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Fox's regretful Review: Star Wars: Lethal Alliance

Started by Fusion, March 17, 2007, 07:29:26 PM

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Fusion

Okay, this is the game that breaks even the Expanded Universe's canon.  Set before A New Hope, Rianna Slut and Zeekyboogydoog, her droid, set out to destroy Kheev, just another evil overlord wannabe.

Note: This review applies to the Nintendo DS version

Graphics (4/10):

Okay, I'm not much of a graphics whore, but this game looks like it was made for the Playstation era.  Lucasarts did not take advantage of the DS' capability, here.  The blaster bolts are poorly done solid shapes, and all look the same.  Rianna isn't THAT bad, but could be better.  The environments could also use a little work, as every level looks the same, force fields look just uninteresting.  Not to mention, again, there's very little in terms of variety.  It's as if Lucasarts didn't even try with this game.  Why didn't they use per-color transparency on the blaster bolts?  And a sprite for the blaster fire?  Oh right, Lucasarts has to use solid polygons (poorly animated, at that) for the 'muzzle blast' and even INCORRECTLY COLORS one blaster's flare!  Way to go, LucasIdiots, you've made a Star Wars game look bad once more.  Get some Nintendo nerds from other companies that know how far they can push a game engine.

Sound (3/10):

Err... Right.  Generic Star Wars fare of blaster shots, sounds taken from Star Wars Galaxies.  Only thing unique to me is the music which I've never heard before.  Then again, you absolutely have to hear "HALT!" in a Stormtrooper voice as soon as the music plays.  As soon as you finish the mini-battles you have to listen to this little jingle, then the music goes back to being dead serious.  Rianna sounds a bit too generic, everybody else just doesn't have sounds.  Zeeo also SHOULD NOT sound like an R2 unit!  It's as if Lucasarts didn't even care about the DS version of this game (it was made for PSP and DS).  Lucasarts also somehow thought the 2nd weapon in the game would sound good as an Ion cannon blast.

Gameplay (1/10):

Here's where the game really shines blindingly.  You're confronted with battle sequence after battle sequence after race against time after pointless going into the sky.  The battle sequences you can't skip or run away from: You absolutely HAVE to kill everyone that's attacking you!  How many hits does it take?  Maybe about 7... For a civilian.  Rianna needs to invest in better weaponry.  Han was taking down stormtroopers in -one hit- and everybody else can apparantly only do it in 2 or 3 shots.  But no, Rianna has this crappy pistol that takes 7 shots to kill a simple unarmed civilian.   Also, there's no difficulty adjustment level which would've earned this game at least a couple of higher marks.  You're required to play this game at the 'normal default level' which consists of hell-like buttonmashing in order to kill a stormtrooper.  I'd recommend an autofire-oh wait, the DS can't have autofire.  My bad: You're required to get carpal tunnel to win.  Half of the boss fights are either using some complex pattern, or just button-mashing, or hoping to god you're doing something right.

Add to that, there's puzzles and memory games.  All of which use the touch-screen.  As well as timed solving of an unknown puzzle.  What do we do here?  Well, let's see... You've got the standard "code cracking" puzzle where you roll around a 6-sided cube with either a rebel or an imperial symbol on it, and try to land the symbol side on the matching symbol on the floor, which is annoying because it pretty much has to be done a specific way.  Then there's "memory", a pad beeps and undoes itself turning random green lights to red.  And you've gotta repeat that order... IN REVERSE!  Yeah, we were looking for an action game and we got a puzzle game.  Who the hell hired these imperials?  Oh, wait, not finished yet.  Then there's "Cut the wire" where you've gotta drag some kind of wire to some sort of circuit to cut it and if a weird pod thing that's flying around the screen so much as nudges you, apparantly you fail at solving puzzles.  2 more?  Damn.  There's also "map downloading" which you won't get anywhere.  It's a lot simplier, it just requires you to line up two lines so that they are in sync with each other.  I'm not sure how to download the actual map, as the instruction manual isn't clear about that.  Then again, the instruction manual AND the game aren't clear on any of the games' features.  Last but not least, there's the "laser grid destroying" where you've gotta disable a lazer grid before it turns Rianna into fried Twi'lek.  Rianna... You've got a blaster.  JUST SHOOT THE LASER GRID GENERATORS AT THE SIDES AND IT'LL DIE ALL ON IT'S OWN!  But apparantly the object is to cut off the generators using some complex method I only got lucky doing right once.

Oh, one more mode.  That is: Zeeo.  Yes, you get to play as the droid.  He will... Crawl through places that Rianna can't (BS, Rianna could very well easily fit into the vents Zeeo goes into) and do one thing Rianna can't as well: Possibly be useful, though vaguely.  Also zap things.  Though zapping crap isn't useful.  You can't fly up to a Stormtrooper and go *ZAP!* because that's not how the game works.  Zeeo's gameplay always leads to one certain thing: PUZZLE-SOLVING.

Also, there are only 3 weapons in the game.  3 WEAPONS!  All have Infinite Ammo, and when you get one you won't want to switch back to another, so why have the extra weapons at all?  Rianna starts off with her cruddy blaster, can get a bigger and better blaster, and at long last the blaster RIFLE.  But wait!  The blaster rifle fires green bolts for some reason!

As for the Story... I'm tired of this game already, so no more.  This Fox is going to shoot this game with the laser of his Polarity-charged Arwing.


UHMEEEEBA

*comment on your merciless slaying of a Star Wars game*