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Star Wars demolition
Someone asked me today if there was a Star Wars game that hasn't been done, or isn't in the works. I'm pretty sure there isn't. We've had Star Wars flight sims, Star Wars adventures, a Star Wars 3D fighter, a Star Wars 3D beat-em-up, a few Star Wars racers. Meanwhile, there's a Star Wars kart game and a Star Wars RPG in the works. Maybe Star Wars Tetris, or Star Wars wrestling, although I worry that mentioning those might just be giving Lucasarts ideas - after all, they've just done Star Wars car combat. To yank myself up out of the pit of cynicism, though, I'd like to note that Star Wars: Demolition is actually a pretty good car combat game, with some strong level design elements and other aspects that take advantage of the Star Wars setting. It's based on the engine developer Luxoflux used for the Vigilante 8 games, but it actually corrects some of the serious problems I had with Vigilante 8: Second Offense. It's not perfect, but there's never been a perfect vehicular combat game, and Demolition does more things right than it gets wrong.
The idea, for those interested in the many shapes into which the Star Wars universe can be tortured in order to plausibly host these sorts of games, is that Jabba the Hutt has replaced the banned sport of podracing with the inexplicably not-banned sport of people running around in cars with guns attached to them and shooting at each other. Said sport takes place in arenas from all around the Star Wars universe, from Hoth to the Death Star, but all the while I'm feeling these strange flashbacks to deserted oil refineries in Arizona...
Gameplay
The main section of Demolition is the Tournament mode, where you fight through four levels against progressively larger fields of opponents in order to win cash and unlock hidden stuff (new vehicles, hidden versus levels, and so on). The single-player and multiplayer modes also let you play one-shot deathmatches, cooperative battles with a friend, or a fun little game called Hunt-a-Droid, where you wander around a level equipped only with your lasers trying to be the one to whack the most harmless little droids.
In your quest to become the champion of Jabba's tournament, the key is mastering your various armaments. The weapons system in Demolition takes away some of the features from Vigilante 8, but it adds a fair bit more once you learn how the charge-up system works. You have four-stage power meters for both your regular and special weapons, so while there are actually only four special weapons to pick up (proton torpedoes, homing missiles, thermal detonator mines, and a tractor beam), there's a good deal more variety in terms of the number of attacks you can perform than you might immediately think. Some of the vehicle-specific special attacks are very cool, too - the snowspeeder grabs its opponents and throws them around with its tow cable, for example.
The weapon balance gets thrown a little out of whack by some of the special weapons and exceptionally powerful attacks, though. The tractor beam sounds like a pretty wimpy power-up in comparison to something like homing missiles and proton torpedoes, but once you learn to use it (or encounter an AI opponent that's got it), it's unusually powerful. It holds an opponent in its grip and stops them moving forward or turning with any kind of speed, so if you have enough weapon power, you can drop back behind them and hold them almost continuously while you plink them to death with your lasers.
That works more often in the one-on-one levels than later on - competition becomes a pretty decent equalizer in the latter half of the tournament mode. Hitting and running becomes much more effective than bulldog tactics, and you have to make more considered use of the shield and weapon recharging. Demolition does away with V8's ammunition and repair system - you now have a single energy reserve for all of your weapons, and your defenses are replenished by stationary charge points rather than repair power-ups scattered around the field. This mixes things up with an extra logistical element, because charging up your energy costs credits, which you have a limited supply of. You earn credits by whacking opponents, but you don't necessarily want to spend them all on energy, because the tournament mode demands that you pay for repairs after each fight, and you have to end the tourney with 10,000 credits if you want to get the best possible result when it comes to unlocking hidden vehicles.
Demolition controls just like Vigilante 8, which is a good thing most of the time if you can get the hang of the outlandishly drifty vehicle behavior. Some of the more original vehicle types may not have been that wise an innovation, though. Floating vehicles like the snowspeeder, landspeeder, and podracer work pretty well within the Vigilante 8 handling model. The cars in V8 controlled like hovercraft to begin with, after all, so this actually makes the physics a little bit more realistic in the new context of the game. However, there are also walking vehicles, like the imperial AT-ST, which don't seem to have been integrated too well into the game. Unlike the standard vehicles, which whim-wham all over the map at high speed, the walkers have a slower top end and they almost stop and turn on a dime, which is practically antithetical to the way one customarily plays these games. That would be fine if they drew an advantage from their individuality, but they don't, really. Instead, they're slower and clumsier in a tight spot, especially since they can't pull off the drifting bootlegger turns that have always been a staple of handling strategy in V8. The supreme coolness of riding around on your own giant Rancor is still there, to be sure, but it's shadowed a little by the fact that he isn't really the most effective vehicle out there.
