Nostalgia never felt so good.
What's it about?
If you've seen the film I need not tell the tale, but it follows the film well, while also going off getting you doing other things to make it an entertaining game. You play as several characters from the film: Obi Wan, Qui Gon, Queen Amidala and Captain Pananka. So you get used to playing as the Jedi but then have to quickly change tactics as your stripped of you Lightsaber and Force powers.
How does it play? 7.5
It is basically an action game, having you beat down on droids with your Lightsaber, Blaster, Rocket launcher, etc. But it also has a little bit of an RPG element to it. One of my most memerable bits of this game is when you play as Qui Gon in Tatooine, and spend a good chunck of this section, not killing people, but using your Jedi wit to gain your goals. It breaks the game up really well.
Admittedly, the controls and fighting mechanics are sloppy to say the least, but this is a PSone game after all, and in my youth playing this game I don't really remember it being an issue. Although don't expect to be doing the awesome choriography the final fight has in the film...
There is a great amount of freedom in this game, too. You can literally kill anyone. Even kids! Even the most hardcore games can't let you kill kids! But if your feeling bored you can just save your data and go on a slaughter.
How is the eye candy? 4
(for me it's a 7.5, but from a new observers eyes it's a 4.)
Well.... it's bloody ugly. It is a 32 bit game after all, though. And threw my eyes it gives it abit of a charm. That's probably due to growing up with this game. Bit it is overall a big mesh of colours, and you'll find character/background models breaking up, overlapping etc, but i look past this. (I'm not a shallow man. :P)
What's the Soundtrack like? 8.5
One thing about Lucas Arts is while the majority of their games are normally terrible, they do always have a great score to make up for it. You'll hear all the epic scores from the film which have you constantly aware your playing a Star Wars game. Good stuff.
There's bad stuff in this game, yeah?
Oh yes. Countless graphical errors, hammy dialogue, wooden combat, stiff controls, dodgy camera, but all these errors don't distinguish anything from this game.
Overall?
A solid Star Wars game that I'm not saying is perfect, but it is bloody good fun. It's done the film proud in my eyes (even if the film was duff), it has character, freedom and will have you playing it to the end. Even now. If your a fan of Star Wars games and can handle the retro feel this has, then I say go for it. Gamespot were too harsh on this one I think.