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Pushes the hardware too far...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: December 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

While it looks good on the outside, I do suggest not judging this book by its cover :). I rented this game (thankfully) and have to say that it's the first time I've seen a game push a piece of hardware too far.

The GB Advance is not a 3D machine, although the developers of 'Flight of the Falcon' tried their best to recreate the 3D rich Gamecube Star Wars games. The result? A game so difficult not due to its design, but by the limitation of the hardware!

A perfect example is the second level, where the player is racing through the Mos Eisley spaceport in Luke's desert speeder. The objective is to beat the clock while dodging buildings and other obstacles. The developers ignored the hardware limitations and created a level that's nearly impossible to traverse because the system can't render a sharp image until it's nearly on top of the player. It became so frustrating that I had to put it down and return it to the video store (thankfully I rented this one).

A better alternative would be the Wing Commander Prophecy game. It's not perfect but does a great job of implementing a 3D space shooter on the GBA platform.

A great shoot-em-up

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: November 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game so that I could fly my favorite ship from the Star Wars trilogy and blast tie fighters. I got what I was looking for. This game offers up some great action, awesome scenery, and spectacular space battles.

The view is third person from behind your vehicle, and the action is fast and furious arcade style. Controls are easy to master. You can move your vehicle in any direction, speed up, slow down, and fire primary and secondary weapons. A small target crosshair in the distance aids in lining up shots.

While most of the game features the Millennium Falcon, there are other vehicles you have to pilot. Luke's landspeeder, an X-Wing fighter, and a speeder bike. The first level starts us off with the Millennium Falcon approaching Tatooine, and you have to shoot down tie fighters that are coming after you. The remainder of the game showcases Luke's landspeeder navigating the streets of Mos Eisely spaceport, the Falcon traversing a desert canyon while shooting down probe droids, the attack on the Death Star, the asteroid field, a strange level where the Falcon chases Boba Fett's ship though Bespin's cityscape, the escape from the super Star Destroyer, the chaotic battle over Endor, a speeder bike chase, and the assault on the second Death Star.

The space battles are intense, with waves of tie fighters coming in, and flybys over Star Destroyers and the rebel fleet. This game is a great 3D shoot-em-up. Some of the other levels are obstacle courses. The Death Star trench is filled with crossbeams and turrets, making it a pretty challenging obstacle course to maneuver through. The asteroid field is what one might expect. Avoid the asteroids while shooting at the tie fighters. The final level has the Falcon maneuvering through the interior of the second Death Star. The reactor core and its defenses make for a nice end-game boss.

Visually, the game is impressive. The scenery is absolutely fantastic. Especially the spaceport, forest, and space-going vistas above planets. Tie fighters look like little blips when they're far away, but they look great up close when they fly by. There are normal tie fighters, tie bombers, and tie interceptors. Out in space, there's some notable pop-up. I was surprised when the first Star Destroyer just sort of popped onto the screen. When you get closer, the Star Destroyers look fabulous. The scenery in the spaceport and forest is great, sporting some nice detail. The Falcon looks good, as does the X-Wing.

This game performs just as well in the sound department. All of the familiar themes from the movies are present, and the game does an admirable job with them. The effects are awesome. Tie fighter laser blasts sound exactly like they're supposed to. So does everything else, from the Death Star's turrets to the Falcon's engines as it speeds up. A Chewbacca roar accompanies the selecting of an option. Han Solo says "You're all clear, kid!" when you approach the exhaust port, and Lando Calrissian says "Here goes nothing" as you enter the interior of the second Death Star. A nice touch.

This game is pretty hard. It's not a game you can zip through on your first try. It takes some getting used to, and it takes practice. You're given a limited number of lives, and a few continues. Four-character passwords are given out at the end of each episode. The first level is pretty easy; then the challenges begin. Be prepared to crash into walls many times before mastering the obstacle courses.