Graphics
The V8 engine seems to have gotten a little graphical tuning since Second Offense, although it's still just a little bit on the loose side. Level objects occasionally don't feel very well-integrated into the background. You still encounter spots of extremely funky collision detection at points around many of the maps, and the mip-mapping routine that fades in more detailed textures at close range has a pretty jarring effect.
The framerate stays smooth, though, even in the split-screen mode (speaking of which, switch to horizontal split, since vertical split is next to unplayable), and some of the vehicles really are nice to look at. The snowspeeder is a particular favorite (what, you couldn't tell I liked the snowspeeder?), with window textures that reflect the sky and animating airbrakes that signal turns. Some of the other vehicles are of necessity not quite so nice to look at simply because they're so small in comparison (you can't see a lot of detail on something as dinky as the Swoop or the bike-riding Battle Droid), but they're all of them quality designs, and the car damage from V8 carries over into Demolition. Driving the damaged AT-ST around, it's pretty funny to see the busted hatch flapping around in the wind.
The level design is one of the game's biggest highlights. Every stage is a faithful recreation of the movie counterpart, with the plethora of destructible elements that were a V8 trademark, and there are many interactive elements and little scripted events in each stage. On the Death Star, you have to watch out for the giant main cannon; on Hoth, left-over defensive cannon pick you off if you're within range; the Yavin 4 level has a big goofy gold boulder that simultaneously turns you invincible and goes rolling down a hill to squash your opponents. Luxoflux obviously put some time into these levels, adding many different layers to them, and the result helps add replay value to the single- and multiplayer games.
Sound
Nothing like turning a Star Wars game on and hearing that great John Williams theme. There's a song that will always sound stirring, no matter how many times you hear it. Then you play the game proper, where the blasting is accompanied by the strange mutant offspring of a union between the Tatooine cantina music and the generic porno funk of Vigilante 8. This ain't so good, in case that doesn't put a fine enough point on it. The effects suite, on the other hand, takes some neat cues from the movies, including authentic blaster sound effects, squealing droids, and some nicely bizarre voice samples for the menus and each character, although I'm still trying to figure out why the two Rebel snowspeeder pilots sound like they just inhaled a balloon full of helium.
Comments
Praise aside, Star Wars Demolition still hasn't fallen all that far from the tree - in other words, anyone who's played Vigilante 8 will be able to say "this is Vigilante 8, innit?" about five seconds into a game of Demolition. This is not, however, such a bad thing, since (at least in my opinion) V8 was a pretty solid game of car combat to begin with. Demolition isn't just coasting on its license, either - while its inspiration shows through, Luxoflux put some work in to make a decent game of this and add features that make it a little fresher than it might have been.
If V8's particular handling model or car combat in general has proven not to be your cup of tea, the Star Wars license isn't liable to change your mind about either of them. Demolition is a very well-done spiritual successor to the first V8, though, fixing many of the problems with Second Offense, and the snowspeeder is an absolute treat to drive.
