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lieselstarwarsgamesLast time, we flew to landing platforms, pulled levers, and used torpedoes. Seriously, that was the whole level. Will the next one be any better?
We’re at the “Destroy Malevolence” episode – yes, they skipped the middle part of the story arc, but at this point I ain’t complaining. After the opening cutscene of Padme and 3PO getting captured when their ship gets pulled into the Malevolence’s tractor beam, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and R2 dock the Twilight at the Malevolence to rescue her.
Whew, it looks like an exploration level – thank GOD. The ship’s on fire and rumbles every few seconds, which is actually a nice touch. Needless to say, don’t touch the fire or you’ll break apart real fast.
There’s a clone activation panel here, but we didn’t bring any clones.
Well, make your way down the hall and oh look, it’s the subway!
They actually remembered the subway from the episode, I’m impressed. Yeah, that’s a sign of how well this game has followed the source material when I’m actually impressed that they remembered the subway. Have R2 fly over to the activation panel to bring the train over, but of course it will have some super battle droids riding on it that you’ll need to take care of.
There’s another set of tracks we have to get across, but first we have to stop the train so it won’t run us over (and so the tracks don’t electrocute us). By the way, I love the train’s light. I don’t know why, but I do.
To stop this train, Anakin or Obi-Wan needs to use the Force to carry R2 over to the platform with the activation panel. There are a bunch of crates blocking the panel, but there’s also a conveniently-placed switch that R2 can stand on to make a crane sweep the crates away.
There’s still a gap (remember the repeated “mind the gap” announcement in the episode?) between us and the next track, so let’s use the Force on this platform and move it to where we can use it as a stepping stone (by the way, I love the battle droids working on construction).
Oh, and on the next platform there’s one of those vents. Floating only gets you studs, but I still never get tired of watching the characters float.
When R2 summons the next train . . . it’s closed. Guess we’d better destroy the transportation and slice up the train. We can use the Force on the train’s walls to build . . . a crane.
As you can see, this crane is different from the cranes in The Complete Saga – this one conducts electricity (as is evidenced by the giant-ass electric bolts on each side), meaning we can use it to move the rest of the train out of the way.
Soon after we make it out of the subway, we run into Padme and 3PO about to be shot dead, but Obi-Wan and Anakin swoop in to the rescue. Unfortunately, a big jolt from the Republic starships trying to destroy the Malevolence splits up the party.
Don’t you hate it when your own side makes things harder for you? Well, Obi-Wan and R2 are surrounded by fire, but Obi-Wan can use the Force to fix the pipes.
With the pipes fixed, R2 can turn on the sprinklers.
I thought we could go walking through the sprinklers, but instead the scene switches to Anakin, Padme, and 3PO.
By the way, 3PO is even slower in this game than he was in The Complete Saga. My God, I know 3PO isn’t known for his speed, but what was the point of making him SLOWER? If there’s one thing that is universally irritating for every gamer, it’s controlling a slow-as-molasses character. Even if you only need to control 3PO when he’s needed to activate panels, it’s STILL annoying as fuck.
Where was I? Oh yeah, we’ve got a big wall blocking our way, but Padme can yank at it with her grapple gun and reveal a protocol droid activation panel.
Then we get to guide slow-as-molasses 3PO to the activation panel and – oh fuck me, instead of the protocol droid panels just automatically activating like in The Complete Saga, we have to play this Simon-style minigame where the panels light up in a certain order and we have to follow the order.
They probably thought they were being innovative here, but those sorts of games are only fun when they’re challenging, and here we only have a sequence of four panels, each one only lighting up once. Even kids aren’t going to be challenged by that and as such it’s just an annoyance. I’d much rather just have the thing activate immediately.
Well after we’ve played Simon, the wall comes down and we switch back to Obi-Wan.
You’ve no doubt noticed the pile of bricks on the floor. Use them to build an activation panel so R2 can open the door (and at least we don’t need to play Simon on HIS panels).
And behind the door, we have . . . another door. You’ll notice this one has TWO activation panels – one rotates the outer dial and the other rotates the inner dial, but the dials rotate in different directions. You’ve got to line up the colors to open the door. (sighs) Well, at least it’s more of a challenge than the Simon game.
The door opens to a small balcony – time for Obi-Wan to jump down and make his grand appearance (“Hello there!”).
There’s an activation panel here that’s protected by a ray shield, as you can see.
