Star Wars: Lethal Alliance

How can you ruin a Star Wars game? It's very hard, as I have mentioned before.

Lethal Alliance is a quick stab at making a game that takes place between Episodes III and IV of the Star Wars epic. You play as a street-hardened Twi'lek who is hired by the Rebel Alliance for special ops, many of which you are never briefed for. The graphics are quite horrible. At a time when the PSP has existed for well over a year, the quality of graphics seen on trend-setting games is leagues apart from what is being seen here in Lethal Alliance. To add insult, characters such as Kyle Katarn look drastically different from the Jedi Knight series - which is an egregious mistake. To not have basic continuity of look in the Star Wars games is like a loss of basic courtesy. Imagine if Lara Croft suddenly looked like George Bush. Would that be acceptable? I exaggerate. Luckily, with a majority of well made games, graphics aren't the end all to them. If the gameplay, soundtrack and load times come together well, the game can usually be saved. In the case of Lethal Alliance, we see all the great elements of a Star Wars game and a fun first person fantasy shooter.

The game keeps you on your toes, although its a bit easy, is entertaining and engrossing in its scant content. The pairing of the protagonist, Rianna and her droid makes for cool moves and paired formations. Load times are very good, but not for the kind of graphic quality the game has. The controls certainly have their issues, but nothing too far off to cause frustration and discontent. For the time the game was released to the press (in Summer 2006) and the time it was finally released (December 2006) Ubisoft rushed the game for the holiday season.

Thus, the overall quality comes off as being shabby. This doesn't take away from the fun - especially for the Star Wars fan.