PRESENTATION
The requisite effort to fit this into the Star Wars universe has been made, with cool music, art, and FMV. 8.0
GRAPHICS
Better-looking than V8, albeit with many of its graphical glitches still in effect. 7.5
SOUND
Sounds like porn, looks like Star Wars. I don't get it. The effects aren't bad, though. 6.5
GAMEPLAY
The drift-o-matic V8 handling is weird, but it's predictably weird after a little practice, and the weapons system is deep, yet suitably user-friendly. 8.0
LASTING APPEAL
If the core gameplay hooks you, there are more than enough stages, vehicles, and secrets to keep you playing. 8.0
OVERALL SCORE
8.0
Someone asked me today if there was a Star Wars game that hasn't been done, or isn't in the works. I'm pretty sure there isn't. We've had Star Wars flight sims, Star Wars adventures, a Star Wars 3D fighter, a Star Wars 3D beat-em-up, a few Star Wars racers. Meanwhile, there's a Star Wars kart game and a Star Wars RPG in the works. Maybe Star Wars Tetris, or Star Wars wrestling, although I worry that mentioning those might just be giving Lucasarts ideas - after all, they've just done Star Wars car combat. To yank myself up out of the pit of cynicism, though, I'd like to note that Star Wars: Demolition is actually a pretty good car combat game, with some strong level design elements and other aspects that take advantage of the Star Wars setting. It's based on the engine developer Luxoflux used for the Vigilante 8 games, but it actually corrects some of the serious problems I had with Vigilante 8: Second Offense. It's not perfect, but there's never been a perfect vehicular combat game, and Demolition does more things right than it gets wrong.
The idea, for those interested in the many shapes into which the Star Wars universe can be tortured in order to plausibly host these sorts of games, is that Jabba the Hutt has replaced the banned sport of podracing with the inexplicably not-banned sport of people running around in cars with guns attached to them and shooting at each other. Said sport takes place in arenas from all around the Star Wars universe, from Hoth to the Death Star, but all the while I'm feeling these strange flashbacks to deserted oil refineries in Arizona...
Gameplay
The main section of Demolition is the Tournament mode, where you fight through four levels against progressively larger fields of opponents in order to win cash and unlock hidden stuff (new vehicles, hidden versus levels, and so on). The single-player and multiplayer modes also let you play one-shot deathmatches, cooperative battles with a friend, or a fun little game called Hunt-a-Droid, where you wander around a level equipped only with your lasers trying to be the one to whack the most harmless little droids.
In your quest to become the champion of Jabba's tournament, the key is mastering your various armaments. The weapons system in Demolition takes away some of the features from Vigilante 8, but it adds a fair bit more once you learn how the charge-up system works. You have four-stage power meters for both your regular and special weapons, so while there are actually only four special weapons to pick up (proton torpedoes, homing missiles, thermal detonator mines, and a tractor beam), there's a good deal more variety in terms of the number of attacks you can perform than you might immediately think. Some of the vehicle-specific special attacks are very cool, too - the snowspeeder grabs its opponents and throws them around with its tow cable, for example.
The weapon balance gets thrown a little out of whack by some of the special weapons and exceptionally powerful attacks, though. The tractor beam sounds like a pretty wimpy power-up in comparison to something like homing missiles and proton torpedoes, but once you learn to use it (or encounter an AI opponent that's got it), it's unusually powerful. It holds an opponent in its grip and stops them moving forward or turning with any kind of speed, so if you have enough weapon power, you can drop back behind them and hold them almost continuously while you plink them to death with your lasers.
That works more often in the one-on-one levels than later on - competition becomes a pretty decent equalizer in the latter half of the tournament mode. Hitting and running becomes much more effective than bulldog tactics, and you have to make more considered use of the shield and weapon recharging. Demolition does away with V8's ammunition and repair system - you now have a single energy reserve for all of your weapons, and your defenses are replenished by stationary charge points rather than repair power-ups scattered around the field. This mixes things up with an extra logistical element, because charging up your energy costs credits, which you have a limited supply of. You earn credits by whacking opponents, but you don't necessarily want to spend them all on energy, because the tournament mode demands that you pay for repairs after each fight, and you have to end the tourney with 10,000 credits if you want to get the best possible result when it comes to unlocking hidden vehicles.
Demolition controls just like Vigilante 8, which is a good thing most of the time if you can get the hang of the outlandishly drifty vehicle behavior. Some of the more original vehicle types may not have been that wise an innovation, though. Floating vehicles like the snowspeeder, landspeeder, and podracer work pretty well within the Vigilante 8 handling model. The cars in V8 controlled like hovercraft to begin with, after all, so this actually makes the physics a little bit more realistic in the new context of the game. However, there are also walking vehicles, like the imperial AT-ST, which don't seem to have been integrated too well into the game. Unlike the standard vehicles, which whim-wham all over the map at high speed, the walkers have a slower top end and they almost stop and turn on a dime, which is practically antithetical to the way one customarily plays these games. That would be fine if they drew an advantage from their individuality, but they don't, really. Instead, they're slower and clumsier in a tight spot, especially since they can't pull off the drifting bootlegger turns that have always been a staple of handling strategy in V8. The supreme coolness of riding around on your own giant Rancor is still there, to be sure, but it's shadowed a little by the fact that he isn't really the most effective vehicle out there.
