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Product Description
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Take back the Theed Royal Palace in this fast and furious
lightsaber action game. You will have the power of the Force and
your trusty Jedi saber to help you ward off legions of battle
droids, destroyer droids, assassins, and other creatures from the
Star Wars: Episode I worlds. Your connection to the Force grows
with each battle, which adds much-needed power boosts, new moves,
and enhanced Jedi abilities for your journeys within the various
worlds. Choose to fight as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, or Jedi
Council members Mace Windu, Plo Koon, or Adi Gallia.
Review
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LucasArts' track record with console games is a fairly rough
one, especially considering that the company treats PC gamers
pretty well. For every good Rogue Squadron and Episode 1 Racer,
there's been an inferior Phantom Menace and Masters of Teras
Kasi, while excellent titles like Grim Fandango and X-Wing
Alliance remain PC-only. And LucasArts' latest offering, Star
Wars: Episode I Jedi Power Battles for the PlayStation,
unfortunately does nothing to improve the company's "TV game"
reputation. In this game, you choose from one of five Episode
I-era Jedi to run, jump, slash, and use the Force with through
the game's ten levels. Each Jedi has his or her own Force powers
and special items. For instance, Obi-Wan Kenobi has a forward
dash-and-slash move and uses thermal detonators, while his
teacher Qui-Gon Jinn produces a Force shock wave and tosses
around pulse grenades. No matter which character you control
though, you play through the film's plot as if you were Obi-Wan
or Qui-Gon, from the scene where the trade council tries to
poison them to the final battle with the notorious evil Jedi
Darth Maul. The gameplay is a refined version of that found in
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. You use your lightsaber
to carve up droids, deflect blaster s, and jump to and from
the occasional platform. In a tip of the hat to Legend of Zelda,
you can lock your s on the nearest enemy with a touch of the
R1 shoulder button, although the system lacks Zelda's finesse.
The fighting is clearly the best Power Battles feature. Once you
get used to the control scheme and the many different functions,
slicing up robots and dodging s can be fairly entertaining.
And the fact that the developers thought to include the option to
play through the game with a friend is another bright spot. But
there are many points in Power Battles in which you'll die
unnecessarily because of a bad camera angle, even when you're
just simply walking around. Trying to pull off a platform jump is
another matter entirely - one that in function is much more
difficult and vexing than it's likely meant to be. Slashing your
way through a few dozen enemy droids only to get killed because
it's hard to tell how far away a catwalk is can be very
frustrating. Beyond that, sometimes the perspective doesn't work
well enough to reveal where you need to go next, hiding areas you
have to leap to, by showing them to you straight on or full front
so you can't see them. The levels are also quite long with few
continues and no midstage save points (checkpoints only), meaning
that you can be doing fine, then miss a jump and end up having a
lot of backtracking to do. Though not as ill-conceived or as
badly carried out as its Episode I adventure-game kin, Jedi Power
Battles still has enough problems to warrant it a game to be
avoided. To paraphrase the Weeping Gorilla from Alan Moore's Top
Ten comic series, maybe we just expect too much from
LucasArts.--Joe Fielder--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All
rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or
medium without express written permission of GameSpot is
prohibited. -- GameSpot Review