The force has saved a lot of things
in the Star Wars galaxy. It is the force that makes a Jedi strong and graceful, a person
that is not only skilled and dangerous but also powerful. It is the force that makes the
Jedi more than just another vigilante road-warrior minus tattoos, leather, and Harley. The
force--without it, Anakin would just be one more guy building androids in his
mothers basement at the age of thirty, not the royalty courting little
center-of-evil we all know and adore. The force has saved many things in the Star Wars
franchise, not the least of which is Star Wars: Obi Wan, in which the forces
implementation is one of the games few redeeming features. Though the originals that made it
famous are years old, Star Wars still has enough kick to get most of us out of our seats
for a movie, and consequently, for a game. As developers move to take advantage of this,
releasing a slew of games all featuring some variation of the musical score from A New
Hope, we can only guess that a few of the titles will actually be worth while.
Unfortunately, Obi-Wan fails to grasp many of the philosophical and fundamental aspects of
what made Star Wars great, at the same time mismatching a variety of poorly chosen control
features. Without the strong story line and depth that the Star Wars universe promises,
Obi-Wan doesn't pack enough punch, even with a force system that can make fighting
sometimes feel like youre a real Jedi.
At its heart,
Obi-Wan tries to be Star Wars. You assume the role of young Obi-Wan, still under the wing
of your Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn, lightsaber happy and ready to save the universe.
Throughout the game you undertake various missions leading to the events of Episode one,
following up indications that someone is developing force resistant weapons in preparation
for a war with the Jedi.
One of the most
disappointing aspects of Obi-Wan is its failure to live up to the beautiful imagery and
feel of the rich Star Wars universe. The first few missions are set in the home city of
the Jedi council, a world supposed to be buzzing with rich life, flying cars, and sky
scrapers so tall their bases are obscured beneath a layer of pollution and mist. While
Obi-Wan makes an attempt to recapture the graphical essence of the city, placing you high
atop a building under construction on one of the first missions, it quickly becomes
evident that all the attempts are no more than skin deep, something not characteristic of
Star Wars at all. Instead of providing an added element of atmosphere as it should, one
gets the feeling that the layers of fog and mist hovering over the streets are actually
there to limit the visual range of the player while looking over the edge, thus limiting
the amount of detail the developers had to include. There is little-to-no feeling that the
city is alive around you, or even that you are in a universe that contains anything in it
besides the bad guys you are there to execute with your lightsaber. The attempts to add
life that do make appearances are limited, and simply dont do enough. There are few
flying cars (those that are present are far in the distance and only there if you look
hard), little significant civilian interaction, and none of the elements that would have
immersed the player in the Star Wars universe. When you fall off the edge of a building,
which happens easily enough and frequently enough that it is almost unavoidable, Obi-Wan
will land on an invisible body of compressed air (i.e. invisible barrier) after only a few
stories, which instantly kills him. What should have been a limitless fall fading into the
depths of the living city below actually becomes an uninspiring ten foot drop that leaves
his body suspended miles above the ground. While unto itself this does not interfere with
the game play, it is somewhat representative of the lack of effort that went into flushing
out the inner details of the world that you paid good money to play in.
The Star Wars
universe aside, the basics of the game play are uninspiring, even with the a force system
that makes combat at times feel like a real jedi battle, specifically when fighting
one-on-one. A standard action/adventure fare, Obi-Wan is controlled through the third
person perspective using a floating camera that graces so many similar games, and as such,
comes inherit with flaws. Youll often find yourself surrounded by enemies, unable to
determine how many of them there are, or what angle they are attacking you from.
Youll fall to your death when attempting to walk narrow beams do to the mostly
clumsy and over sensitive controls (You get four "lives" before you have to
restart a level), and youll be frustrated a great deal of the time as you wade
through enemies that feel more like obstacles than game challenges. The action of your
lightsaber is controlled with the right analog stick, your movement with the left. The
combat system is easy to learn and allows you to get quickly to the meat of the game - the
fighting and the force, which are both intertwined. The ability to use the force while in
combat is one of the games saving features, and unto itself was almost able to save
Obi-Wan from a two star rating. You get to count up to nine different force moves amongst
your arsenal, depending on how you look at it, some of which are more useful than others,
but all good features to know how to utilize. Force Jump (higher than Michael Jordan),
Force View (slows down time), and Force Push (always good to find a bad guy near an edge)
are a few of them, all accessed by holding down the left trigger and pressing a
corresponding button on the control pad. By far the most successful part of Star Wars:
Obi-Wan, the force allows battles to range from suspended plank way to suspended plank
way, with rolling dodges, and reflected blaster shots. Even this grows old and repetitive
after a while, though, since the entire game is taken with wading through endless streams
of bad guys, a long and unchanging routine through various locations that represents
ninety percent of the game.
The long killing spree is interrupted occasionally by cut scenes that are about middle
of the line in quality. The story is narrated using voice actors that attempt to sound
like those in the movie, but for the most part fail miserably -- Obi-Wans voice
especially. Most significant about the cut scenes is that they occasionally fail to
activate when they are supposed to, leaving the player wandering around empty hallways in
an attempt to find whatever line they are supposed to cross in order to continue. This
happened to me twice, once with the person I was supposed to be following staring at me
blankly. This is accompanied at times with a feeling of not knowing what one is supposed
to do -- the world will wait for hours for you to find the right button to push.
Musically LucusArts has added a classic Star Wars touch while still managing to stay
away from standard Star Wars soundtrack. The sound effects are classic Star Wars, but that
is a pretty small part of a game generally lacking in a really good Star Wars atmosphere.
In a move that
boarders on shameful, the box labels Obi-Wan as 1-2 players when the multiplayer feature
is one of the most limited I have ever played. It consists of you and another player in a
room carrying light sabers, trying to hack one another to death. While new locations and
characters open up for multiplayer use the farther into the single-player game you battle,
it makes little difference, since almost all combat is close and scenery plays very little
role in combat. To release the game labeled two player with this skinny and tacked on of a
multiplayer system is both poor taste and poor game design. It leaves a bad flavor in the
mouth.
I never had the chance to watch the drama of the original Star Wars trilogy unfold as a
child. By the time I was old enough to know the difference between Star Wars and the Cosby
show, Luke was old, Obi-Wan was dead, and Darth had long since ditched his helmet in favor
of a more natural pale-white complexion. I knew the trilogy's secret grand finale before
the text started flying through the screen the first time I watched Episode VI. I remember
the thrill of the day I bought the original soundtrack as a "child on compact
disc. When it boils down to it, Ive always wanted to discover Star Wars for the
first time, and so I will continue to buy into the games in an attempt to discover just a
little more of the original magic. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan isnt worth it. Aside from
the fact that it is based in the Star Wars universe, which is worth something, Obi-Wan
grows too old too quickly to be worth purchasing, even for a true fan. This isnt the
last Star Wars game to come along. Save your money for the next one.