Genre: Action
Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: LucasArts
# of Players: 1
Memory: blah
ERSB: Teen
Released On: December 5th 2002
Also On: Playstation 2
Features: Progressive Scan
Introduction:
Since his first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett has become the fan favorite of millions of Star Wars fans. In the original trilogy Fett’s role was somewhat inconsequential, but because of the immense fan following he earned from those movies George Lucas just so happened to create his character in the prequel trilogy become one of the most important.
For years LucasArts has been receiving thousands of e-mails and letters from Star Wars fans worldwide asking for a game based on their favorite bounty hunter, Boba Fett. With Boba’s “father” (Boba Fett is actually a clone…) Jango Fett being a key character in Attack of The Clones LucasArts figured now was the best time to give the fans what they wanted.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is the first video game to ever feature the notorious bounty hunter, Mandolorian armor and jet pack included.
Presentation:
All the special effects in the Star Wars movies are created by LucasFilm’s own studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Much of what you see in the prequel trilogy such as space battles, Jar Jar Binks (*shudders*), and the city of Coruscant are all created by ILM, so LucasArts thought ILM was the perfect choice to create the cinematic sequences in Bounty Hunter. With that said Bounty Hunter’s FMV sequences are some of the best looking in any videogame, easily rivaling those of SquareSoft.
The story of Bounty Hunter is one that really lets us get to know the personality of our favorite Bounty Hunter. Jango is after a bounty worth 5 million Republic credits, this bounty was offered by none other than Count Dooku (a.k.a Darth Tyranus). Dooku was ordered by Darth Sidious to eliminate their female Jedi Adversary Komari Vosa, who is the leader of the treacherous Bando Gora, but at the same time Darth Sidious also ordered for Dooku to find a perfect specimen for the Geonisians to clone in order to build Darth Sidious’s Clone army. Dooku figured he would solve both problems at the same time, whichever Bounty Hunter killed Vosa would become their ideal candidate for the Clone army.
Gameplay:
If you’re a fan of the Nintendo 64’s Shadows of The Empire then chances are that you might just love Bounty Hunter. Even though Bounty Hunter plays very differently than Shadows of The Empire you cannot help but get a feeling of nostalgia. Bounty Hunter is very action packed, actually it is non-stop action. Each level gives you a set of tasks you most accomplish, but everything is really straightforward, so you will hardly ever become confused or lost with where and what you have to do. Your tasks may vary; many times they may involve for you to go from point A to point B (on the way killing about 100 bad guys), retrieve a bounty, or defeat an enemy. It all depends on the situation.
As for puzzles, they’re more abundant in Bounty Hunter than pre se a game like Dead to Rights. None of that pushing blocks, and lighting torches stuff, but more of that “Where do I go now?” type of puzzles. Those types of puzzles aren’t found to often but you will come to point where you will get stuck, for instance you might not know how to get across a gap to large for you to jump across, but all of a sudden you see a rail above you that Jango can latch himself onto to crawl across.
The game’s levels span across numerous known locales from the Star Wars universe, such as Tatooine, Malastre, and Coruscant. Surprisingly, each level is very lengthy and they all feature beautiful environments not ever duplicating the same feeling. For instance, Coruscant during the day is very busy and full of life in the streets with tons of NPCs running around but the swamps of Malastre are quiet, eerie and who knows what lurks around its dark corners.
If you were just expecting for Bounty Hunter to be a “destroy everything in your path” type game then you were somewhat correct because the game has tons of that, but surprisingly, the game does feature plenty of platforming-like elements. Most of the time, with the assistance of Jango’s Jet pack you will be jumping from building to building, sliding down sloping buildings, and sometimes jumping from ledge to ledge holding on for dear life. It’s a great addition to the already heavily action packed title.
An awesome addition to the game is the ability to go after bonus bounties; within each mission you can capture bounties that are not needed to complete the game but earn Jango more Republic credits. In order to find out the wanted bounties you must equip Jango’s Bounty radar, you then scan the many free roaming NPCs in each level and hopefully you’ll stumble upon a character that has a bounty on his or her head. These bounties have specifications though. They may be wanted dead, alive, or both but when it’s a choice of either dead or alive, they are usually worth more alive. Remember the whipcord Boba used in Return of The Jedi? Well, that is what you use to capture the bounties which are wanted alive, for a Star Wars fan that is an awesome little treat.
