Starfighter served as a key text for my childhood; being released during prequel-mania and scratching my itch for Star Wars in a pre-Battlefront world. In a land of derivative and cheap Phantom Menace tie-in games, such as Jedi Battles (2000) and Obi-Wan (2001), Starfighter stood out by bringing hundreds of ground and air units onscreen at once on next-generation technology. Much of this appeal is drawn from novelty, both at the technology and a hugely popular film franchise, and so I was curious to see how Starfighter would hold up 23 years later once the dust had settled.

Gameplay-wise, the initial feelings of speed make the first few missions a blast. Your starfighter feels responsive, and flying through Naboo’s rural canyons is a great introduction to the speeds your ship can reach. However, your Starfighter feels notably light, as the sound FX are far too muted to create any real feeling of power. Collisions with geometry also cause you to bounce back at the opposite angle, and your Starfighter’s drag feels floaty rather than a real fight against turbulence. The campaign can also be completed in under 2 hours, with some missions running as tight as 3 minutes.

Whilst an achievement for its day, few people are desperate to witness technically impressive PS2 graphics nowadays. In fact, unless you have a taste for running old games at absurdly high frame rates (this one hits the thousands) Starfighter’s presentation might not impress. The PNG space backgrounds, which would sell the impression of depth at 640x480, reveal themselves to be noticeably flat images at any resolution above this. The starfighters do still look brilliant, however, and ground units retain impressive levels of detail and geometry despite the game showing 50+ on screen at any given moment.

Starfighter’s PC port is admittedly incredibly barebones. The options menu lets you input cheat codes and adjust some volume mixers, but there are no graphics or control options avaliable. This is a major challenge because, while the game recommends you play with a controller, the default gamepad controls missing several crucial bindings including switching targets, which is essential for managing the game’s large-scale battles. The sensitivity is also far, far too low - meaning you’ll rarely catch up to enemies and spend most missions spinning around desperately trying to find the enemies whizzing past you.

In my opinion, Starfighter is too lightweight on content and depth to recommend in the modern era. If you’re really keen for a better version, opt for both PS2-emulation, which will grant you widescreen hacks and higher resolutions, and perhaps skip to the better sequel: Jedi Starfighter.

[H3] Starfighter’s fast-paced arcade action is fun for a few levels, but its simplicity wears thin shortly after. [/H3] Starfighter served as a key text for my childhood; being released during prequel-mania and scratching my itch for Star Wars in a pre-Battlefront world. In a land of derivative and cheap Phantom Menace tie-in games, such as Jedi Battles (2000) and Obi-Wan (2001), Starfighter stood out by bringing hundreds of ground and air units onscreen at once on next-generation technology. Much of this appeal is drawn from novelty, both at the technology and a hugely popular film franchise, and so I was curious to see how Starfighter would hold up 23 years later once the dust had settled. Gameplay-wise, the initial feelings of speed make the first few missions a blast. Your starfighter feels responsive, and flying through Naboo’s rural canyons is a great introduction to the speeds your ship can reach. However, your Starfighter feels notably light, as the sound FX are far too muted to create any real feeling of power. Collisions with geometry also cause you to bounce back at the opposite angle, and your Starfighter’s drag feels floaty rather than a real fight against turbulence. The campaign can also be completed in under 2 hours, with some missions running as tight as 3 minutes. Whilst an achievement for its day, few people are desperate to witness technically impressive PS2 graphics nowadays. In fact, unless you have a taste for running old games at absurdly high frame rates (this one hits the thousands) Starfighter’s presentation might not impress. The PNG space backgrounds, which would sell the impression of depth at 640x480, reveal themselves to be noticeably flat images at any resolution above this. The starfighters do still look brilliant, however, and ground units retain impressive levels of detail and geometry despite the game showing 50+ on screen at any given moment. Starfighter’s PC port is admittedly incredibly barebones. The options menu lets you input cheat codes and adjust some volume mixers, but there are no graphics or control options avaliable. This is a major challenge because, while the game recommends you play with a controller, the default gamepad controls missing several [i] crucial [/i] bindings including switching targets, which is essential for managing the game’s large-scale battles. The sensitivity is also far, far too low - meaning you’ll rarely catch up to enemies and spend most missions spinning around desperately trying to find the enemies whizzing past you. In my opinion, Starfighter is too lightweight on content and depth to recommend in the modern era. If you’re really keen for a better version, opt for both PS2-emulation, which will grant you widescreen hacks and higher resolutions, and perhaps skip to the better sequel: Jedi Starfighter.