C&VG


Return Of The Jedi
By Domark
Atari ST

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #86

Return Of The Jedi

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, a powerful regime known as the Atari Corporation produced a series of massive coin-op games - Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. Meanwhile, in far off Wimbledon, a small, revolutionary outfit, Domark, managed to infiltrate the Atari HQ and escape with the home computer licences for these games. Over the past year, Domark has successfully converted the first two - but now can it pull off its third and most difficult mission, making a good job out of Return Of The Jedi, and thus makes the universe a safer place?

The first section takes place in the forest of Endor, where you (as the Princess Leia - no sexism here buddies) race along a diagonally scrolling pathway on a high-tech speederbike avoiding the copious forestry and keeping your eyes peeled for the Imperial Stormtroopers who wait behind the trees like evil speed cops.

The scrolling is super smooth and the sprites and backdrop are good enough, but this section is let down by a couple of little faults. First of all, the joystick control is sloppy, making controlling the speederbike into a little too fine an art for my liking, and second the action scrolls by at a fixed speed - pushing forward rushes the player towards the top of the screen, but once there the action returns to its normal pace. But for all that, this is a compulsive enough task, finishing only with Princess Leia reaches the Ewoks' base camp to be greeted by an ecstatic R2D2 and C3PO.

Return Of The Jedi

At this point your body changes dramatically. You grow by about three feet and develop a nasty bodily hair problem - that's right, you're Chewbacca the Wookie! Things aren't going too well for old Chewie, and he's at the controls of an Imperial Scout Walker and attempting to take it to a bunker to relieve a pretty desperate Han Solo.

Once again the background scrolls diagonally (although this time it's from bottom right to top left) as Chewie attempts to avoid or destroy oncoming logs and boulders. During waves two and three a 'split wave' effect comes into operation, with the action switching at crucial points from the forest to the Death Star where Lando Calrissian is taking the Millenium Falcon on a do or die mission to destroy the central reactor.

Lando also has to battle along a diagonally scrolling landscape, with Imperial fighters in hot pursuit and dangerous protrusions jutting from every wall. The action gets a touch hectic at this point, as you have to keep a close eye both in front of the Falcon for obstacles and behind for the enemy.

Return Of The Jedi

It's difficult to decide whether Jedi is a good finish to the Star Wars series or some kind of space turkey.

The presentation is up to Domark's usual high standards, with a choice of three difficulty levels, demo mode, high score table, etc.

Return Of The Jedi is probably not as good a game as either of its predecessors, but it is a good conversion and an adequate game in its own right.