Graphics
The V8 engine seems to have gotten a little graphical tuning since Second Offense, although it's still just a little bit on the loose side. Level objects occasionally don't feel very well-integrated into the background. You still encounter spots of extremely funky collision detection at points around many of the maps, and the mip-mapping routine that fades in more detailed textures at close range has a pretty jarring effect.
The framerate stays smooth, though, even in the split-screen mode (speaking of which, switch to horizontal split, since vertical split is next to unplayable), and some of the vehicles really are nice to look at. The snowspeeder is a particular favorite (what, you couldn't tell I liked the snowspeeder?), with window textures that reflect the sky and animating airbrakes that signal turns. Some of the other vehicles are of necessity not quite so nice to look at simply because they're so small in comparison (you can't see a lot of detail on something as dinky as the Swoop or the bike-riding Battle Droid), but they're all of them quality designs, and the car damage from V8 carries over into Demolition. Driving the damaged AT-ST around, it's pretty funny to see the busted hatch flapping around in the wind.
The level design is one of the game's biggest highlights. Every stage is a faithful recreation of the movie counterpart, with the plethora of destructible elements that were a V8 trademark, and there are many interactive elements and little scripted events in each stage. On the Death Star, you have to watch out for the giant main cannon; on Hoth, left-over defensive cannon pick you off if you're within range; the Yavin 4 level has a big goofy gold boulder that simultaneously turns you invincible and goes rolling down a hill to squash your opponents. Luxoflux obviously put some time into these levels, adding many different layers to them, and the result helps add replay value to the single- and multiplayer games.
Sound
Nothing like turning a Star Wars game on and hearing that great John Williams theme. There's a song that will always sound stirring, no matter how many times you hear it. Then you play the game proper, where the blasting is accompanied by the strange mutant offspring of a union between the Tatooine cantina music and the generic porno funk of Vigilante 8. This ain't so good, in case that doesn't put a fine enough point on it. The effects suite, on the other hand, takes some neat cues from the movies, including authentic blaster sound effects, squealing droids, and some nicely bizarre voice samples for the menus and each character, although I'm still trying to figure out why the two Rebel snowspeeder pilots sound like they just inhaled a balloon full of helium.
Comments
Praise aside, Star Wars Demolition still hasn't fallen all that far from the tree - in other words, anyone who's played Vigilante 8 will be able to say "this is Vigilante 8, innit?" about five seconds into a game of Demolition. This is not, however, such a bad thing, since (at least in my opinion) V8 was a pretty solid game of car combat to begin with. Demolition isn't just coasting on its license, either - while its inspiration shows through, Luxoflux put some work in to make a decent game of this and add features that make it a little fresher than it might have been.
If V8's particular handling model or car combat in general has proven not to be your cup of tea, the Star Wars license isn't liable to change your mind about either of them. Demolition is a very well-done spiritual successor to the first V8, though, fixing many of the problems with Second Offense, and the snowspeeder is an absolute treat to drive.
PRESENTATION
The requisite effort to fit this into the Star Wars universe has been made, with cool music, art, and FMV. 8.0
GRAPHICS
Better-looking than V8, albeit with many of its graphical glitches still in effect. 7.5
SOUND
Sounds like porn, looks like Star Wars. I don't get it. The effects aren't bad, though. 6.5
GAMEPLAY
The drift-o-matic V8 handling is weird, but it's predictably weird after a little practice, and the weapons system is deep, yet suitably user-friendly. 8.0
LASTING APPEAL
If the core gameplay hooks you, there are more than enough stages, vehicles, and secrets to keep you playing. 8.0
OVERALL SCORE
8.0
Star Wars demolition
Someone asked me today if there was a Star Wars game that hasn't been done, or isn't in the works. I'm pretty sure there isn't. We've had Star Wars flight sims, Star Wars adventures, a Star Wars 3D fighter, a Star Wars 3D beat-em-up, a few Star Wars racers. Meanwhile, there's a Star Wars kart game and a Star Wars RPG in the works. Maybe Star Wars Tetris, or Star Wars wrestling, although I worry that mentioning those might just be giving Lucasarts ideas - after all, they've just done Star Wars car combat. To yank myself up out of the pit of cynicism, though, I'd like to note that Star Wars: Demolition is actually a pretty good car combat game, with some strong level design elements and other aspects that take advantage of the Star Wars setting. It's based on the engine developer Luxoflux used for the Vigilante 8 games, but it actually corrects some of the serious problems I had with Vigilante 8: Second Offense. It's not perfect, but there's never been a perfect vehicular combat game, and Demolition does more things right than it gets wrong.
