Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

aka: Star Wars: Episode 1 - Die Dunkle Bedrohung, Star Wars: Episode I - La Menace Fantôme, Star Wars: Episodio I - La Amenaza Fantasma, Star Wars: Episodio I - La Minaccia Fantasma, Star Wars: Episódio I - A Ameaça Fantasma
Moby ID: 1016
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Twenty years before the original Star Wars (A New Hope), the Galactic Republic is undergoing a major political crisis because of a dispute on commercial taxation. Under the pretext of solving the crisis, the greedy Trade Federation has besieged the small planet of Naboo with armies of combat droids and space battleships. Two Jedi Knights, master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, a very young Obi-Wan Kenobi, are sent by the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic to negotiate the end of the blockade with the Trade Federation's leaders. But little do the Jedi know that these events are only the beginning of a master plot by an ancient enemy to control the entire galaxy.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace is an action-adventure game based on the movie of the same name from 1999. Playing a number of characters from the movie -depending on which level you're on-, including Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Queen Amidala of Naboo, and Captain Panaka of the Royal Security Forces, you undertake quests and side-quests, solve puzzles, and use weapons to defeat enemies -including your lightsaber, the weapon of a Jedi Knight-. While the story of the game is faithful to that of the movie, additions and extensions to the plot have been made for the sake of gameplay, including a mission detailing Amidala and Panaka's attempts to reach the Senate Chamber on planet Coruscant.

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Credits (Windows version)

204 People (191 developers, 13 thanks) · View all

Project Leader
Translation
Manual
QA
Lecturer
Product Manager
PR Coordinator
Voice Production: Director, Cating
Cutting
Production
  • Josch
Box & Manual Design
Sound Engineering
Sound Editing
Time Coordination
Voices
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 63% (based on 41 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 57 ratings with 3 reviews)

Well... it could be worse

The Good
Well, I have mixed opinions about this game but one thing is for sure, it represents the movie quite well since Phantom Menace is considered to be the worst of the whole saga and this game is probably the worst movie based Star Wars game. However, that is not because this game is horribly bad but because the other ones are better.

Story: It follows the movie like it should so no complaint there. They added some action scenes that were not in the movie so that the game could be a bit more interesting which is kind of cool. There is little of Jar Jar and the young Anakin which is a plus.

Gameplay: One thing I liked about the gameplay is that at times it felt like Grand Theft Auto (please don't hate me for comparing this game to GTA). You are given the ability to interact with different NPCs in a manner of ways. You can even kill Jabba the Hutt if you want. I went on a rampage through Mos Espa with Qui-Gon which was amusing. Oh, and there are Twi'leks.

Graphics: It was satisfying to blow up droids. In the PC version you can adjust the resolution so it doesn't look that bad. The gardens of Theed were nicely made and I also liked the design of the main menu.

Sound and Music: Sadly, this is the best part of the game. For me, the sound design was awesome. Lightsaber swings, laser blasts, explosions, environment sounds, everything was done good. The music is straight out of the movie, so if you've seen the movie, you'd know it is awesome.

Voice acting: Ehhh...I thought that Amidala and Obi-Wan were voiced okay.



The Bad
Story: It follows Phantom Menace but I guess it is impossible otherwise since that is the main point of the game. Jar Jar is there and he is annoying as ever.

Gameplay: For one thing, the game is full of glitches. It crashes from time to time, I got stuck under a balcony, AI is so stupid that sometimes I found myself laughing, other characters can get stuck, sometimes opponents try to shoot you over and over again through walls and so on. If you are looking for a smooth and responsive game then this one isn't for you. Jumping feels stiff, some of the jumps are outrageous and this is not a game that has good jumping controls. Fighting against melee enemies is a joke. I found myself using the same strategy against all bosses, even against Darth Maul. I just held down the left mouse button and kept walking back. And speaking of Darth Maul, when you fight him at the end, he is impossible. I managed to beat him thanks to a glitch where he got stuck in the wall.

Sound and Music: I have no major complaints.

Voice acting: It was terrible for the most part. Everything that Captain Panaka said it sounded like he was interrogating a prisoner and when Darth Maul said "Die, Jedi! Die!" I gasped like I was going to swallow a horse.

The Bottom Line
If you are a die-hard fan of Star Wars you can give it a go but otherwise there are games based on Phantom Menace which are far better.

Windows · by Ivan Obretenov (30) · 2012

The worst Star Wars movie based video game.....

The Good
You get a lightsaber, the sounds are good and uuuummmm... I borrowed it from a friend and didn't spend money on it.

