DIFFICULTY
Sand Snipe: The game is not that hard. You have the ability to choose the difficulty at the beginning of each level. On easy, a lot of the ships are easier to blow up and the enemy ships don’t maneuver too much. On medium difficulty, the ships are a little harder and move around a little more too. On hard, the ships are much harder and jump around as much as a toddler that ate all his Halloween candy.

WedgeWannaBe: While the label said difficult, the game play seemed a little too easy. This was definitely a game that you beat in record time. While the ships seemed to move quicker, the pilot AI did not. It got way too easy to chase these guys down. For a $50 game, I’m looking for something to challenge me. This game definitely fell short.

GRAPHICS
Sand Snipe: The graphics are good. The graphics are really good when it comes to places with oceans and islands. The graphics are not too important in the game because most of the time you’re moving around, trying to chase an enemy ship.

WedgeWannaBe: I have to agree that I liked the graphics here. While they were nothing extremely earth shattering, they were decent and during a time when Lucas Arts was taking graphics to the next level. They may not be as good as Star Wars: Battlefront, but they were an improvement over the game’s predecessor, Star Wars: Starfighter.

AUDIO
Sand Snipe: The audio is one of the things that make the game fun. Besides hearing all those great blaster sounds and ships flying overhead, dialogue actually is in the game play. Your allies talk to you while you are shooting down enemies. They will say things that help you like, “Blow up that core ship!” or thing that are just responses like, “Yeah, I got another one!”

WedgeWannaBe: The audio holds up to the normal Lucas Arts standards and is very comparable to that found in the Attack of the Clones video game. While the audio cues are a nice touch to the game play, it doesn’t blow your socks off. As I said, it meets the usual LA standard and nothing to get really excited about. I wish they could have given the game a little more pizzazz!

GAME PLAY
Sand Snipe: In the game you are a Jedi, named Adi Galla, trying to solve some problems. After a while you switch off between Adi and an alien, named Nym. Each kind of has their own little side story and each of their ships is different. The game play is just like any other ship game except it has some unique characteristics. It has the old shooting system except it has a great auto- targeting system. It automatically targets the closest enemy. Of course you can also choose who you want to target. What is also great about the targeting system is that when an enemy goes off screen, an arrow point to where it is and you just follow it and blast it up. You also have these great special abilities. Adi can use the force, she can make a shield around her ship, she can use force lighting, which zaps a ship and all the ships around it, you can slow time, which just makes the ships slower for a short time and you can have a blast attack which blows up all enemies around you. For Nym, you get bombs and torpedoes. In each mission you have your set objectives, then you have the choice to do a bonus objective and a hidden objective. By accomplishing the bonus and hidden objectives, you earn the special features.

WedgeWannaBe: I did enjoy the steering cue ability of the game. Once in a while, you’d find yourself in a real hairball up in the skies and the steering cue would come to your aid. As far as each ship’s special features, this is the type of pizzazz that I’m looking for in a Lucas Arts game. This is the type of thing that not only sets a game apart from others, but also makes it easier to shell out the money when you walk up to the cash register. I found myself using the Force lightning more and more, especially when I could get a group of Droid Fighters bunched up together. It’s a nice little weapon that the U.S. Air Force should try to develop. Besides that, I didn’t touch the special features much except for dabbling a little with the slow motion attack. As for the bonus and hidden objectives, here’s where I fell a little short with my skills. It seems that I got too focused on the objective at hand and not enough time finding the bonus enemies to destroy, etc. This was especially true during a certain missile attack on an island village.

MULTIPLAYER GAME PLAY
SandSnipe: In multiplayer, it is just the same except you have different hidden and bonus objective. Also you friend gets to be Jinkins, when playing as Nym and you can be Reti, if you are playing as Adi. Sometimes you can also be Siri, a Jedi helping Adi out.

WedgeWannaBe: The multiplayer mode definitely leaves something to be desired. Something along the lines of Halo’s side-by-side fight would have worked awesome here. Instead, we are stuck with lame games that leave us wondering if it is too late to take the game back.

BONUS FEATURES
SandS nipe: I thought the bonus features were great and that’s why I made it it’s own category. You can unlock special ships like a TIE fighter and a Republic Gunship. You can also unlock new missions for single and Multiplayer. There is also concept art. The things that are cool is the staff pictures, which show funny pics of the staff and “My Day At Work”, it’s a little cartoon showing a funny animated game place. There is also a blooper reel, which is probably my favorite.

WedgeWannaBe: While some people really get into the bonus areas and special features on both video games and DVD’s, I’m basically there just to whoop some butt and hold the trigger down. However, if you have to integrate bonus features into a game, unlocking other vehicles is a cool way to further entertain the gamer. It worked in Nintendo’s Rogue Squadron and is still going strong today. I say go with what works.

REPLAY VALUE
Sand Snipe: I think the game is worth buying. The game is a little short but with all the hidden and bonus objectives, you’ll be busy! The objectives are so worth the bonus features!

WedgeWannaBe: While the game was fun, it ends up being comparable to an ice cream cone on a hot day…great while you have it, but once it is gone, it’s gone.

OVERALL
Sand Snipe: It is a good game. The special features are cool and so is the game play. Bad part is that once you beat the game, it is not too fun to play multiplayer.

WedgeWannaBe: In a world that continues to center on a game’s ability for you to blow the snot out of someone else on another continent, this game seems to have flunked its marketing exam. A fun one to rent and beat over a weekend, but don’t drop the money to purchase.