leeanna Walsman (Zam Wessell) to
reprise their roles here. We even get Clancy Brown voicing another bounty
hunter and Corey Burton doing a pretty good Christopher Lee impression.
Bounty Hunter takes place a decade before the events of
AOTC. I don’t know how canon this is, and until someone shows me something
else, I’m counting it! Count Dooku puts outs a bounty for Komari Vosa, a Dark
Jedi who’s the head of the Bando Gora. Jango Fett and another Mandalorian
bounty hunter, Montross (Clancy Brown), answer the call. You pretty much end up
going all over the galaxy looking for clues, shooting folk, and taking other
bounties along the way. On your journey, you have your friend, Rozzatta, feeding
you info. You also run into another bounty hunter named Zam Wessell, “and I
definitely see her and Jango’s partnership lasting for a long time…”
Oh yeah... that happened.
PROS
While this game isn’t perfect, I can honestly say one thing:
being a bounty hunter is fun! You go around doing things like “kicking names
and taking ass!” Yes, I had to say it, folks. By the way, thank you Marvel
Cinematic Universe. It’s weird that Disney owns these properties now.
Anyway, you’re running around as Jango Fett and going into
the hives of scum and villainy. You meet gang leaders, criminals, Hutts, giant
beasts, highly-accurate snipers, hot dark Jedi, and all sorts of weirdness. You
have access to all sorts of weapons. You got your twin blasters, the missile
launcher, a sniper rifle, a flamethrower, and killer darts. You can also pick
up weapons on the way. You can even go the nonviolent route and use your cable
to tie up folk. The cable is especially good for the bounties you collect since
some of those bounties are wanted alive. The jet pack will also be used a lot
in the game. It’s all pretty fun.
Komari Vosa definitely reminds me of Asajj Ventress. I wonder if that's where Asajj's lightsabers came from or something.
There isn’t much of a story there, but what we get is fine.
It’s an action shooter game set in the Star Wars universe, so it doesn’t need
much of a story. We still get enough to know who Jango is. We even get an explanation
on why he had one of the clones become a son. Jango even has a rival in
Montross, another Mandalorian bounty hunter. The voice acting from everyone is
good here. The cut scenes are nice as well even though these are PS2 graphics.
I also liked how the banter with the dialogue was. You could tell that this
wasn’t written with Prequel-Era George Lucas’s dialogue in mind.
Yeah, I'm saying it... "There can only be one!"
The graphics were fine for the most part, but just remember
that this was a PS2 game. You get 18 levels to fight around in. The difficulty
ranges from pretty challenging to “WTH, Mofo”. I’ll get to the latter part
below. You get to use all of the weapons you own as well as some things you can
pick up. While you can aim manually, one button can immediately lock on targets
and take them out. The gaming mechanics are okay for the most part. It takes
some getting used to. We even get some familiar Star Wars music riffs.
CONS
"I hate the sand." Seriously, I can see why Anakin says that now.
As for the cons, it does have a few, unfortunately. It can
get pretty repetitive with all the chasing and shooting. Now, I will say that
it’s not as bad as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed with its repetitiveness. You
at least have a variety of weapons to use. The difficulty can be pretty messed
up at times. You only get six lives until you’re sent back to the beginning of
the level, so you can’t just die all willy-nilly. For example, when you get to
Tatooine, the difficulty gets turned up to 18 with a lot of folk using sniping
rifles. I don’t know many times those dang Tusken Raiders killed me, but it was
a lot! It also doesn’t help that there’s little covering with some of these
levels.
The gaming mechanics can be kind of subpar at times too. As
I said above, aiming works weird here. It takes a while to get used to, and
even then, it can still be pretty difficult. One thing that doesn’t help the
game is the camera. It’s so sensitive with the analog stick. I don’t know if it
was this bad on the PS2, but I really had to be careful during some sections.
Other than these problems, this was a pretty fun game.
………………………………………………………
In the end, this was a fun game to revisit. It makes me wish
that *someone* released that Star Wars 1313 game from a few years back. Outside of the
Battlefront games, we really haven’t gotten many SW games. I’m not counting the
mobile stuff either. At least when Lucasarts released them, there was some
variety. Hopefully, Fallen Order can make us gaming fiends happy. Anyway,
that’s all I got for this one. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and remember to
stay away from Tatooine. Not only does it have sand, those Raiders suck!
Well, me and Anakin have another thing in common. No women or children were harmed with in this game.
No comments:
Post a Comment