Nintendo Reviews Rating:
Age 13+
Posted: October 21st, 2005
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter provides a unique experience in many aspects. You play as Jango Fett through a variety of
missions and worlds. Becoming a bounty hunter may have some guilty pleasure, but is this iteration any good? Read the
full review!
Sound

The game has plenty of sounds that are heard throughout various turf. Running through different landscapes allows for a
number of sounds to be heard. Jango Fett has a number of weapons, all making unique sounds. It all feels very true to the
Star Wars universe. Like usual, the blaster noises are as repetitive as they have ever been, but somehow, none of the
sounds seem annoying.
This game also has a lot of voiced dialogue, and what I love is that they brought back the original actor of Jango Fett from
Episode 2 to voice him in the game. Obviously, his voice acting sounds the best. For the most part, the entire voice acting
is good. You'll be hearing a lot from Roz, who's your sidekick. She radios back and forth to confirm mission objectives and
other things. Except for a couple of lines, the voice acting is also not so annoying.
Throughout the game, particularly in battles, music will start playing. It will start off soft, but can become more
action-packed if there are more enemies. The music samples are varied, and good, but are all from Star Wars movies. I
don't think there's any original music in the entire game. That's not a terrible thing, but after playing the Star Wars:
Rogue Squadron series, I was expecting a little more. Plus, the music samples become overused after a while. So basically,
I was hoping for a little more music, but the music complements the action fairly well.
Overall, the sound is pretty good. It's all topped off with Dolby Surround sound, so it's crisp and well made. There could
have been improvements, but it works for this game.
Control

This game is what I would call a third-person shooter. I haven't really played much of these type of games, so the control
style was relatively new for me. A is for shooting, B is for jumping. R is used to lock onto a target, while holding L allows
you to fly around with your jetpack. It's easiest to lock onto an enemy and just shoot, but sometimes, you'll want to aim
across distances, which is what Z is for. The control pad is used to cycle through weapons. Pressing Control Pad Up allows
you to pause the game while cycling through. You won't be using it too much, since most enemies can be killed with a
couple of rapid fire presses of A.
The game relies on moving forward, feeling kind of like rails. There is some backtracking in a couple of missions, which
can confuse the player. Sometimes it can be unclear where to go, and players can find themselves running around just
trying to find things. Amidst the running around are some action sequences, which makes the game even more fun. But
just getting to the next place can be hard because of where platforms are located.
In fact, getting across platforms can be a challenge. It's simply because the game leaves little room for error sometimes.
The game also puts you in weird positions. In one level, you have about a hundred enemies shooting at you with rockets
and blasters, and you are expected to run across platforms that break. It's tedious, but there aren't too many of them.
There are simply some levels that are annoying. It does add to challenge, no matter how unfair it may be.
Overall, the controls could be better, but it's nothing that's unmanageable. Getting used to them shouldn't take too long.
Graphics

I'll start by talking about the bad stuff. The game does slowdown sometimes during high
action moments; not a major framerate problem, but it is present in the game. Also, the
background are one color. When I got to Coruscant, I was expecting a bunch of clouds
and beautiful skyline. One color. How boring, and shows an extreme lack of effort. The
game also lacks any major lighting or shadow effects. So in the game, I am disappointed.
The CG cutscenes are amazing, though. I was quite surprised at how real these cutscenes
look, and I would expect nothing less from Industrial Light and Magic. ILM did a
fantastic job, and I almost wish that every cutscene in the game looked this good. ILM
only did the cutscenes for the beginning and end of chapters. It's disappointing to start
off the game with these awesome-looking cutscenes, and then have to go to normal
gameplay graphics, which are very flawed. Scoring this was hard simply because I had to
weigh the very good stuff (CG cutscenes) and the very bad stuff (the rest of the game). I
came to the conclusion that, obviously, there's a lot more of game than there is of
cutscenes, so the score will be lower. The graphics could have been a lot better.
Replay

The game has several missions, I think 18, and they take on average 20 minutes to beat. That's about 6 hours of
gameplay. There is a lot of trial and error, so the game lasts for more like 9 hours. During this time, you have the chance
to unlock several bonus things. For example, each time you beat a chapter (3 levels) you unlock bloopers related to the
chapter. Okay, they're not that funny, but it's still something. There's also an entire comic book to read, and lots of Star
Wars cards to see.
The game keeps you coming back for more by providing secondary bounties to locate. Finding them will really test your
mettle, as most of the bounties are enemies that will attack you. So you may accidentally kill one while searching for
them. It's still something to look forward, too, and by challenging yourself to find them all, the game really becomes
challenging. To keep it from becoming extremely frustrating, the developers eliminated secondary bounties in the last
chapter. There's also secrets to find in each level, which tests your keen eye.
The final game time will read something really low when you beat it, but don't be fooled. With the secondary bounties and
unlockables, the game's length is good. The lack of multiplayer hurts, but not much. This is a game that will engage you
for a pretty good amount of time, and it's nice to play through the game again every once in a while.
Design

The game's design consists of action sequences, some flying around, and more action. The game tries to be challenging by
throwing in lots of enemies. However, you can simply lock onto them and press A rapidly. The enemies are stupid enough
that you probably won't get shot down 90% of the time you do this. As long as nobody has a rocket. Oh, about that. It
seems like the major weapon is the blaster. Where most shooting games you use a ton of weapons, this game, you almost
always are using the blaster. There are a couple of instances where you use a sniper rifle, but those moments are few and
far between.
I just thought for a shooting game, it would be a little harder to shoot the enemies down. Metroid Prime had some tough
AI, but this game's AI is pretty bad. A lot of time they will just stand there, and you can easily surprise them. Plus, they
move slow and have terrible aim. Perhaps a lot of third-person games are like this, but I would hope that I come across
one with a better design plan.
On the positive side, there are a few puzzles thrown in. The puzzles aren't usually extremely complicated, but it adds a
little variety. Plus, the game is woven by an interesting storyline, which many Star Wars fans have been waiting for. If you
don't get anything else out of the game's story, at least you'll find out where Jango got the Slave 1. All in all, the game's
design could have been a little more oriented toward action, but it does provide enough variety to make it engaging, and if
anything, it's a blast flying around as an enemy for a change. There's not many other games that you can play as a bad
guy, and feel okay doing it, which makes this definitely worth playing.
Scores
Sound

8.2
Control

8.2
Graphics

7.8
Replay

8.3
Design

8.3
8.2
Final Words

There is a guilty pleasure in playing as Jango Fett, but this game is flawed. Still, I can't help but saying that I enjoyed this
game, and I didn't mind playing it again for some of the secondary bounties. It's also fun just flying around. I still can't
get over the bad in-game graphics. One color background doesn't do justice for Coruscant. With minor improvements, this
game could have been exceptional, but this is still a great game. Worth a buy, if you can find it cheap, which nowadays, you
probably can.