The idea, for those interested in the many shapes into which the Star Wars universe can be tortured in order to plausibly host these sorts of games, is that Jabba the Hutt has replaced the banned sport of podracing with the inexplicably not-banned sport of people running around in cars with guns attached to them and shooting at each other. Said sport takes place in arenas from all around the Star Wars universe, from Hoth to the Death Star, but all the while I'm feeling these strange flashbacks to deserted oil refineries in Arizona...
Gameplay
The main section of Demolition is the Tournament mode, where you fight through four levels against progressively larger fields of opponents in order to win cash and unlock hidden stuff (new vehicles, hidden versus levels, and so on). The single-player and multiplayer modes also let you play one-shot deathmatches, cooperative battles with a friend, or a fun little game called Hunt-a-Droid, where you wander around a level equipped only with your lasers trying to be the one to whack the most harmless little droids.
In your quest to become the champion of Jabba's tournament, the key is mastering your various armaments. The weapons system in Demolition takes away some of the features from Vigilante 8, but it adds a fair bit more once you learn how the charge-up system works. You have four-stage power meters for both your regular and special weapons, so while there are actually only four special weapons to pick up (proton torpedoes, homing missiles, thermal detonator mines, and a tractor beam), there's a good deal more variety in terms of the number of attacks you can perform than you might immediately think. Some of the vehicle-specific special attacks are very cool, too - the snowspeeder grabs its opponents and throws them around with its tow cable, for example.
The weapon balance gets thrown a little out of whack by some of the special weapons and exceptionally powerful attacks, though. The tractor beam sounds like a pretty wimpy power-up in comparison to something like homing missiles and proton torpedoes, but once you learn to use it (or encounter an AI opponent that's got it), it's unusually powerful. It holds an opponent in its grip and stops them moving forward or turning with any kind of speed, so if you have enough weapon power, you can drop back behind them and hold them almost continuously while you plink them to death with your lasers.
That works more often in the one-on-one levels than later on - competition becomes a pretty decent equalizer in the latter half of the tournament mode. Hitting and running becomes much more effective than bulldog tactics, and you have to make more considered use of the shield and weapon recharging. Demolition does away with V8's ammunition and repair system - you now have a single energy reserve for all of your weapons, and your defenses are replenished by stationary charge points rather than repair power-ups scattered around the field. This mixes things up with an extra logistical element, because charging up your energy costs credits, which you have a limited supply of. You earn credits by whacking opponents, but you don't necessarily want to spend them all on energy, because the tournament mode demands that you pay for repairs after each fight, and you have to end the tourney with 10,000 credits if you want to get the best possible result when it comes to unlocking hidden vehicles.
Demolition controls just like Vigilante 8, which is a good thing most of the time if you can get the hang of the outlandishly drifty vehicle behavior. Some of the more original vehicle types may not have been that wise an innovation, though. Floating vehicles like the snowspeeder, landspeeder, and podracer work pretty well within the Vigilante 8 handling model. The cars in V8 controlled like hovercraft to begin with, after all, so this actually makes the physics a little bit more realistic in the new context of the game. However, there are also walking vehicles, like the imperial AT-ST, which don't seem to have been integrated too well into the game. Unlike the standard vehicles, which whim-wham all over the map at high speed, the walkers have a slower top end and they almost stop and turn on a dime, which is practically antithetical to the way one customarily plays these games. That would be fine if they drew an advantage from their individuality, but they don't, really. Instead, they're slower and clumsier in a tight spot, especially since they can't pull off the drifting bootlegger turns that have always been a staple of handling strategy in V8. The supreme coolness of riding around on your own giant Rancor is still there, to be sure, but it's shadowed a little by the fact that he isn't really the most effective vehicle out there.
