Star Wars: Starfighter

The Good
S.W.S.F. is basically a starfighter sim-shooter which takes place at the time of the Phantom menace You play the part of 3 characters who each have their own reasons for repelling the Trade Federation, and won't they have an awesome graphical adventure in doing so. The planetary missions are stunning and cover a large surface area, you can fly into craters and valleys without graphical glitching (for the most part), and in space missions you can gaze at the beautiful planetary background. This is not all, the ships leave glitering ion trails, and you can have a sadistic laugh as the Trade federation fighters burn and crash to the ground. Some of the missions are also quite challenging especially mission 9 the bombing of the factory on Eos as the factory defences realy pound your ship, but the sensation of ducking through valleys and strafing the factroy with bombs has excellent replay value.

The Bad
My biggest qualm about the game is that it is just too easy (especially space bound missions). Your ship can take severe weapon fire before you are shot down, but hitting a planet at speed will kill you instantly, as i said only mission 9 is really that challenging. This shortens the lifespan of the game. Graphical glitches as I said are rare, but the most irritating is on eos, if you fly high the surface fogs out and vanishes causing you to lose your bearing and being an ugly boil on a pretty much graphically polished piece of software. The voices in the game are also a bit corny in dialogue, but sometimes hilarious The trade federation commander of the lander seems to be doing an impression of Dr. Evil. But this is a minor fault.

The Bottom Line
As with the movie it is based on. Looks great but is simplistic and a bit hollow. Good news if your a bit rubbish at games, but for a serious gamer you might feel a bit short changed after parting with 45 quid. Perhaps better to rent it out or lend it off your mate as the novelty wares off.