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Are we there yet?!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 41 / 57
Date: November 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game should serve as an example of how not to make a platforming adventure game. It manages to get almost everything wrong.

The story is the Star Wars trilogy, and it's told from Luke Skywalker's point of view. Your character throughout the game is Luke, and he has to blast and swordfight his way from the beginning of Episode IV to the end of Episode VI.

Let's start off with the only bit of good news here. Visually, this game is appealing. The backgrounds and characters all look great. Character animations are exceptionally good. Luke runs and jumps around fluently. His moves with the light saber are well animated. Storm troopers, jawas, and other characters all look great. No complaints in the visual department.

Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends. The sound here leaves a bit to be desired. At the beginning of each episode, we see a text scroll accompanied by the Star Wars music, just like in the movies. The music here could've been better. "Star Wars: Flight Of The Falcon" did a much better job with this music. During the game, we hear a variety of themes from the movies. They're all decent reproductions at best. The sound effects here are better. Laser blasts all sound pretty much like they're supposed to, as does the light saber. R2D2 accompanies Luke through some of the levels, and the little droid makes faithfully reproduced beeping noises when he accesses a terminal or wall socket (which he does frequently). He also makes that whining sound when he gets hit by a laser blast. So our sound department is a mixed bag. Effects are good. Music could've been better.

All of this would be acceptable if not for the game-play, which does a great job of bringing this game down. The problems here are so numerous, I'm not sure where to begin. For starters, this game does way too much talking. As mentioned, the story is told from Luke's point of view, and we are subjected to him telling the entire story... in detail. Along with static scenes from the movies, he'll tell us what's currently going on at any given point during the game. This is all pretty redundant and annoying to have to skip through at a couple lines of text at a time.

This game is mostly a side-scrolling platformer. Throughout Episode IV, Luke runs and jumps around with his blaster, shooting tusken raiders and storm troopers. At the beginning of Episode V, he gets his light saber. I know it sounds promising and engaging, but this is some very mediocre gaming (if not worse). The level designs are very pedestrian, and there are many levels here to traverse.

To make matters worse, there are frequent freeze-frame encounters, during which hordes of storm troopers must be eliminated before you can progress. When you reach a certain point, the screen is surrounded by black borders, and storm troopers will come on-screen from the left and right. You have to kill them all before you can advance. This happens so often, it becomes extremely monotonous. I lost interest before Luke arrived on the Death Star. First he had to go through several levels of tusken raiders, then several more levels of Mos Eisely. By the time he arrived at the Death Star, it was already becoming tiresome. I kept entering a doorway and finding myself in yet another level full of storm troopers, and I was thinking "Aren't we there yet?" It doesn't get better. It just keeps getting worse. Level after level of probe droids and snow troopers. Level after level of storm troopers at Bespin. And so on.

The controls are also part of the problem. To aim up or down with the blaster, you have to hold the R button while standing or crouching, respectively. This aims the blaster diagonally, and there's no way to aim straight up or down. This is incredibly awkward, and there are numerous times where Luke has to shoot storm troopers who are above or below him. The light saber doesn't get much better. There are a variety of light saber moves that Luke can do, but none of them are much of a match for a good blaster at your side. With the light saber, you're walking up to opponents who are shooting you. Add to that the need to jump over prevalent chasms in order to reach the opponents, and you're better off just bringing out the gun.

For the assault on the Death Star, Luke pilots his X-Wing fighter in an overhead view reminiscent of Sinistar. It's pretty silly. The X-Wing and tie fighters bounce off of each other, just like the ships in Sinistar. The trench run is also presented in a silly overhead view. The only thing I liked about this sequence was that Darth Vader and his two escorts show up at the end, and Luke has to dodge their fire until the Millennium Falcon comes on the scene. But the space combat that precedes this little treat is about as awful as the rest of the game.

A built-in save feature automatically saves your progress, and Luke has unlimited lives. If you get killed, you'll restart at the beginning of the current level. This game is begging to be played all the way through, but is it worth the effort? I quit after the first confrontation with Vader. Even if the final third of the game is awesome, it wasn't worth playing through the other two thirds to see it. I have a feeling that the final third is just as dismal as the rest of the game. The designers tend to use the same motifs over and over throughout the game.

