Retro Review: Star Wars

Well since one of the biggest games of the year, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, will be released tomorrow, I thought it was only fair to go back to the original Star Wars game of the NES.
This Star Wars games was based off of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, it’s a classic 2D game and it follows events from the movie, but of course to make it a game they had to stretch some things.
In the game you play as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia and you will battle the empire all the way to the final confrontation over the planet Yavin as you attempt to destroy the Death Star.
The story begins though on the planet Tatooine, you are Luke and you’re battling indigenous creatures and sand people. You’ll be piloting a landspeeder across the desert, picking up items as you look for the missing R2-D2 and also the location of Obi-Wan Kenobi (A character I wanted to play as).
Once you do that you will go to Mos Eisley to meet Han Solo and like the movie you take off in the Millennium Falcon.
From there you will arrive on the Death Star and try to rescue the princess, which proves to be a pain and a sometimes tedious task.
The biggest problem I had with this game was the levels where you tried to rescue the princess on the Death Star. The first half of the game is pretty simple, but not overly simple to make it un-fun, then you try to rescue the princess and with the 2D format of the game there’re jumps you have to complete and they are almost impossible if you don’t jump it just right with the right timing.
I mean when watching the movie I never saw Luke stop over various pits in hallways look down and stand there as he positioned himself to prepare to jump. There is the one scene where you see him and Princess Leia swing over a pit, but that’s once.
So after you mastered the Death Star you will be on Yavin IV and from there you will take off in an X-Wing and fight waves of TIE fighters as you attempt to blow up the Death Star.
If you’ve seen the movie you know that Luke is able to shoot his proton torpedoes into the small ray-shield thermal exhaust port that led directly from the surface of the station into the heart of its colossal reactor, which caused a chain reaction and destroyed the station (It’s really sad that I know all that).
Getting off topic for a second, who the hell would allow this kind of design flaw? I mean this isn’t a small flaw this is a pretty large flaw. The best part of this they didn’t even tried to fix it, I mean the Empire must have been aware of this and they just left it like that?
Back to the game … I really enjoy it because it gave you a chance to actually jump into the story and participate in the adventure.
Yet, all the sound in the game is 80’s and so are the graphics, which is something I like, it gives it a sense of nostalgia.
Summing everything up this is entertaining game and a must have for anyone who is a Star Wars fan or even a fan of games.
It Scores An 8 out of 10