There are few details I really like about this game. In some of the levels, you don't crash if you fly into the floor (like, while flying over the surface of the Death Star). Instead, the game just places a limit on how low you can go. You also don't have to worry about crashing into a canyon wall or a side wall of a trench. In some of the levels, your vehicle only takes damage from hitting obstacles (as opposed to an instant death). I like this as well. Of course, a head-on crash with something usually results in an instant death; but not always. I was ramming head-on into trees during the speeder bike chase, and I was only taking damage. Speaking of which, this is the best speeder bike level I've seen in a game. It looks great, plays great, and is a lot of fun.

Completing the game gives a password that unlocks a bonus game. It's an old-fashioned, side-scrolling shoot-em-up where you fly the Falcon and shoot down tie fighters. Pretty cool.

I have just a few complaints with this game. The Star Destroyer pop-up leaves something to be desired. Would've been nicer if you could see it approaching in the distance. The Falcon's dogfight with the tie fighters after the escape from the Death Star is conspicuously absent. And there are some cheap shots near the end as prevalent tie bombers fly into view from behind. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you'll crash into one of them.

All said and done, I had a great time with Flight Of The Falcon. It's a fun shoot-em-up with great graphics, beautiful scenery, awesome sound effects, and some engaging game-play. The faults here are few, and the strengths are many. My verdict: thumbs way up.

Stay Away from this Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: January 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The first level wasn't that hard, but the next three were impossible. And it can get really frustrating. You need to clear the entire movie scenes with space shuttles before getting a code to be able to save the game. It looked pretty interesting on the cover, but when I played it it was as boring as can be. Beware of this game, beware of the fighters.

Portable Star Wars games always fail to please...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: May 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Star Wars video games are infamous for their "hit or miss" reputation. For every Rebel Strike, there's a game like the old NES Star Wars to bring the series' video gaming reputation back down to nothingness. In late 2003/early 2004, Lucas Arts decided to try their hand at making a new portable Star Wars game. Read on for my review of Flight Of The Falcon

PROS:
-IT'S A PORTABLE SHOOTER. There really aren't enough portable shooters these days, so it's good to finally have another one added to the rather small library.
-THERE ARE PASSWORDS TO SAVE YOUR PROGRESS. The passwords make the game a bit easier, and they make it good for if you want to play the game while traveling.

CONS:
-THE GAME IS PAINFULLY REPETITIVE. Essentially, you just point and shoot all the game through. There are different craft in the game, but basically it's just you manning the guns the whole way through.
-THE LEVELS ARE TOO LONG. There are passwords, but they only save your progress at the beginning of a level. The levels are huge, so this doesn't do much good.
-IT'S NOT WORTHY OF THE STAR WARS NAME. Some movie-making companies go the extra mile to make sure that their movies become gaming masterpieces - and unfortunately, the Star Wars film series doesn't get that same luxury.

OVERALL:
In the end this game is painfully generic. If you're interested in it, rent it or borrow it from a friend, but don't waste your hard-earned cash buying it - you'll be disappointed if you actually purchase it. If you want a good Star Wars game, check out any of the ones in the Rogue Squadron series - don't bother with the portable entries.

Worst Game EVER!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: February 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is so boring and hard.I played it for a half an hour and I got bored of it.Dont buy this.I repeat dont buy this.I cant believe I bought this stupid piece of ****.I wasted my money.Dont buy this!

This Game Stinks

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the worst games I've ever played. For example if you don't beat the whole episode and you lose all your continues you go back to the beginning. The game is also almost impossible and you don't even get to be out of your ship! If you want my advice, DON'T BUY THIS GAME!

Beware the dark side. Beware this game.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: December 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I am a sucker for Star Wars, having been programmed to love it at an early age. The screenshots of this game look great, almost like a cut-down "Rogue Squadron," but once you see them in motion, they're a lot less interesting. Worse, the gameplay isn't tweaked at all, you're just running down the clock or shooting x number of enemies until the green bar at the bottom of the screen goes away.