R2 needs to fly over to the other activation panels to turn on torpedo dispensers.
And . . . now what? I don’t have a vehicle here. Do I Force-throw this crate at the door or something?
Oh – stupid me! Obi-Wan has the FORCE. He can just use the FORCE to guide those torpedoes to the targets!
Blowing up the torpedo targets will take down the ray shield, so then R2 can use the activation panel to open the door, revealing . . . GRIEVOUS!
Battling him her is similar to when Ahsoka battled him – use the Force to fling crates at him, which distracts him enough for you to whack him – but since Obi-Wan is a more experienced Jedi than Ahsoka, Grievous doesn’t rush you as much here. Kind of neat that the developers took the time to adjust Grievous’s AI to be more difficult when you’re playing a padawan than when you’re playing a fully-trained Jedi, but it would have been nice if they took the time to give the levels more variety.
Anyway, once Grievous is taken care of, Obi-Wan and R2 can go through the door and step on the switches to get out.
The scene then switches back to Anakin and, GREAT, another 3PO panel. I don’t know why they thought it was such a great idea to add this pointless and extremely simplistic Simon game to the protocol droid panels – it was perfectly fine in The Complete Saga when the panels just activated without having to play a stupid Simon game first.
Also, Padme can use her grapple gun to open this panel and reveal these colored wire pieces.
If Anakin uses the Force to put the wires in the correct spots, a minikit appears!
After 3PO plays Simon to open the door, we find ourselves in the cockpit.
By the way, I like the red-tinted forcefield here.
And . . . GREAT, more Simon. This is the first level 3PO’s been in and I’m already sick of the stupid minigame at his panels.
Anyway, have Anakin cut some holes to reveal sockets, then have him use the Force to insert plugs into the sockets.
Plugging the sockets will open the blast shields and reveal the sky full of stars, which is really pretty.
Of course, that brings in a slew of battle droids and droidekas, but once you take care of them, head to the control panel and use the Force to steer the ship into the moon.
Gotta admit, it’s pretty cool to be steering the ship with the Force. Once the Malevolence is on course to crash into the moon, Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan, and the droids (and Grievous, of course) fly off to safety and the level ends. Well, this was another level that followed the episode fairly well, but here’s betting that next time we’ll be back to capturing bases.
We’re at the “Destroy Malevolence” episode – yes, they skipped the middle part of the story arc, but at this point I ain’t complaining. After the opening cutscene of Padme and 3PO getting captured when their ship gets pulled into the Malevolence’s tractor beam, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and R2 dock the Twilight at the Malevolence to rescue her.
Whew, it looks like an exploration level – thank GOD. The ship’s on fire and rumbles every few seconds, which is actually a nice touch. Needless to say, don’t touch the fire or you’ll break apart real fast.
There’s a clone activation panel here, but we didn’t bring any clones.
Well, make your way down the hall and oh look, it’s the subway!
They actually remembered the subway from the episode, I’m impressed. Yeah, that’s a sign of how well this game has followed the source material when I’m actually impressed that they remembered the subway. Have R2 fly over to the activation panel to bring the train over, but of course it will have some super battle droids riding on it that you’ll need to take care of.
There’s another set of tracks we have to get across, but first we have to stop the train so it won’t run us over (and so the tracks don’t electrocute us). By the way, I love the train’s light. I don’t know why, but I do.
To stop this train, Anakin or Obi-Wan needs to use the Force to carry R2 over to the platform with the activation panel. There are a bunch of crates blocking the panel, but there’s also a conveniently-placed switch that R2 can stand on to make a crane sweep the crates away.
There’s still a gap (remember the repeated “mind the gap” announcement in the episode?) between us and the next track, so let’s use the Force on this platform and move it to where we can use it as a stepping stone (by the way, I love the battle droids working on construction).
Oh, and on the next platform there’s one of those vents. Floating only gets you studs, but I still never get tired of watching the characters float.
When R2 summons the next train . . . it’s closed. Guess we’d better destroy the transportation and slice up the train. We can use the Force on the train’s walls to build . . . a crane.
As you can see, this crane is different from the cranes in The Complete Saga – this one conducts electricity (as is evidenced by the giant-ass electric bolts on each side), meaning we can use it to move the rest of the train out of the way.
Soon after we make it out of the subway, we run into Padme and 3PO about to be shot dead, but Obi-Wan and Anakin swoop in to the rescue. Unfortunately, a big jolt from the Republic starships trying to destroy the Malevolence splits up the party.