Controlling Jango is very fluid experience, imagine The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with a jump button and backpack and you basically have a good idea of how Bounty Hunter plays. Jango can perform all sorts of acrobatic maneuvers such as, front flips, back flips, and evasive rolls, all of which aren’t exactly necessary but awesome to perform. To make it even easier to evade a melee of enemy attacks Jango is assisted with the use of his Jetpack. The infamous Jetpack is used by pressing the L trigger, unfortunately it isn’t allowed for infinite use because that would make the game a little bit less interesting but cool nonetheless. Finally, the targeting of enemies is done with a lock-on targeting system. To lock onto the closest enemy just simply press the R button, in intense situations Jango, while locked onto one enemy, may fire at another at the same time. Jango aiming at two different enemies at the same time is something you have to see in order to appreciate it.
Most games in the action genre usually suffer from bad camera, in attempt to find an easy solution, Bounty Hunter implements a manual camera; similar to the one used in Super Mario Sunshine. Most of the time the camera will hardly ever be much of a problem, but when it is, just toy around C-Stick and adjust your perspective manually.
Bounty Hunter isn’t perfect though. It lacks variety, and killing off hordes and hordes of enemies may become tedious after killing a few hundred. Also, the fact of Jango being a bounty hunter should have been a greater focus. Sorry, going after those bonus bounties aren’t quite good enough, they seem more like a sloppy last minute addition than anything else.
Visuals:
Both Playstation 2 and GameCube versions of Bounty Hunter were designed with the thought in mind to optimize the game as best as they could for each platform. With that said, Bounty Hunter for the GameCube is easily the better looking of the two. The Jango Fett model itself in the GameCube version actually features twice as many polygons as its PS2 counterpart. The GameCube version of Bounty Hunter also features a smooth framerate, sure it takes a slight drop in the most intense of situations but for the most part it holds strong at 60 frames per second.
The levels themselves are very impressive; Coruscant for instance is beautiful, especially in the nighttime. It’s pretty awesome to see speeders fly by, and the awesome neon lighting and geometry of the city itself is as close to the movie as possible.
Probably the most impressive visual aspect of Bounty Hunter isn’t its great particle effects, but the game’s excellent animations. Jango Fett has some of the impressive animations I’ve ever seen in a video game, never have I seen such an acrobatic character in a video game before, and the way his blasters follow two different characters at a time is pretty cool. Death animations for the bad guys are pretty amazing as well, I just love how some characters slowly drop to their knees and attempt to grasp breathe of life after being shot by a blaster in the chest.
Overall, Bounty Hunter isn’t anything we haven’t seen the GameCube pull-off before easily, but the game is exceptionally a good looking package.
Audio:
Since when has a Star Wars game actually sounded bad? Never. Hell, even the Super Star Wars games on the Super Nintendo have awesome MIDI tunes. With the soundtrack of Attack of The Clones, Bounty Hunter is no exception. But the game does manage to do one thing better than most Star Wars games in recent history, and that is excellent voice acting. Temuera Morrison, the actual actor of Jango Fett, contributed his talents for the voice of Jango Fett and does an amazing job. The rest of the voice acting is just as spectacular, some may also recognize the voice of Jango Fett’s nemesis Montross from the first Highlander movie. Sound effects such as blaster fire, etc… are pulled straight from the movies and I don’t think anyone would have it any other way. I mean c’mon, who would ever get tired of that famous scream that Stormtroopers make when falling off high ledges? Sure as hell not me…
Lasting Appeal:
Ever since Rogue Leader, LucasArts has decided to add tons of little goodies to their games. Bounty Hunter>/i> features tons of them such as an entire Jango Fett comic book that can be viewed in its entirety after completing many of the game’s missions. Pretty cool; the main game though does prove to be lengthy, mostly due to the massive size of the levels and increasing difficulty. It may take a more determined gamer a few days to beat, but those who are worthy enough for the task will spend plenty of time capturing all the bonus bounties.
Final Thoughts:
Bounty Hunter is without a doubt the best prequel trilogy Star Wars video game to date. It features tons of action and really gets us to know the personal side to our favorite Bounty Hunter. It does share a close resemblance to the Nintendo 64’s Shadows of The Empire, but the lack of gameplay modes that game featured such as Space battles and Speeder chases, distinguishes it from the Star Wars side story classic. Hopefully, a sequel is already in the planning stage because I’m already thirsting for more. This game is a keeper for any die-hard Star Wars fan.