The Bad
First, when was the last time you saw obi-wan firing a missile launcher, or a blaster?? Blocking lasers is almost impossible. Instead of the one used in Jedi Knight or just a simple block button, you have to attack with your lightsaber to deflect lasers, making what should be a fundamental of lightsaber use into a useless move. Tip: Just run as fast as you can to enemies and slash them with your clumsy swings. Force is pitiful. You see the force power bar and think, alright!! if I get into trouble, I push the force button. Pushing the force button makes a blue wave move from where you're standing about two feet forward. If you happen to hit an enemy, the enemy skids back a couple of inches. The weapons are nearly useless. Blasters are nearly impossible to aim and missile launchers make you walk slowly(?!) Thermal Detonators, when thrown, will beep about 4 seconds and explode in an ENORMOUS fireball that does only enough damage to destroy a battle droid and damage you if you don't immediately turn around and run away. Alot of the game is lame-o jumping puzzles. Most often you can't see where you're going and just jump blindly, hoping to land safetly. In the enviroments where there are civilians, if you hurt or kill one, instantly everyone will know and either run away from you or assail you with a torrent of laser fire or (?!) get this, big grey aliens in shoulder pads with axes!!?? Numerous bugs plauge the game. See your character fall forever into a black void, freeze, or explode into a bunch of pieces(?!) if you run into shields. It isn't very true to the movie. Do you remember Qui-Gon having to go all over Mos Eisley to trade for techno-babble podracer parts and Obi-Wan having to solve stupid and frustrating jumping and getting lost in the woods while trying to find that stupid JarJar. The "boss" fight is as boring and ridiculous as the rest of the game. When you finally get to fight Darth Maul, you either have to stay close to him and swing randomly at him or getting hit by red lightning he throws at you if you don't stay close enough to him to get chopped up. you can't defeat him. Just keep from getting killed about 2 minutes and he'll run over to the reactor core thing and just fall down and die. It doesn't matter what you do. If you're next to him he'll die for no appearant reason. If you're across the room, the same thing happens. I know why he did that. He wanted to escape the game.

The Bottom Line
This is truely the embodiment of the Dark Side of the Force.

Windows · by James Kirk (150) · 2003

It's like the movie.... you know, flashy and dumb.

The Good
Ok, ok so it's not my business if the movie sucked or not, right? let's stick with the game, so what are it's strong points? Graphics, and sounds. Technically this game is simply brilliant, the 3D graphics are a sight to behold, and the sounds are ripped right from the movie with tremendous quality. The game has all the money in the world thrown at it, and it shows, this is THE official game for the Phantom Menace, so obviously Lucasarts pulled no stops in what concerns production values, you get movie clips on the menu buttons (which makes it look like a dvd scene selection menu) a streamlined interface, John Williams score on every menu screen... wow! I can only imagine the kind of budget that they had!!

Last but not least the designers had the good taste NOT to have you play as Jar Jar... thank god.

The Bad
Unfortunately all that money was thrown into a game that plays like a remake of those old SNES Star Wars games. Remember those? The ones where you chose a character for each level and then played with them in platform-based levels? Well that's exactly what this game is. However since the 2D sidescroller perspective is too "retro" the action is seen from a tremendously ankward top-down view that sometimes shifts to a 3d view in order to showcase it's 3d-ness.

So there you have it folks, a game frozen in time that expects to get saved by it's new graphics, well, that would be possible if we were still on the days of the SNES, but we expect a little more nowadays. In fact, we expect a little more from Lucasarts! Quite frankly this is the most shameless Star Wars game ever released by these guys! Not because it's that bad, but because it is incredibly shallow! For the love of god! It's a platformer! And not even a good one! The sole objective of the game is to play through a series of different levels which usually require you to blast your way to the end of a movie-sanctioned location, and deal with some adventure touches placed in to spice things up and to emphasize that "This really is a complex game!" yeah right, whoever designed this clearly hasn't taken a look at the adventures being produced in his own company, all there is of adventuring in this game is playing errand boy for the various npc's you encounter.

The AI is m.i.a., and you'll have to contend with lame jumping puzzles, and a perspective that usually hides your enemies and makes it terribly hard to aim accurately.

Now, who is to blame for all this? The designers? The console gamers it was aimed at? The movie it was based on? Who knows, probably LucasArts was too afraid to take any chances with what is undoubtely one it's flagship titles, so they resorted to simply do what had worked 10 years ago with newer graphics and sounds. Hope they learned the lesson.

Oh and Jar Jar is still in the game as an NPC, and no, you can't kill him.

The Bottom Line
Well I'm sorry but I have to make at least one analogy with the movie: the game perfectly captures the essence of the movie: It's shallow, it's for kids, it's got flashy graphics and sounds, it's got a simple story, and it has tainted the name of Star Wars forever.

You may consider buying it if you have kids, just like showing them the movie. But just like the movie...you can find better options around.

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2001

Trivia

Box

The original (non-Archive Collection) versions of the box had various silly things hidden under some box flaps, that were different for alternate versions of the box (there were lots). Examples:

"WOOKIE!" "Graaahr." "Battel DROIDID!"

Content

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace contains a few scenes that were in early versions of the screenplay but never made it to the final cut of the film (most noteably Obi-wan Kenobi rising out of the waters of the Naboo swamp while the Federation tanks hovers by).

PC Player review

The German magazine PC Player gave the game a bad review and received an angry letter from Multimedia Handelspartner EG, most likely the German distributor of the game. PC Player printed some quotes in the editorial of issue 08/1999, e.g. that a bad review is a slap in the face for every fan, that the magazine should work out new evaluation possibilities together with the industry or that some silly persons should not judge products costing millions to produce. The editorial in German language can be seen here.

PlayStation version

The PlayStation version of the game includes the video of Duel of the Fates.

Information also contributed by Tony Gies and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Wolfang.

PlayStation added by Grant McLellan.

Additional contributors: Ray Soderlund, Alexander Schaefer, Apogee IV, chirinea, Sciere, Zolansilverspear, Jordi Vilalta Prat, federicocrane, Patrick Bregger.

Game added March 10, 2000. Last modified January 20, 2024.