As a Star Wars game, PSP port, and mixing elements from almost every genre, Lethal Alliance is a solid adventure for all
Enter Rianna Saren, an original character by the game's writer's who's a mercenary-for-higher. An ex-slave Twi'lek (and we know what those are used for!), she's escaped, though at a painful price, and has taken up the job of ... well ... doing whatever is needed to grab a buck. And in this case, Star Wars: Lethal Alliance follows a hinted at plot line for the original movie, as Rianna strikes blows against the Empire and proceeds on her own vendetta for revenge against her past slave master, Kheev, culiminating in the stealing of the Empire's evil plans for the Death Star.
If you're wondering how exactly a 3rd Person Shooter actually even plays on the DS, here's your answer -- the game practically plays itself. What you do is fairly simple and straight forward ... and Rianna herself ... can't do much. Basically, she can shoot at people with a blaster via an automatic lock on feature which turns on right as you start firing away with an enemy in the vicinity. Hence, the shooting mechanic is pretty simple. What'll make it hard is that your enemies are surprisingly good shots, so you'll have to get proficient at strafing and rolling to avoid gunfire, which is much harder than it sounds. Rianna also has a melee weapon called the Thorn of Ryloth which is basically a small glowing blade which is automatically used whenever you attack someone at close range, but actually trying to use it will probably nab you a few unnecessary shots. If that's not enough -- the Prince of Persia-esque wall acrobatics are lacking from the DS version of the game, making Rianna seem like a pretty crappy mercenary.
So what do we have so far? The makings of a not so great game. Happily, the gameplay eventually makes a comeback with the introduction of Zeeo, a security droid which takes a liking to Rianna as if he'd been expecting her all along. With Zeeo on your side, the Lethal Alliance is formed, and the gameplay hence skyrockets in improvement.
Commanded by you, Zeeo can run up to enemies and stun them, join you in a ground pound manuever that knocks everyone around you to their feet, join you to execute a dive-bombing attack for an instant kill, and even become a personal shield for a short time. All of these things are made possible by a power bar that refills itself, but you don't want to make excessive use of else you'll drain poor little Zeeo.
And that's just the combat parts. With Zeeo, the game takes on additional gameplay ELEMENTS such as using Zeeo to travel on walls and ceilings, stealth elements like avoiding mines and electrical obstacles and security turrents, sending Zeeo off into a 1st Person perspective into ducts do he can disable security doors, riding Zeeo in a rail fashion along the side of walls while shooting and avoiding mines, and a whole mess of puzzles which you'll be required to complete.
The most challenging part of the game probably is the puzzles, as the onscreen instructions aren't exactly very clear on what to do and the likelyhood is you'll pull your hair out trying figure them out. Nonetheless, they're rather good once you do, and you'll end up simultaneously hating and looking forward to them.
While the PSP game offered a Twi'lek vs. Twi'lek multiplayer option, the DS offers a Droid vs. Droid multiplayer option instead, and for good reason -- the game excels on the DS with Zeeo by using the stylus to turn him in his 1st person perspective much like Metroid Prime Hunters (though the controls aren't as tight), and the puzzles are also easier to pull off with the stylus as opposed to their PSP counterparts.
Sound effects wise the game is kind of weak, as some sounds like the one made while riding Zeeo ... you may just never hear unless you're using headphones. Music wise, the game basically takes you're standard Star Wars library songs and reuses them again. Its a good thing this music is so good else we'd may actually be complaining. Graphics wise it's impressive what they've been able to take from a game that was originally made for something that had the equivalent power of a PS2, and then put it on a system that's only slightly better than an N64. As expected, the textures are murky in some cases and pixelated in others, but you'll be surprised with the amount of detail they were able to pull of nonetheless. Still, the graphics aren't any where close to being as impressive as what was done with Metroid Prime Hunters, but they'll do for the game as is.
All in all, about half of the game is used getting you adept at the various gameplay elements, and then everything is thrown at you full force about midway through. If you're a Star Wars fan and looking for a game that is a unique mix of various gameplay elements, its hard to go wrong with Lethal Alliance.