Don’t you hate it when your own side makes things harder for you? Well, Obi-Wan and R2 are surrounded by fire, but Obi-Wan can use the Force to fix the pipes.
With the pipes fixed, R2 can turn on the sprinklers.
I thought we could go walking through the sprinklers, but instead the scene switches to Anakin, Padme, and 3PO.
By the way, 3PO is even slower in this game than he was in The Complete Saga. My God, I know 3PO isn’t known for his speed, but what was the point of making him SLOWER? If there’s one thing that is universally irritating for every gamer, it’s controlling a slow-as-molasses character. Even if you only need to control 3PO when he’s needed to activate panels, it’s STILL annoying as fuck.
Where was I? Oh yeah, we’ve got a big wall blocking our way, but Padme can yank at it with her grapple gun and reveal a protocol droid activation panel.
Then we get to guide slow-as-molasses 3PO to the activation panel and – oh fuck me, instead of the protocol droid panels just automatically activating like in The Complete Saga, we have to play this Simon-style minigame where the panels light up in a certain order and we have to follow the order.
They probably thought they were being innovative here, but those sorts of games are only fun when they’re challenging, and here we only have a sequence of four panels, each one only lighting up once. Even kids aren’t going to be challenged by that and as such it’s just an annoyance. I’d much rather just have the thing activate immediately.
Well after we’ve played Simon, the wall comes down and we switch back to Obi-Wan.
You’ve no doubt noticed the pile of bricks on the floor. Use them to build an activation panel so R2 can open the door (and at least we don’t need to play Simon on HIS panels).
And behind the door, we have . . . another door. You’ll notice this one has TWO activation panels – one rotates the outer dial and the other rotates the inner dial, but the dials rotate in different directions. You’ve got to line up the colors to open the door. (sighs) Well, at least it’s more of a challenge than the Simon game.
The door opens to a small balcony – time for Obi-Wan to jump down and make his grand appearance (“Hello there!”).
There’s an activation panel here that’s protected by a ray shield, as you can see.
R2 needs to fly over to the other activation panels to turn on torpedo dispensers.
And . . . now what? I don’t have a vehicle here. Do I Force-throw this crate at the door or something?
Oh – stupid me! Obi-Wan has the FORCE. He can just use the FORCE to guide those torpedoes to the targets!
Blowing up the torpedo targets will take down the ray shield, so then R2 can use the activation panel to open the door, revealing . . . GRIEVOUS!
Battling him her is similar to when Ahsoka battled him – use the Force to fling crates at him, which distracts him enough for you to whack him – but since Obi-Wan is a more experienced Jedi than Ahsoka, Grievous doesn’t rush you as much here. Kind of neat that the developers took the time to adjust Grievous’s AI to be more difficult when you’re playing a padawan than when you’re playing a fully-trained Jedi, but it would have been nice if they took the time to give the levels more variety.
Anyway, once Grievous is taken care of, Obi-Wan and R2 can go through the door and step on the switches to get out.
The scene then switches back to Anakin and, GREAT, another 3PO panel. I don’t know why they thought it was such a great idea to add this pointless and extremely simplistic Simon game to the protocol droid panels – it was perfectly fine in The Complete Saga when the panels just activated without having to play a stupid Simon game first.
Also, Padme can use her grapple gun to open this panel and reveal these colored wire pieces.
If Anakin uses the Force to put the wires in the correct spots, a minikit appears!
After 3PO plays Simon to open the door, we find ourselves in the cockpit.
By the way, I like the red-tinted forcefield here.
And . . . GREAT, more Simon. This is the first level 3PO’s been in and I’m already sick of the stupid minigame at his panels.
Anyway, have Anakin cut some holes to reveal sockets, then have him use the Force to insert plugs into the sockets.
Plugging the sockets will open the blast shields and reveal the sky full of stars, which is really pretty.
Of course, that brings in a slew of battle droids and droidekas, but once you take care of them, head to the control panel and use the Force to steer the ship into the moon.
Gotta admit, it’s pretty cool to be steering the ship with the Force. Once the Malevolence is on course to crash into the moon, Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan, and the droids (and Grievous, of course) fly off to safety and the level ends. Well, this was another level that followed the episode fairly well, but here’s betting that next time we’ll be back to capturing bases.
