A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, hordes of people who should have known better flocked down to their local arcades to experience the latest in coin-ops... Star Wars! A sit-in cabinet, vector graphics and even speech. What could be more up-to-date?
Well, the years have passed and even though Gauntlet and Marble Madness have been and gone, the hordes keep filling the battered old Star Wars machines with ten pees, determined once more to destroy the Deathstar and save the galaxy from the evil empire. Leap into the cockpit of Luke Skywalker's X-Wing fighter and battle your way to the Deathstar knocking down TIE fighters left, right and centre. Then skim over the surface of the planet dodging between towers and zapping their tops for a few extra points. Finally it's down into the trench, where you must avoid barriers and enemy fire to plant a laser bolt in the exhaust port and blow up the Deathstar.
Gripping stuff, but how does it play? Fans of the coin-op will be pleased to hear that all the fast and furious action they relish has been retained, though perhaps a bit more jerkily than they may remember. All that's missing really is the sound. There isn't any! (Apart from a moving rendition of the Sfar Wars theme tune at the beginning, that is.) The programmers use the old slows-it-down-too-much excuse, but in these days of AY-3-8912 sound chips I'm afraid it seems more like laziness! Apart from that, this is a near-perfect conversion from the original, and in this sense it has been well worth the wait. The question is, of course, is it worth buying? Addicts of the arcade machine will love it, but I'd have thought they'd already have a copy of Realtime's Starstrike, which is very similar and has been out for ages.
As a game in its own right it stands up well against the millions of other vector graphics shoot 'em ups knocking around at the moment . The only problem is that wiping out the Deathstar is a bit of a doddle, so you'll find yourself looping round the levels several times per game. Other than that, what can I say ? Go get a copy, and may the force be with you - unless you prefer Weetaflakes!
I don't like to boast or anything, but I met Darth Vada/ once - he came to my school when I was about six and I sat on his knee. Impressive? Hmm. Perhaps I should tell you about the game instead.
Well, it's a conversion of the ever-popular coin-up (from a long, long time ago in a... etc) - a 'vector' graphics job incidentally (ie spooky see-through 3D graphics). There're three main bits - firstly bombing around space in your spaceship shooting down Tie-fighters and fireballs, then zooming through the towers on the surface of the Deathstar (blowing the tops off for extra points), and finally flying along a trench inside the Deathstar shooting more fireballs, locating the exhaust port, blowing up the planet and scarpering pronto. And, er, that's it really. The entire caboodle's a 'look out of the window/fly into the screen' job. It works well (if a little jerkily) and is pretty much like the coin-up apart from the severe lack of sound - something to do with there being "no sound in space". (No, really.) Another reason to get 'peeved off' is that it's pretty simple to complete the thing, so you can easily find yourself looping round the levels quite a few times.
But not until you've had your three quid's worth out of it. (That is unless you prefer to spend your £2.99 on a cuddly Ewok instead.) (Eh? Ed)
Actually this is more of an arcade conversion than a film and telly game, but we were a bit desperate. It's the game of the really old arcade game of the film, you see, but it just about sneaks into our definition of things. It's actually quite good as film games go as it makes an excellent attempt to stick to the film's plot without getting too bitty and generally crap. Also, and most critically, it doesn't have a bloke walking round shooting things.
You're Luke Skywalker, and what you've got to do is destroy the Death Star. This means firing up your X-Wing fighter, flying through space warding off enemy TIE fighters, then flying over the Death Star picking off towers and finally flying through a ventilation duct (or something) to take out the Death Star's heart at the end. It's laid out as a 3D wire-frame shoot-'em-up which was impressive when it appeared in the arcades all those years ago and still plays well today. The only weird thing is that it's pretty easy to complete all three levels, whereupon you wrap back round to the first and end up destroying the Death Star 20 or 30 times per game. Spooky.
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