Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Review
I know, I’m weird, but I think Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a masterpiece of a game. The cutscenes are all done by Industrial Light & Magic and all of the sounds are done by Skywalker Sound. You add that to the great development by LucasArts themselves and out comes a very great, realistic, fun, unique Star Wars game.
Bounty Hunter is all about Jango Fett’s experiences after Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, but before Episode II: Attack of the Clones. This game shows how Jango got involved with the cloners and engraved his name in Star Wars histor forever. Jango Fett can perform many superhuman feats easily and always carries a heavy load of weaponry.
The in-game graphics of Bounty Hunter are superb. When you shoot any of your laser weapons a flash of color (usually red) illuminates everything in the immediate area around the blast. Many, many enemies can fill the screen at once (all with high polygon rates) and the framerate doesn’t slow down. Also, Bounty Hunter (and LucasArt’s other newer title, The Clone Wars) both feature better graphics on the GameCube over the PS2 versions. The FMV cutscenes in this game are extremely well done. They run smoothly and feature some of the greatest graphics on GameCube ever (thanks to ILM). Another good point is that this game does not make your GameCube work extremely hard during in-game play or FMV sequences.
Since Skywalker Sound was behind the sound in this game you would expect it to be as good as the graphics, right? Wrong. While the sound isn’t bad, it leaves something to be desired. If you are shooting up enemies in a hall full of civilians you’ll hear the phrase “There’s no price on my head!” exclaimed again, and again, and again. As far as sound effects go, they are great. Blasters sound authentic, the aliens make the right noises, and your jetpack has a nice, not annoying, hum to it. And sometimes, if you listen closely enough, you can hear some freaky little harmless animal scampering around on the ground.
The controls in Bounty Hunter are simple to learn. Jumping into the air into a somersault only to turn on your jetpack and star blasting at two separate enemies on the ground is a fairly simple task to pull of with this game’s great controls. The A button is your main attack button; if you have your blasters out A will shoot them. B allows Jango to jump and do evasive moves in the air. X performs rolls or let’s Jango crouch if held. Y is your action button, you use your laser cutter, and access control panels with it. R targets enemies, and L fires your jetpack. You don’t have to be holding R to shoot your weapon though, and even if you are targeting to one enemy Jango will sometimes shoot at two (if your dual blasters are equipped). To change weapons in-play you press Right and Left on the Control Pad. If you want to pause and switch weapons you can hit Down on the control pad and open up the Weapon Select screen. Pressing Up equips your ID Scanner, which you can use by pressing Z (which normally just puts you into manual-aim mode).
My biggest complaint on the game comes up when you are using the ID Scanner. When you press Z to pull your ID Scanner up the game does not pause, so while you are looking around for possible bounties you could be getting shot up by the same enemies you are scanning. Since such a large part of this game is based around catching secondary bounties, you’d think LucasArts would’ve allowed the game to pause after scanning an enemy (much like Metroid Prime). This would’ve allowed a more enjoyable experience and not so much frustration. Since there is many a time you probably shoot down a possible bounty just because you’d get killed if you pulled out your ID Scanner. Retro Studios could’ve taught them a thing or two.
Bounty Hunter’s replay value is high because of all of the secondary bounties in each level. While it is a hassle to find each one, with the ID Scanner and all, you’ll still want to find them to earn that little bit of extra cash. Lack of a multiplayer, which I think would’ve fit well, does bring the replay value down a bit.
The strong point of Bounty Hunter is its originality. This time around you are part of the Dark Side, fighting for evil, not against it. This is a great thing for Star Wars fans who are tired of always fighting for the good and right in the galaxy. While it is ironic that you are a bad guy who is taking out people for bad things, you still ARE Jango Fett, the most feared Bounty Hunter in the galaxy. No more Force, Jedis, or Yoda. Well, at least not for a little while.
In my opinion, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is an extraordinary title, which is worth your time and money if you’re a Star Wars fan or not. It explains many things left out in Episode II and also provides a blast of a gaming experience. The bounty on this game a mere $50, go pick it up, preferably dead. Live game disc = bad.
Visuals: 9
Sound: 8
Originality: 9.5
Replay: 8.5
Overall: 9