Graphics
The V8 engine seems to have gotten a little graphical tuning since Second Offense, although it's still just a little bit on the loose side. Level objects occasionally don't feel very well-integrated into the background. You still encounter spots of extremely funky collision detection at points around many of the maps, and the mip-mapping routine that fades in more detailed textures at close range has a pretty jarring effect.
The framerate stays smooth, though, even in the split-screen mode (speaking of which, switch to horizontal split, since vertical split is next to unplayable), and some of the vehicles really are nice to look at. The snowspeeder is a particular favorite (what, you couldn't tell I liked the snowspeeder?), with window textures that reflect the sky and animating airbrakes that signal turns. Some of the other vehicles are of necessity not quite so nice to look at simply because they're so small in comparison (you can't see a lot of detail on something as dinky as the Swoop or the bike-riding Battle Droid), but they're all of them quality designs, and the car damage from V8 carries over into Demolition. Driving the damaged AT-ST around, it's pretty funny to see the busted hatch flapping around in the wind.
The level design is one of the game's biggest highlights. Every stage is a faithful recreation of the movie counterpart, with the plethora of destructible elements that were a V8 trademark, and there are many interactive elements and little scripted events in each stage. On the Death Star, you have to watch out for the giant main cannon; on Hoth, left-over defensive cannon pick you off if you're within range; the Yavin 4 level has a big goofy gold boulder that simultaneously turns you invincible and goes rolling down a hill to squash your opponents. Luxoflux obviously put some time into these levels, adding many different layers to them, and the result helps add replay value to the single- and multiplayer games.
Sound
Nothing like turning a Star Wars game on and hearing that great John Williams theme. There's a song that will always sound stirring, no matter how many times you hear it. Then you play the game proper, where the blasting is accompanied by the strange mutant offspring of a union between the Tatooine cantina music and the generic porno funk of Vigilante 8. This ain't so good, in case that doesn't put a fine enough point on it. The effects suite, on the other hand, takes some neat cues from the movies, including authentic blaster sound effects, squealing droids, and some nicely bizarre voice samples for the menus and each character, although I'm still trying to figure out why the two Rebel snowspeeder pilots sound like they just inhaled a balloon full of helium.
Comments
Praise aside, Star Wars Demolition still hasn't fallen all that far from the tree - in other words, anyone who's played Vigilante 8 will be able to say "this is Vigilante 8, innit?" about five seconds into a game of Demolition. This is not, however, such a bad thing, since (at least in my opinion) V8 was a pretty solid game of car combat to begin with. Demolition isn't just coasting on its license, either - while its inspiration shows through, Luxoflux put some work in to make a decent game of this and add features that make it a little fresher than it might have been.
If V8's particular handling model or car combat in general has proven not to be your cup of tea, the Star Wars license isn't liable to change your mind about either of them. Demolition is a very well-done spiritual successor to the first V8, though, fixing many of the problems with Second Offense, and the snowspeeder is an absolute treat to drive.
PRESENTATION
The requisite effort to fit this into the Star Wars universe has been made, with cool music, art, and FMV. 8.0
GRAPHICS
Better-looking than V8, albeit with many of its graphical glitches still in effect. 7.5
SOUND
Sounds like porn, looks like Star Wars. I don't get it. The effects aren't bad, though. 6.5
GAMEPLAY
The drift-o-matic V8 handling is weird, but it's predictably weird after a little practice, and the weapons system is deep, yet suitably user-friendly. 8.0
LASTING APPEAL
If the core gameplay hooks you, there are more than enough stages, vehicles, and secrets to keep you playing. 8.0
OVERALL SCORE
8.0
Someone asked me today if there was a Star Wars game that hasn't been done, or isn't in the works. I'm pretty sure there isn't. We've had Star Wars flight sims, Star Wars adventures, a Star Wars 3D fighter, a Star Wars 3D beat-em-up, a few Star Wars racers. Meanwhile, there's a Star Wars kart game and a Star Wars RPG in the works. Maybe Star Wars Tetris, or Star Wars wrestling, although I worry that mentioning those might just be giving Lucasarts ideas - after all, they've just done Star Wars car combat. To yank myself up out of the pit of cynicism, though, I'd like to note that Star Wars: Demolition is actually a pretty good car combat game, with some strong level design elements and other aspects that take advantage of the Star Wars setting. It's based on the engine developer Luxoflux used for the Vigilante 8 games, but it actually corrects some of the serious problems I had with Vigilante 8: Second Offense. It's not perfect, but there's never been a perfect vehicular combat game, and Demolition does more things right than it gets wrong.
