Backlog Beatdown: Warring in the Stars with Star Wars: Starfighter

Recently, my daughter became interested in Star Wars to the point of watching all nine films in less than a week, and while I’ll happily concede that some of the films are better than others, I usually manage to find something to enjoy about them. Watching bits of Episode 1 back certainly piqued my interest enough to try out Star Wars: Starfighter, a game I’d picked up as part of a Humble Bundle purchase but hadn’t yet played…

Canyon runs need precision...

For a game that was released to fill a large space in the market for video games based on Star Wars while the prequel trilogy was in full swing, Starfighter seems to have its mindset firmly rooted in combining the game – a light fighter simulator – with what Star Wars is at its core: A character-driven story. You play as a Naboo Starfighter pilot called Rhys, a mercenary pilot called Vana and a pirate called Nym at various stages of the campaign, which tells a story of a run-up to the events of the Invasion of Naboo from the Trade Federation. Together with a non-playable mechanic called Reti, they are attacked, betrayed and otherwise set against the Trade Federation, and launch a guerrilla campaign against them in their fighters and bombers.

The inevitable comparisons to X-Wing and TIE Fighter come to mind but I found Starfighter to be a welcome break from that kind of simulation-style gameplay. Your guns either never run out of ammo or recharge, your shields recharge over time but there’s no faffing about re-distributing power, and your speed is managed through a simple speed up / slow down command. All the fighters handle the same but are played slightly differently depending on their armament; Rhys flies a standard N-1 Starfighter which is good for dogfighting, Vana pilots a Guardian Mantis that is good for disabling shields, and Nym pilots his Havoc which is primarily used for bombing runs. There are thirteen missions in the campaign, each one its own set of rules and objectives that must be completed to proceed, with additional objectives available to achieve if you wish.

The last mission takes place during the 
Battle for Naboo...

Starfighter is a good game, but you must be in the right frame of mind for it. The levels are varied and well-designed, and you’ll get past the first of them without trying, after which you’ll face a large difficulty spike where the objectives and threats leave more room for failure. And I can guarantee you’ll find fifty different things to hate about the game when you fail a mission over and over again – but when you finally work out what to do and manage a perfect run, you’ll feel a grin of excitement spread across your face as the Mission Complete screen comes up. Rarely have more modern games made me feel so good about beating a level! The last missions are absolute beauties, requiring knowledge of what’s coming and when, and managing your speed.

A quick note on graphics and sound: Apart from the Star Wars soundtrack which is always excellent, this game was released in 2001 and its assets are showing their age. The fighters and droid vehicles are functional enough, but even for the time, those character models were hideous, and the voice acting sounds cheesy even for a Star Wars game. It didn’t affect my enjoyment, just don’t expect it to be easy on the eye!

Nym's bombs take some getting used to,
but are a lot of fun!

Star Wars games often run into the problem of the stakes being relatively low. Either they’re following the mainline plot of the films, in which case you’re re-telling a story already told, or they’re spun off from the films, in which case you don’t feel like you’re affecting the plot to any great extent because you know how it all works out. Starfighter is in the latter category. I don’t want to spoil the plot in the review so I won’t say if I was right – but I will say I wasn’t giving the game enough credit. I’ve described what I mean in the main blog so have a look at that if you’re interested.

I’d caution against spending any substantial amount of money on Starfighter, but if you can find it cheaply enough, it’s well worth your time.

Final Score: 4/5: Great game.