Genre: Tactical FPS | Players: 1, Multi | Developer: Lucasarts
Players take control of Boss, the leader of Delta Squad's clone commandos, as they fight through campaigns of the Clone Wars against various Separatist enemies from droids to Geonosioans and beyond using various Republic and enemy weapons, but most importantly using the squadmates.
The main draw is the squad-based gameplay that allows players to direct the 3 other commandos, Scorch, Fixer and Sev, to perform various actions like take attack positions, set charges and hack computers. It is actually essential to learn it as many battles would probably be impossible otherwise because of difficulty and that ammo is limited and drains very fast if players try to do everything themselves. It works very well most of the time. Several times the commandos got stuck on the geometry and it took some creative uses of the pull back and attack commands to cure them of their retardation, but it was still a minor problem and sometimes funny.
The weapons are decently varied and players are encouraged to use them all as different ones will be more effective than others against certain enemies. Too bad no one will tell you what does what. Grenades in particular can be effective, but there are multiple kinds and no instruction on how to use them effectively. This trial and error will cause players to waste ammo and force them to use the weaksauce pistol with recharging ammo almost as a punishment when they run out. If players manage to figure things out though, combining enemy weaknesses with effective squad commands will give the satisfying feeling of being an elite squad. Protip: regular droids by themselves should just be punched in the face for an instant kill. Saves the ammo which is liberally scattered around, but Boss can only carry so much. Healing bacta stations are also pretty much everywhere which doesn't make battles any easier since shields and health disappear quickly under fire without taking cover and trying to use one in a firefight is a dumb idea.
The game still looks pretty good for it's age and minus the occasional stupid AI, Boss's lumbering movement speed and pretty short campaign ( I finished it in just 7 hours), it is a good example of solid squad-based game-play. There is multi-player, but there was no one playing to test it. Oh well.
Buyer's Guide:
Available for the original Xbox and on PC and Steam.
3½ Wookie life debts for everybody out of 5
1 comment:
I played a bit of the multiplayer a long time ago. It was actually fairly active with not a lot of hackers. The MP is fast paced with mostly arena style maps. The maps with zero G areas are fun as hell (Kamino Training Areas, The Prosecutor Hangar exterior, etc). Also the ability to customize your character was pretty nice.
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