To sum up, this game is incredibly awful. Great visuals, good effects, decent music (I've heard better), some awkward controls, and terrible game-play. I don't care how good everything looks. This game isn't fun. A good-looking game that isn't fun is going to look good on the shelf, collecting dust.

Good fun, for about an hour and a half

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 23
Date: October 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The idea seems good on paper. Taking elements from the original Star Wars trilogy and condensing them to basically 50 levels spread through ten chapters, Ubi Soft's Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force is solid fun and definite enjoyment for Star Wars fans, but despite the number of levels, the game itself is actually pretty short, not to mention repetitive is some spots. Playing as Luke Skywalker, you go through plenty of side scroller levels as well as a few vehicle based ones. During the side scroller segments, hordes of Stormtroopers will come at you from both sides. This is fun for a while, until you go through it for about the twentieth time. The vechicle based levels, including piloting an X-Wing to destroy the Death Star and riding a speeder bike through the Ewok forests, are fun diversions, although you'll be wishing for more of them. On the plus side, the boss battles are surprisingly superb. You'll take on foes such as the Rancor beast, Boba Fett, and of course, Darth Vader, and the Vader battle is nothing short of epic. The graphics are solid, and the sound is not only faithful to John Williams' score, but every sound effect, from the sound of a blaster to Vader's breathing, is superbly re-created. Were it not for it's shortcomings, this would be a near essential title for the GBA, and while it's not a bad game in the least, after you beat it once there really won't be much reason to go back.

The Force is Repetative With This One

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: September 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the force seems like the greatest way to fully enjoy Star Wars. This is not a bad game but as my title says, its repetative. That's not to say its a bad game, it just rehashes too much at throughout each level.

The game is comprised of five chapters, ten levels in each chapter so the game is 50 levels long. You control Luke throughout your journey through the Star Wars Trilogy. You'll begin in A New Hope and end in Return of the Jedi. The game follows the story quite closely and throws in a scene shot (not an actual scene, think of Super Star Wars) from the movie every now and then.

The game plays out simple. Each level is a 2D side-scroller where you'll work your way from one of the level to the other. When you first begin its really easy to get into it. The game doesn't present any major challenges and then you get to the moment where you have to stop to massacre a bunch of your enemies at once. Pretty soon this becomes a chore in almost every level. It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have it play out the same way. Luke doesn't take much damage... and he deals out a lot. Top that off with most levels can be progressed through pretty fast so in short it feels like your doing the same thing over and over again. This also wouldn't hurt so much if the game weren't so easy.

There are a few fun levels though. The Trench of the Death Star is pretty fun, and so is the Speeder Bike chase from Return of the Jedi but these level are too few and far between. Mostly you'll just play through the side-scrolling levels. If the game didn't have 40 of these levels and had a bit more variety in the gameplay it would be a little better.

However, Luke does get lots of different moves. When you begin you can only do the basics like jump, crouch shoot and the like. By the time you get to the end of the game you'll be able to do backflips, double jumps and a whole lot more. After each chapter Luke gains another ability or two he can use. This makes it so there's plenty for you to do. I wish as the game went on though, enemies attack patterns would change. An enemy that only fire one blast at you will always only fire one blast at you. As you get further into the game the difficulty level never ups itself.

After you get through the game though, you can rush through the game playing the levels that aren't the same old side-scrolling. But that isn't enough to warrant this game for a buy.

Graphic wise the game doesn't live up to the full potential of the GBA. Visually it isn't appealing enough but it runs pretty fast and stays consistant. I haven't experienced any slow down. The game is pretty colorful but a bit more of a facelift would've been nice.

The audio in the game is disturbingly good. While John Williams classic score sounds a little odd coming from the GBA speaker at times, it matches up with the movies really well. The game also borrowed voices from the movie and dumped them in; from the Jawas to Darth Vadar. There are some original tunes but most you'll recognize from the movies.

