Star Wars: Obi-Wan Review

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Who’s your favorite character from the Star Wars universe? For many, it’s Obi-Wan as he has appeared in many of the movies. It’s no surprise that LucasArts wanted to cash in on the popularity of Obi-Wan and release a game starring one of our favorite Jedis. In 2001, LucasArts released Star Wars: Obi-Wan exclusively for the Xbox. This Star Wars: Obi-Wan Review is a pile of Poodoo!

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Plot

The game starts a few weeks before the events of Episode I and ends with the duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul. Obi-Wan is still a padawan and under the command of his Jedi Master Qui-Gon. After the opening scroll credits which are essential to any Star Wars movie or video game, Obi-Wan is sent to Coruscant to take down the criminal organization the “Black Heth” that has captured the Jedi Council’s informant.

With the informant saved, he reveals to Obi-Wan that the Black Heth has been supplied with weapons from arms dealers on the planet Obredaan. Obi-Wan travels to Obredaan to investigate the weapon manufacturers. The manufacturers are an alien race called Jin’ha and have created a special shield from the underground resources in their mines. This special shield is resistant to lightsabers which if sold to the wrong hands could defend criminals against Jedi. It turns out that the Jin’ha have been selling the shields to the Trade Federation.

This is where the story meshes with Episode I during my Star Wars Obi-Wan review. On the next mission, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are sent to meet Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray and inspect his facilities. The following missions closely resemble the plot of Episode I with the exception of Queen Amidala being kidnapped by Sand People on Tatooine. The game concludes with Obi-Wan defeating Darth Maul in a lightsaber duel just like Episode I.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Gameplay

Star Wars: Obi-Wan has a decent plot with a thread that leads up to the events of Episode I. What wrecks this Star Wars Obi-Wan review? The horrible, and I mean atrocious voice acting for Obi-Wan. He sounds like a hobbit from Lord of the Rings who is one or two veggies short of a full garden if you know what I mean. It’s so bad, I couldn’t believe LucasArts greenlit this. A few reviews back, I went through Star Wars: Episode I on the PS1. The voice acting was excellent in it and if they didn’t use the same actors from the movies, they got damn close. I have no idea how they went so off the rails for Obi-Wan. They recycled the same sound effects for lightsabers and switches, why can’t they get some decent voice acting?

Controlling Obi-Wan is slightly better than listening to him. He runs like his feet don’t touch the ground with his derpy body animation gliding over the screen. I don’t think LucasArts set off to make a terrible game, there are positive things that come from this Star Wars Obi-Wan review but when the biggest complaints are how the main character controls and talks, boy you are in for some trouble.

I’ll throw a compliment in here to avoid totally bashing this in my Star Wars Obi-Wan review. Obi-Wan will slash his way through levels and enemies using his lightsaber. With the right joystick, you’ll control how he swings it. Moving the joystick to the right, Obi-Wan will attack the right side of the enemy, moving it up, he’ll come crashing down upon them with his lightsaber and so forth. There’s a certain amount of skill required to fight enemies and you need to pay attention to where they are blocking for Obi-Wan to effectively attack. You can use the force by pressing the trigger button to jump higher, power up your lightsaber, go into slow motion, and push objects. I barely used the force, it was difficult to implement it into the battle mechanics when slashing at enemies was quicker and more effective. The one force mechanic that I liked was throwing my saber like a boomerang.

Enemies will gang up on you resulting in your death. It’s not uncommon to be overwhelmed by twenty thugs or battle droids at once. If Obi-Wan played like a real Jedi instead of the dweeb Jedi he is made out to be in this game then it wouldn’t be a problem, but his force powers are useless and once the enemy surrounds you, you might as well stick a saber in yourself.

Speaking of sticking sabers in bodies, Qui-Gon is only happy when you shove your lightsaber in his ass. My favorite mission during my Star Wars Obi-Wan review was when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were aboard the Trade Federation ship taking down battle droids on their way to Nute Gunray. Throughout the mission, Qui-Gon yells at you constantly to stick close to him and to hurry up. I would walk five feet away from him to grab health and he’d freak out and start scolding me.

I found that because Obi-Wan was incompetent in fighting the required enemies in the mission, it was best to just run through the level until the end. During the Obredaan mines and Sand People camps, I just ran through them without stopping to battle foes and it worked. You didn’t need to kill them to proceed although they chased you until the very end. Other levels like the “Queen in Peril” give no direction on where you need to go or what you need to do next. You can spend a half-hour just wandering around and looking at the same area over and over trying to find a hole to climb or a lever to flip. If you aren’t listening to some key characters then you miss out on what you are supposed to do because they don’t repeat themselves. In the level “Within A Palace” I needed to bring a girl up a couple of floors for her to hack the computers. I didn’t know that and spent a ton of time trying to figure out what to do. I got frustrated and just killed her in my anger. Sounds like a certain Sith Lord…

If you aren’t killed by the overwhelming number of enemies you face, then you’ll probably die a few times falling off ledges. Obi-Wan will fall hundreds of feet to his death before he gets stuck in his free fall animation for about 15 seconds before the “Mission Failed” menu comes up. The controls to Obi-Wan sucked and it caused me to fall a few times during my Star Wars Obi-Wan review when trying to perform some force jumps.

At the end of the game, you’ll fight Darth Maul just like in the movie. The first time I fought him during my Star Wars Obi-Wan review I was able to drain him down to just about a quarter of his health. I was surprised I got him down so low as I wasn’t the best at lightsaber combat. I went in for the killing blow only for him to say something stupid about the dark side and refill his entire life bar! After a few tries, I was able to kill him thanks to a big hint about jumping and swinging down on him. It kills him in two hits!

When you beat Darth Maul you open up the Battle Royal where you fight eight other Jedi in the council room. No Yoda, but you do fight Qui-Gon, Mace Windu, and other recognizable members. I was shocked but I beat it on my first try by letting the others kill off each other before it was just me and Mace Windu. I threw my lightsaber at him a few times and came away victorious.

Aside from the story mode, the game offers a “Jedi Battle” mode where you can fight against a friend in an arena. My wife and her brother are obsessed with this mode. I really hope they only liked this game because of this and never played the campaign mode…otherwise, I’m nervous they were abused as children and subjected to torture to enjoy this game.

Memories:
I have no memories of this awful game. I’m wiping my mind clean of it after this Star Wars Obi-Wan review.