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Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

by Ty Shughart - January 3, 2003, 5:16 pm EST

5

Star Wars: Buckethead is sort of fun.

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is the game detailing Jango Fett's little adventure leading up to his part in the latest Star Wars movie. There's lots of action, maybe just a little bit of exploration, and, of course, hunting bounties. It's not as exciting as it sounds, but it's not a horrible failure, either. The "too long; didn't read" crew can skip right down to the last paragraph.

The game consists of the 18-level single-player game. There are no other modes or even difficulty settings, but the difficulty seems to be just about right. It takes about ten hours to finish the game, not including time spent failing on a level. Levels can be a pretty big investment of time -- about 40 minutes -- so it might be a little frustrating to have to restart after getting really far and then falling into a hole. The game is a little less about exploration than action; most levels are very simple and straightforward.

Controlling Jango Fett through this game is a nice and comfortable experience. It's fun and easy to attack enemies while jumping around or flying about with the jetpack. Maybe a little too easy, actually - standard enemies are usually dispatched by holding R to auto-aim, and tapping the A button really fast. Jango can point his two blasters at different enemies, and will auto-lock onto another enemy as soon as the first dies. Gigantic mobs of enemies can be taken care of without really any conscious thought - only giant critters that pounce or some big bosses are really ever a threat. There are a few different weapons, but 95% of the time, it's best to just fire away with the blasters. (Sometimes I like to tie an enemy up with the whipcord and slowly burn them to death with the flamethrower and listen to them scream. Especially if it's on that level where you kill like 200 police officers. This game isn't too socially conscious.)

There's one drawback, though - enemies will have a jolly time shooting at Jango from way further than he can auto-aim. It might not seem like much, but it is kind of annoying in-game and probably the only thing keeping the control from being perfect.

Each level consists of getting from point A to point B, or some simple task like chasing a bounty around the level or disabling shield generators. The thing that sets this game apart from others is finding extra bounties along the way. To catch a bounty, use the bounty scanner - the bounty scanner is used with a first-person view. Look around at enemies, or even just a passersby, and check to see if they have a bounty on their heads. If so, a whole profile on the bounty will be displayed, and they can be marked and captured. Remember to see if they are worth more dead or alive! Live bounties can be captured with the whipcord. Bounty credits don't get you anything, though, except for concept art in the Bonus Items feature of the game.

The Bonus Items has some fun stuff, similar to what you would find on a DVD movie, except that all of the goodies need to be earned. A comic book, game cards, concept art, and some fairly funny "outtakes" can be viewed.

A television ad for the game has been seen with bad framerate chop in it. Be advised that this doesn't really happen, although there might be slight framerate drops here and there. It's actually very smooth the whole way through. The graphics are very plain, though. There's nothing to set the game apart, visually, except maybe that the camera likes to do a jittery freak-out now and then. There are a couple other bugs here and there, but nothing really bad. The characters are well designed and have smooth animations, but, well, a single, flat texture for water, no amazing reflective surfaces, that's all pretty boring nowadays.

The game, as per usual for Star Wars games, features music right from the movies and lots of top-notch voice acting. There are lots of great cut scenes too, and a fairly interesting story.

Overall, the game is well presented, but a bit uninteresting, repetitive, and limited. Most of the game is just running and shooting at enemies with the auto-targeting, which isn't amazingly fun. It's actually the most average game ever. Since the game is about 10 hours long, and there's nothing to do after finishing it and finding all the bounties, it may very well be the perfect rental.

Score

Graphics Sound Control Gameplay Lastability Final
5.5 9 8.5 4.5 4 5
Graphics
5.5

The graphics are really plain. There's nothing amazing.

Sound
9

Perfect voice acting and great music right from the movies.

Control
8.5

Awesome control! Auto-locking sometimes doesn't go as far as you want it to, though.

Gameplay
4.5

The gameplay consists of running around, auto-locking onto enemies, and exerting tremendous effort in hitting the A button a lot. Looking for bounties is cool, though.

Lastability
4

About 10 hours and you've seen all there is to see.

Final
5

Completely and totally average, and about the right length for a rental or two. There are more interesting games out there, though.

Summary

Pros
  • A good level of challenge
  • Cool "bounty scanning" feature
  • Fun extra features
  • Terrific control
Cons
  • A few bugs and camera problems
  • Levels might be a bit too long
  • No selectable difficulty
  • Repetitive gameplay
Review Page 2: Conclusion

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Genre Action
Developer LucasArts
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Star Wars: Bounty Hunter
Release Dec 07, 2002
PublisherLucasArts
RatingTeen
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