This is yet another lost opportunity for a portable Star Wars game. It's particularly disturbing because this one had so much potential, being set in the "classic trilogy" and featuring Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Pocket Studios, the developer, is on my enemies list now. Not only did they ruin this game, they also bungled their rendition of Midway's Arcade Classics (Defender/Robotron/Joust/Sinistar), which Digital Eclipse could have ported in their sleep. Won't someone *please* give my childhood memories to a company that is less likely to ruin them?

fun flier for the patient

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a good game for anyone who appreciates old arcade games. It's very simple: you fly and shoot things. The story line follows the original Star Wars trilogy, with a number of missions derived from scenes in the movies. You pilot more than just the Falcon, which I suppose is good for variety, but actually disappointed me slightly (only because I love the Falcon and wanted to go through the whole plot as Hans Solo).

I've only had the game for a day, and I still have not passed the first episode. The game is challenging, but personally, I find I learn very quickly, so what seems impossible at first soon becomes manageable. To me, the challenge is welcome, I know this is not something that I will beat in a matter of hours.

While I enjoy the game, I do have a few complaints.

First, as everyone else has mentioned, is the fact that you are only given passwords after each episode. Given that there are only 3 episodes, this seems like a poor design. I don't think that battery save would add to the game, because part of the difficulty of arcade style games is that you can't just stop and start where you please. Starting over is frustrating, but adds to the challenege. What's most frustrating about this game is the length of the episodes. It takes me an almost an hour to get to the end of the first episode, currently, so if I get a game ver in the last level, it's another hour before I can try it again. I feel like the best compromise would perhaps be to have some midpoint in the episode where you were given a password.

The other difficulty is in some of the graphics rendering. I think that most of the graphics are fine, even in the timed missions, but the problem is that many objects become at least partially transparent when you're very near them. This is not good when you're trying to avoid crashing into the objects. I don't know how many times I've thought I was clear of the turret on an Imperial Cruiser and then had my ship explode. However, I find that this is easy enough to adjust to. (But in the fast missions, I do find myself holding the screen closer and squinting a lot.)

So, it is a game with problems, and it certainly is not a game for those spoiled by frequent saving and long storylines, but for those who want some simple action *without* the baggage of a huge story arc, it is a good game. Just look for a used copy.

Run don't walk away from this lemon of a game.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because most Star Wars games are decent. It looked decent on the back, sort of like an updated version of the old vector arcade Star Wars, except using the Falcon instead of an X-Wing.
The first level was not bad, the 2nd is almost impossible. The worst part of he game is there is no battery save and on top of that if you dont complete the entire "movie" sequence of levels, you have to start at the very beginning. One of the worst titles I've ever picked up on GBA, definitely a rent, i'll be trading mine in for sure. Reeks up there with "Disney Party"

Good for Old Schoolers

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I think I speak for a growing number of old school game players who, like me, got the new Gameboy ASP after years of just messing around with emulators and other ways of playing games from the '80s, maybe playing a few games at friends' houses.

With the new sleek look of the new Gameboy, we were drawn to the idea of having great games in our pocket. We've tried a lot of the new titles, but always seem to end up playing the old games on cartidges like "Namco Museum," "Atari Anniversary" and "Activision Anthology." While we really enjoy these games, we wish for a little more of a modern experience while holding on to the old shcool ethos.

Well, I say that this is the best game I have now and it's just great for old schoolers who don't want to spend a lot of time pressing combinations of buttons to change weapons, find things, and "use" things. A straight-ahead shooter, FOTF reminds me a lot of a 3-D Galaga. Shoot your A** off and groove to the theme music.

I've read complaints that the 3-D graphics aren't great, but you know what? It's a Gameboy, get over it, this isn't an X-box. The graphics are amazing for a Gameboy and really draw you into the game.

I've read complaints that the targeting is difficult. I see the targeting as being a lot more like older video games: you actually have to put the target on the the thing you want to shoot in order to destroy it ... sorry newbie game players, you just can't float across something and expect to get it.

The game does get pretty hard and I haven't travelled too far. But, if you have the pass word to unlock all the levels, you basically have a few different games to fool around with -- including the Bonus round that's like an old Atari Defender-style side-shooter.

Overall, I found this game really satisfying. It's got an old school feel with new school graphics and sounds. Some may find it repetitive and boring, but they're the ones who are into reading "plot lines" with their games. Shoot away.

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