The idea, for those interested in the many shapes into which the Star Wars universe can be tortured in order to plausibly host these sorts of games, is that Jabba the Hutt has replaced the banned sport of podracing with the inexplicably not-banned sport of people running around in cars with guns attached to them and shooting at each other. Said sport takes place in arenas from all around the Star Wars universe, from Hoth to the Death Star, but all the while I'm feeling these strange flashbacks to deserted oil refineries in Arizona...
Gameplay
The main section of Demolition is the Tournament mode, where you fight through four levels against progressively larger fields of opponents in order to win cash and unlock hidden stuff (new vehicles, hidden versus levels, and so on). The single-player and multiplayer modes also let you play one-shot deathmatches, cooperative battles with a friend, or a fun little game called Hunt-a-Droid, where you wander around a level equipped only with your lasers trying to be the one to whack the most harmless little droids.
In your quest to become the champion of Jabba's tournament, the key is mastering your various armaments. The weapons system in Demolition takes away some of the features from Vigilante 8, but it adds a fair bit more once you learn how the charge-up system works. You have four-stage power meters for both your regular and special weapons, so while there are actually only four special weapons to pick up (proton torpedoes, homing missiles, thermal detonator mines, and a tractor beam), there's a good deal more variety in terms of the number of attacks you can perform than you might immediately think. Some of the vehicle-specific special attacks are very cool, too - the snowspeeder grabs its opponents and throws them around with its tow cable, for example.
The weapon balance gets thrown a little out of whack by some of the special weapons and exceptionally powerful attacks, though. The tractor beam sounds like a pretty wimpy power-up in comparison to something like homing missiles and proton torpedoes, but once you learn to use it (or encounter an AI opponent that's got it), it's unusually powerful. It holds an opponent in its grip and stops them moving forward or turning with any kind of speed, so if you have enough weapon power, you can drop back behind them and hold them almost continuously while you plink them to death with your lasers.
That works more often in the one-on-one levels than later on - competition becomes a pretty decent equalizer in the latter half of the tournament mode. Hitting and running becomes much more effective than bulldog tactics, and you have to make more considered use of the shield and weapon recharging. Demolition does away with V8's ammunition and repair system - you now have a single energy reserve for all of your weapons, and your defenses are replenished by stationary charge points rather than repair power-ups scattered around the field. This mixes things up with an extra logistical element, because charging up your energy costs credits, which you have a limited supply of. You earn credits by whacking opponents, but you don't necessarily want to spend them all on energy, because the tournament mode demands that you pay for repairs after each fight, and you have to end the tourney with 10,000 credits if you want to get the best possible result when it comes to unlocking hidden vehicles.
Demolition controls just like Vigilante 8, which is a good thing most of the time if you can get the hang of the outlandishly drifty vehicle behavior. Some of the more original vehicle types may not have been that wise an innovation, though. Floating vehicles like the snowspeeder, landspeeder, and podracer work pretty well within the Vigilante 8 handling model. The cars in V8 controlled like hovercraft to begin with, after all, so this actually makes the physics a little bit more realistic in the new context of the game. However, there are also walking vehicles, like the imperial AT-ST, which don't seem to have been integrated too well into the game. Unlike the standard vehicles, which whim-wham all over the map at high speed, the walkers have a slower top end and they almost stop and turn on a dime, which is practically antithetical to the way one customarily plays these games. That would be fine if they drew an advantage from their individuality, but they don't, really. Instead, they're slower and clumsier in a tight spot, especially since they can't pull off the drifting bootlegger turns that have always been a staple of handling strategy in V8. The supreme coolness of riding around on your own giant Rancor is still there, to be sure, but it's shadowed a little by the fact that he isn't really the most effective vehicle out there.
