Summary
Oh Where Art Thou, TIE Fighter?
The Good
To be honest, there wasn't much about this game that I liked. I'll preface that now, so that you can read the rest of this review with a grain of salt. I am not a big fan of online FPS games.
The graphics were quite good, though not quite top of the line, which is understandable given its target demographic of online players. A little less CPU intensive graphics would (hopefully) provide for a better game experience online. The sound, as with pretty much all Star Wars games I've played, was significantly better than average.
What I like about this game was a notion I had about it before I got it. I'd read with considerable interest that this game would include what amounts to a flight simulator mode.... essentially X-Wing or TIE Fighter! Wow! Even with that feature though, there wasn't enough about the game that intrigued me enough to get it when it first came out.
As a shooter game, there's really not much to be said about it. It has the genre standard game modes and weapons and classes, all with LucasArts' typical Star Wars veneer. Nothing exceptional, either good or bad.
The Bad
The disappointment upon finally getting into a spaceship. I was so eager... playing an FPS game in the vein of Jedi Knight and then running up to an X-Wing, getting in it and taking off... and finding myself flying a go-kart with wings. There was no sense of speed or power (or physics, a constant problem with the Star Wars universe... but I digress).
TIE Fighter is one of my personal favorite games of all time. I was basically hoping for that to have been transplanted here. Now, since it wasn't, maybe that's biasing my opinion of the rest of the game. But that feature was the sole reason I was even remotely interested in playing it. And discovering that it was an arcade implementation rather than a simulator implementation was definitely a let-down.
The Bottom Line
This is not the worst FPS game I've played and isn't even close to the best. When it came out and was discussed in the gaming media I was glad to see LucasArts try to expand the gameplay in the Star Wars universe with the mix of styles or genres in one game. But I was disappointed in the end result. (Same thing I'd say about the space combat in Star Wars Galaxies.)
Long story short - I played it a couple of times when I got it as a gift, haven't touched it in years, and would almost bet my left big toe that I'll never play it again. It's just not my thing.
