Star Wars: Starfighter Special Edition (Xbox)

also available for the PC
Availability: Out Now

Last year, I reviewed Starfighter for the PlayStation 2 and was amazed by the quality of the game. It made me believe that LucasArts was finally back on track to producing great games, but then Demolition came out and brought me back to reality *sigh*.

Now that I have a Xbox, I thought I'd give the new port of Starfighter a whirl. LucasArts has had a year to tweak the game to fit the specs of the Xbox and did a great job of it. The graphics are much cleaner and less blocky than its PS2 cousin, even the cutscenes show an improvement. But the biggest difference for me is the controller handling. I'm not a fan of the Xbox controller, but ironically, what's too big for handling action games works very well as a flight controller. I found that controlling the various ships on the Xbox was smoother and easier than playing on the PS2.

LucasArts has also added a couple of new bonus missions and ships, unlocked by winning medals in your missions. Three new multiplayer levels have been added, taking advantage of the Xbox's capability for LAN parties, and hopefully soon, online gaming.

Overall, this is a great Star Wars game to have if you never played the PS2 version. If you have a PS2 and a Xbox, it's not worth the purchase, though you may want to rent it to see the differences yourself.

It's also worth noting that Starfighter Special Edition has also been ported to the PC, so dust off that joystick!

The PC requirements are as follows --

Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
100% DirectX compatible computer required.
Pentium II or Athlon class 350 MHz or faster CPU required.
64 MB RAM required. 128 MB required for Windows 2000 and XP.
16 MB DirectX 8 compatible PCI or AGP 3D Hardware Accelerator required.
16-bit sound card required.
Quad Speed IDE or SCSI CD-ROM drive required.
Keyboard or mouse required. Joystick or gamepad recommended.
Microsoft DirectX 8.0a and 8.1 are included on this CD.
580 MB of free hard drive space required. Additional 100 MB of free space required after game installation for Windows swap file and save games.

Click here to see screenshots, concept art, and a Quicktime trailer for the game.

Grade: B