Star Wars: Battle for Naboo Review for PC

Star Wars: Battle for Naboo Review

Battle for Naboo delivers a fun, but ultimately short, gaming experience.

Though fans of Factor 5's previous Star Wars flight combat game, Rogue Squadron, were able to take control of a Naboo starfighter through an official patch, Star Wars: Battle for Naboo is the first game that lets you pilot various Naboo vehicles within the Episode I universe. Like Rogue Squadron, Battle for Naboo features extremely straightforward gameplay without the finer mechanics of piloting, like distributing power to different systems or worrying about nav points. Instead, you can increase your speed by simply holding down the acceleration key; you can fire all your primary weapons endlessly; and you can't distribute your vehicle's shield strength to different areas along its surface. Fans of the more complex Star Wars simulation games like X-Wing and TIE Fighter may find Battle for Naboo to be a bit disappointing. Otherwise, the game delivers a fun, but ultimately short, gaming experience.

The game lets you pilot both flying and land vehicles

Battle for Naboo's storyline essentially follows the plot of the Episode I movie: The Trade Federation invades the planet of Naboo and moves its forces into the capital of Theed where Queen Amidala resides. Your first mission as Gavyn Sykes--a Naboo soldier--is to escape to the outskirts of Theed and help recover any resources available to fight the Trade Federation forces. Once you make it outside, you find that the Trade Federation is attacking farms and other civilian targets, so it's your job to protect these areas by destroying any Trade Federation droids and tanks in the area. As the missions progress, the Naboo forces start attacking key Trade Federation bases, convoys, and satellites until the climactic battle against the massive Trade Federation control ship.

The first few missions in Battle for Naboo don't let you select anything other than the default vehicle. For example, in the first mission, you have access only to the weaker of two different types of speeders. Once you find the better-equipped speeder later in the game, you can go back and play the first set of missions with the new craft, but there really isn't much reason to other than to receive a higher mission rating, which is represented by three medals--bronze, silver, and gold. Battle for Naboo also lets you switch vehicles in the middle of a mission, so you can actually toss a speeder to the side and control a Naboo starfighter for the rest of the mission, or you can continue to provide ground support for your comrades. This feature may seem like it adds some variety or at the very least a new strategic element to the game, but in fact, it doesn't really matter which vehicle you choose, so it's basically a matter of preference. When you need a vehicle to accomplish a specific job, the computer lets you select only a single craft.

It's sometimes difficult to control your vehicle

Even with the game's simplistic control scheme, maneuvering Battle for Naboo's vehicles effectively can be a little difficult at times because of the poor turning radius on ground vehicles and an odd "invisible barrier" problem that occurs during flight-oriented missions. For instance, in the earlier missions on the streets of Theed, you'll find that your speeder will constantly crash into walls and other objects. Using the deceleration key helps slightly, but your speeder will still occasionally go too fast and get caught in a corner, which makes getting back out onto the main street frustrating. This also occurs in wide-open areas, particularly in mountain areas where you must make sharp turns to prevent your speeder from falling off. You can sometimes slow your speeder down enough to not crash, but you'll sometimes be unable to judge the distance between your vehicle and the ledge, which makes it difficult to time your braking accordingly.

During missions in which you control starfighters and other similar craft, you might think turning would be easier, but in some cases, it's actually harder. In these missions, there's an invisible barrier that prevents you from flying too high, but in the middle of a dogfight with a Trade Federation starfighter, it's often easy to lose track of where you are in relation to these invisible borders, especially since the computer-controlled Trade Federation craft tend to move outside of them. When you do lose track of these invisible borders and fly into them, you lose control of your ship and may have to wait a while before you can reorient your vehicle in the proper direction.

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Good Star Wars game. Continue »

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