Graphics
The V8 engine seems to have gotten a little graphical tuning since Second Offense, although it's still just a little bit on the loose side. Level objects occasionally don't feel very well-integrated into the background. You still encounter spots of extremely funky collision detection at points around many of the maps, and the mip-mapping routine that fades in more detailed textures at close range has a pretty jarring effect.
The framerate stays smooth, though, even in the split-screen mode (speaking of which, switch to horizontal split, since vertical split is next to unplayable), and some of the vehicles really are nice to look at. The snowspeeder is a particular favorite (what, you couldn't tell I liked the snowspeeder?), with window textures that reflect the sky and animating airbrakes that signal turns. Some of the other vehicles are of necessity not quite so nice to look at simply because they're so small in comparison (you can't see a lot of detail on something as dinky as the Swoop or the bike-riding Battle Droid), but they're all of them quality designs, and the car damage from V8 carries over into Demolition. Driving the damaged AT-ST around, it's pretty funny to see the busted hatch flapping around in the wind.
The level design is one of the game's biggest highlights. Every stage is a faithful recreation of the movie counterpart, with the plethora of destructible elements that were a V8 trademark, and there are many interactive elements and little scripted events in each stage. On the Death Star, you have to watch out for the giant main cannon; on Hoth, left-over defensive cannon pick you off if you're within range; the Yavin 4 level has a big goofy gold boulder that simultaneously turns you invincible and goes rolling down a hill to squash your opponents. Luxoflux obviously put some time into these levels, adding many different layers to them, and the result helps add replay value to the single- and multiplayer games.
Sound
Nothing like turning a Star Wars game on and hearing that great John Williams theme. There's a song that will always sound stirring, no matter how many times you hear it. Then you play the game proper, where the blasting is accompanied by the strange mutant offspring of a union between the Tatooine cantina music and the generic porno funk of Vigilante 8. This ain't so good, in case that doesn't put a fine enough point on it. The effects suite, on the other hand, takes some neat cues from the movies, including authentic blaster sound effects, squealing droids, and some nicely bizarre voice samples for the menus and each character, although I'm still trying to figure out why the two Rebel snowspeeder pilots sound like they just inhaled a balloon full of helium.
Comments
Praise aside, Star Wars Demolition still hasn't fallen all that far from the tree - in other words, anyone who's played Vigilante 8 will be able to say "this is Vigilante 8, innit?" about five seconds into a game of Demolition. This is not, however, such a bad thing, since (at least in my opinion) V8 was a pretty solid game of car combat to begin with. Demolition isn't just coasting on its license, either - while its inspiration shows through, Luxoflux put some work in to make a decent game of this and add features that make it a little fresher than it might have been.
If V8's particular handling model or car combat in general has proven not to be your cup of tea, the Star Wars license isn't liable to change your mind about either of them. Demolition is a very well-done spiritual successor to the first V8, though, fixing many of the problems with Second Offense, and the snowspeeder is an absolute treat to drive.
PRESENTATION
The requisite effort to fit this into the Star Wars universe has been made, with cool music, art, and FMV. 8.0
GRAPHICS
Better-looking than V8, albeit with many of its graphical glitches still in effect. 7.5
SOUND
Sounds like porn, looks like Star Wars. I don't get it. The effects aren't bad, though. 6.5
GAMEPLAY
The drift-o-matic V8 handling is weird, but it's predictably weird after a little practice, and the weapons system is deep, yet suitably user-friendly. 8.0
LASTING APPEAL
If the core gameplay hooks you, there are more than enough stages, vehicles, and secrets to keep you playing. 8.0
OVERALL SCORE
8.0
What is this? The game review frenzy?!
THE NERVE!!! HE COPIED IT OFF IGN!!!!! Although I am one of his best mates, and I do live 2 minutes away from him, and I was round his house when he did it, so I'm not going to post this message.
A tip for the future...
... put reviews in the REVEIWS section not the FUTURE OF GAMING section please.
Either that or keep it brief atleast.
... put reviews in the REVEIWS section not the FUTURE OF GAMING section please.
Either that or keep it brief atleast.