CaptainD’s Freeware Game Digest #1 - Battle for Endor and CDFGD Index
Dec 04 '03 (Updated Oct 20 '07)
The Bottom Line A great game for Star Wars fans.
The Index for all my other Freeware Game reviews is also here...
(Index to other freeware game reviews at the end of this review)
CaptainD’s Freeware Game Digest #1 - Battle for Endor
Updated 7th December 2003 after I received an email back from the game's author.
I came across this game on www.gamehipppo.com (simply the best place to get freeware games, and each one given a rating and brief review) yesterday, and have already spent far too long playing it.
As you may have guessed it is heavily based on the Return of the Jedi movie – specifically, the attack on the new Death Star. You play an X-wing pilot (well, 3 pilots technically as you have 3 lives) in a mission-based role. At first you have to provide cover for the transporters and other larger craft in the fleet, then in the second stage you have to try to take out the Star Destroyers, and so on.
There is much more strategy involved here than in your average shoot-‘em-up. Just staying alive for a while can be tough, even on the “Easy” difficulty level. But this is a good thing really as you don’t want to sail through every level without any problems at all. It’s a shame you only get 3 ships, as I felt that the lack of progress could get too frustrating at times.
The intro sequence, and the way that the game follows the plot of the film, is done superbly – I was very impressed. It does help if you like the Star Wars films, but it stands up pretty well even if you don’t. In addition to the fleet and missions, you have three main characters to keep an eye on – Admiral Ackbar (Home One), Lando Calrission (Millenial Falcon), and Wedge (X=Wing). These all appear on your radar and will call for help if they’re in real trouble – in which case you’d better get your butt over there pronto, since if one of them dies, the game is over.
And that’s what makes this game special – the fact that the battle goes on around you and you’re just a small part of it, yet the role you play never appears insignificant – there’s always too much going on for that, and keeping your own skin alive is a full-time occupation! It’s a refreshing change from all your R-type-esque “sole pilot against the alien hordes” type of scenario.
The controls are fairly intuitive, with mouse for movement, laser fire, and torpedoes, with keyboard controls for a few other things. A nice option is being able to switch between 3 laser modes – single fire, double fire, or quad-fire – allowing you to dispatch a Tie Fighter with a single well-aimed blast of the quad, or having rapid firing with the single, or a compromise with the last.
Overall this is an excellent game, perhaps a tad on the difficult side, but that’s better than being too easy. I’m not sure what LucasFilm would say about this game, but the readme file states very clearly that this is a non-profit venture and all copyrights are retained by Lucasfilm, so I don’t think they’d be too worried about it. Freeware games based on films / other games are always a tricky subject as far as legalities are concerned, and some have been banned in the past. I hope this game doesn’t suffer that fate, as it’s really a tribute to the Star Wars films and would probably increase interest in the commercial Star Wars games rather than diminish them.
Final Ratings
Graphics: – 8/10 – the 3D is nice but not brilliant. The ship models are fairly simple but are pretty authentic to those in the film
Sound: – 9/10 – lots of samples from the film and atmospheric sound effects.
Playability: - 7/10 – fairly easy to play but a bit too much on the tough side – and that’s even in “Easy” mode!
Longevity: - 8/10 – because of the difficulty and number / variety of missions, it’ll keep you going for a good while yet.
Replay Value: - 7/10 – difficult to say – it depends how good you are at it. I can see some people giving up out of frustration at not making much progress through the levels, but for those who manage to master the game, I can see them coming back a lot. I’m not yet that good at it, but I’ll certainly be going back for more!
Overall Rating: - 8/10 - a very good game but could have been slightly better. Big bonus points for the originality of the game style and effectively turning the film into a game.
This game was made using a program called TrueVision3D – if you’re interested in 3D modelling, the site is: http://www.truevision3d.com
System Requirements
DirectX 8.1
1.4 Ghz and higher processors (you can experience lower framerates on slower processors) (On my 2.4GHz the frame rate was great, have asked the author what the lowest known spec it has been run on is - he says it should run at 60 fps and the lowest tested on is a 1.4GHz. But it should look okay on lower ones, if anyone's tried it on a lower processor speed please email me and I'll update the review again.)
3D Graphics Card (not sure what memory requirements are for the 3D, miine’s a GeForce4 with 64MB but I’m guessing you’ll need at least 16mb? I emailed the author to find out - well he says that since the game doesn't use textures, it should be fine on less than 10mb - so it should be okay on anything from a Voodoo 2 (8mb up - again if anyone's tried it on a lower system, let me know if it worked!)
Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP (mine ran on XP with no problems whatsoever)
Download Size: - 11.5mb
Where to get it: - http://www.theforce.net/games/apps/boendor/index.shtml
Note
I’m planning to do a series of freeware game reviews since… well, they’re what I play most of the time as I can’t afford to go out and buy them!! So if you enjoyed this review, please leave a comment so I can gauge the general consensus as to whether I should write more.
See also my The Top Ten Freeware Graphical Adventure list.
Thanks for reading,
Dave
Copyright 2004 Dave Seaman
Please feel free to link to this article. If you wish to quote from it, please feel free but I would appreciate it if you also include a link.
See Also:
Jedi Academy from the Jedi Knights series, published by LucasArts.
Knights of the Old Republic, also by LucasArts, the first real attempt at a Star Wars RPG.
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CDFGD Index
#2 - "Shoot" (Japanese Shoot-'em-up, wannabe flight simulator)
#3 - "Diver Down" (Excellent, original RPG)
#4 - Battle of Yavin (Bruno strikes back with this tremendous game based on the last sequence of the first (proper first, I mean) Star Wars film.)
#5 - Ahriman's Prophecy - another excellent RPG, more traditional than "Diver Down", 50 hours play time!!
#6 - The Director's Chair - there's a real retro feel to this text-only management game!
#7 - Maniac Mansion Deluxe - the mother of all point & click graphical adventure games lives again!
#8 - DuzzQuest - a hilarious adventure game, albeit rather too short :-(
#9 - Nathan's Second Chance - another whacky adventure game, wish it was longer!
See also: My Top Ten Freeware Adventure Games (September 2007 Edition)
Star Wars Computer Games
Knights of the Old Republic
Knights of the Old Republic 2: Sith Lords
Jedi Academy
LEGO Star Wars
LEGO Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy
Star Wars Films (The Original Trilogy)
A New Hope (Episode IV)
The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V)
Return of the Jedi (Episode VI)
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