Battle Above Coruscant Hands-On

The space battles were always the best part of the Star Wars movies, both in the pre- and post-computer animation eras, and most gamers would agree that games like X-Wing and TIE Fighter were among the greatest the franchise ever produced. Judging from what we've seen of Star Wars: Battle Above Coruscant, it looks like the trend's continuing into mobile. The version we played reminded us a lot of Star Trek: Birds of Prey, in that it was polished to a high sheen and also contained tons of little details to add variety to the gameplay. Drawing comparisons to 2004's Mobile Action Game of the Year is an impressive feat, especially for a game that's still in pre-alpha.

Comparing his similarities to James Dean, Anakin Skywalker loves to drive fast and live hard--or, in the case of Battle Above Coruscant, fly really fast and make life hard for the rebels. But there are plenty of other star fighters who would love to save Luke and Leia a lot of trouble by atomizing proto-Vader a little on the early side. The first thing we noticed about Battle Above Coruscant is that it actually looks like you're participating in a massive free-for-all over the Republic's capital planet. As you fly toward the top of the screen and waste baddies, you'll see that the background is alive with waves of ships dogfighting, weaving, and exploding, with the Earth-like planet looming nearby. The incredibly neat cinematic effect of the distant ships shooting red and green lasers at each other and flying in randomized, but plausible, patterns is amazing. The level of detail that has gone into this aspect of the game is really impressive.

The shooter gameplay itself is looking pretty good, too. The top-down stuff is pretty standard for the most part. There are a bunch of different power-ups for your weapons system that will give you rapid-fire lasers, refill your shield, or unleash a screen-clearing blast. The objectives in the game's six levels are more original--you might have to protect a battleship by not letting any enemies past, blow up an enemy dreadnought by killing its turrets, or protect Obi-Wan's damaged ship from enemy fire. Your shots will damage his ship, too, so you have to be extra careful with your defensive efforts. R2D2 will even get into the act on some levels, like when you'll need to protect your ships from buzz saw droids that sap your shields. If you fill up R2's juice with a pink power-up, it can zap the offending robots with electricity at the touch of a button.

Battle Above Coruscant has a nice presentation, especially in the sound department. There were three famous Star Wars tunes on the Nokia 6600 version we played, rendered in all of their MIDI glory. The Imperial Death March means so much more when you're squashing your enemies like aphids on a rosebush. The in-fight graphics were perfectly solid, too. According to THQ Wireless, the final version of the game will feature an interesting online scoreboard functionality. You'll be awarded bonus points for pulling off special tricks, like blowing up enemies with their own lasers by reflecting them with your shield. That ought to add to the competitive aspect of the game.

From what we can tell, Finnish developer Universomo has done a bang-up job on Star Wars: Battle Above Coruscant so far. If the developer continues to tune the gameplay and refine the difficulty level (the power-ups weren't at all balanced in the version we played), this game could very well be a hit, even with Star Wars haters. THQ Wireless is hoping to have this game out in June; check back right here for the full review.