This isn't a bad game but it also offers no replay value. Its too easy for starters and eventhough its 50 levels long you can finish it in a day or two. Should you buy it you won't have it long before you fully exploit what it has to offer. The repetativeness of each level is also tedious after a while.

Overall, this is not really a bad game but it really isn't good either. Great idea, but it doesn't live up to the potential of what it could be.

After playing for one hour...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: September 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

There is a lot of text in this game. I say, "Enough with this reading, lets play the game". The graphics and the music are nothing spectacular. There are better games out there. From what I've seen so far, I think they would have had a better game if they'd just ported over the code from the old "Super Star Wars" game on the Super Nintendo. The game play is very similar to that older game. You run around as Luke, shooting things. I'm guessing it's a bit redundant for me. And I know my five year old won't enjoy having to press the button to skip over all that text. Hope George Lucas puts our money to good use and deliver us an awesome movie next Summer.

r make doubly sure your kid will like this game/keep reciept

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 62
Date: October 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

My son bought this game two days after his birthday with his birthday money. Decided it didn't like after playing it for two days. BUT he lost his receipt so of course ToysRus would not refund his money. This took place at a local ToysRus store. I thought by scanning the bar code on the box that the store could tell that it came/purchased from this particular store. The manager said the barcode is universal..blah, blah. I highly questioned that. The sales lady kept blabbing that it was their policy not to refund money for a video game that has been opened with no receipt. I said there is also a policy about customer satisfaction also!! But to no avail. So we ended up taking the game to E B games for resale. Course my son lost out on some of his money. I have spent quite a bit of money at ToysRus locally and online. However, now I will certainly think TWICE before giving them anymore business.

Not Bad

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: August 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a pretty good game for the GBA that takes you through the original 3 movies; in a game. It's a pretty good game, but it's also not that great. here's my review:

Graphics: 3.5/5. The graphics are not that great. You can not see the characters faces, the landscapes are a bit sloppy and boring, but hope the characters move and everything is great.

Sound: 4.5/5. The sound is pretty good. Has original music, and sounds from the animals and all. Blaster pistol noises, Jawas, Sand People.. but like most handheld games, no voice acting.

Control: 5/5. Can't get simplre. To shoot sideways just hold L, to jump press A, to shoot press B. Really easy.

Fun: 4/5. This is one of the best, if not the best, Starwars handheld games I've ever played, but it is still not better than the platform games. This game follows episodes 4-6, and does a fair job, but it also does it rather quickly, cheaply, and using repetetive level design.

the game rocks-literally

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 12
Date: September 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

hey, i don't know about the game as i don't have it but as far as the game screenshots posted on the gamespy website go , this game is sure to rock as we relive the memorable scenes of the star wars trilogy. Even in here in Nepal, i heard about the movie during 1993 which is quite recent but very few knew about the movie then as very few had television let alone vcrs. i rented the video and later watched all three movies in the trilogy even as many of my friends were oblivious of the movie's success in the west. So this game brings out old memories and is sure to be one of the best liscenced games out there. 3 thumbs up because i haven't played it yet but i sure will get a copy soon as i can.

Frustrating!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game looks nice and for the most part, plays quite well. But there are parts of the game that can be very frustrating. In my book, you have to balance the toughness of competition and accomplishment with frustration. When a game goes too far to the frustration side, what is the point of it?

don't get it

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 22
Date: November 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

now don't get me wrong, i love this game, it's just that i can't seem to get past the 2nd level. when i'm in the desert, fighting the sand people, and when the music swells, and the screen smalls up, I once sat through that for 20 minutes trying to get past the enormous horde of sand people, but no luck, eventually my health ran out and i went back to the last door. ditto. someone please tell me how long you have to go through that particularly long one.

This game is going to rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: September 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game looks awesome so far. You get to play out the Original trilogy. The characters move like real people do.
The action is fast, not slow like the past SW GBA games.
If anything, I am so looking forward to the lightsabre battles, especially the Boba Fett battle at the Sarlacc Pit.
I'm so getting this when it comes out!

For inrfo on the game, go to www.ignpocket.com.
Believe me, this game will rock!

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