Taking a different twist on the Star Wars franchise, LucasArts’ new game is basically a version of Vigilant 8 with Star Wars vehicles. The creative team behind both Vigilant 8 and Vigilante 8: Second Offense played a part in creating Star Wars: Demolition. But with LucasArts in the mix, were the good elements of the V8 games lost? I remember having fun with Vigilante 8 partly because of cool, “destroy everything” environments that had a lot of little details and secrets. V8: Second Offense was more of the same but bigger, with more interesting levels. In Star Wars: Demolition, we find levels on location at spots any Star Wars fan would recognize, like Tatooine, Hoth, and Dagoba. But, if this could be considered the third Vigilante 8 installment, why are these levels even smaller than the original V8?

The levels are okay looking, but way too small. Animation and lighting is good, certainly comparable to what the V8 games showed before now. Most all the items in any level can be destroyed, and the ships are reproduced in detail. One annoying aspect of the graphics is how LucasArts decided to “scale” certain ships. I understand that the Imperial Walker is supposed to be much bigger than a Snowspeeder, but having some normal and some ant-sized ships is just weird. Playing against the smaller ships isn’t even much fun, since the targeting H.U.D. obscures them entirely. Weird...

On a good note, the music is pure Star Wars, including not only the main theme, but themes appropriate to each level. Cut-scene animations are pretty cool, and you’re rewarded different ones for each character depending on performance in the Tournament Mode.

If you played the V8 games, you’ll know what to expect from Star Wars: Demolition as gameplay goes. The actual storyline is that Jabba the Hut is behind a cut-throat tournament staged on several worlds, after the Imperial and Rebel clashes. You have a chance to play several modes in different vehicles (some secret), and rack up points by destroying everything else around you. The basic single-player modes are Battle, Tournament, High Stakes, and Hunt-a-Droid. The last one is just like it sounds -- you cruise through against a timer and try to blast as many droids with your laser as possible. They don’t fire back, so this is a good place to learn your controls. In Two-Player Mode, Hunt-A-Droid is competitive, and you work against a friend to nail the most droids. High Stakes is similar to the betting on pod-racing in Episode I that made for that other game... Basically, you play through a level against a computer or human opponent, and you place a wager on the outcome before each match. Battle Mode has you pick several members of the competition and then battle to the death, learning multiplayer skills before going into Tournament Mode. Tournaments are where the computer assigns several elimination rounds, and you fight against first one and then many A.I. competitors at once. Two-Player lets you play Tournament together and cooperatively, which is very cool. Each time you clear a level, you’re given points for performance. Earn enough points and survive the Tournament, and you can win a locked ship and rider. It’s too bad the other modes don’t open anything, but they’re still fun to play. I imagine most people will either want the deathmatch against a friend or the Tournament with its co-op play.

Levels are set up with natural obstacles and even traps. Power-ups in the form of weapons, shields, and droids appear, and can be picked up by driving over them. This feature was always a cool part of Vigilante 8, especially because some or all of the power-ups in a level would be hidden away. In Star Wars: Demolition, the power-ups are floating around constantly, making it hard to get just one and keep it. Once you get a stronger weapon, you can charge it for different effects, and even charge your standard laser for backup if needed. I mentioned shields, and each level has a hideaway spot that can regenerate shield and weapons when power runs low, just by driving in and parking. The weapons are really cool and all feature some homing ability. Each vehicle can charge the weapon it picks up, but supercharged weapons end up feeling a little cheap because they’re so powerful. Weapons variety make the game fun, but weak level design hurts any long-term enjoyment or replay.

Learning to use all the weapons is a little tough, and getting the points needed to earn new ships is especially hard. Default controls were not to my taste, and adjusting them is very strange. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a clunky menu interface before... But, after the learning curve tops off, I found that driving around in circles and blasting anything I came across resulted in victory. Translation: the A.I. was more “artificial” than “intelligent.” Two-Player is fun no matter what, but Single-Player won’t last most folks very long at all.

Setting up controls is a little funky, but once you find a configuration you like, there isn’t much to worry about. Movement can be set up for the analog sticks, and this felt ideal to me. After movement is covered, you need to worry about weapons. Shoulder buttons or standard top-buttons can be set to fire and charge weapons, but the default is shoulder, which I liked. Then, other buttons can be used for “look behind,” braking, and targeting. Auto-targeting, power-ups, and other helper options can be turned off, but are on by default. Droids appear in each level that can be added to the ship for additional protection, repairs, or weapon augmentation, although they aren’t as plentiful as power-up droids. Either way, you just run over the poor things, and their cargo is added to your ship.

Your H.U.D. shows a radar display for where enemy ships are, and locks on to targets for homing weapons or just to help you navigate. You always see a display showing what weapon you have equipped, what level of charge it and your laser have, and the condition of your armor, shields, and weapons. When you lock onto an enemy, you can immediately see the same information for them. What weapon they have equipped isn’t there, but you’ll know by looking at their ship or watching how they attack. As with the V8 games, Star Wars: Demolition visually adds the weapon to your ship when you pick it up. Pretty cool. Other power-ups are for shields or cloaking, but cloaking actually turns off your shield. The layout of levels is such that there are secret passageways between one part and another, which come in handy at times when you’re being chased or want to surprise someone.

In the context of other Star Wars games, I’d say Star Wars: Demolition is a good showing for LucasArts. It’s likely to pull support from PlayStation fans who wanted something like the Pod Racer game for PC, althought there’s really no racing here. Vehicular combat is what you’ll be doing, and unless you need to live in the Star Wars world really badly, I’d probably recommend one of the Vigilante 8 games over this one. It’s safe as a rental or to buy used if you like the genre, but this has been done better before. Nice idea, but execution could have been better. Just having Star Wars vehicles didn’t make the difference for me, but your results may vary.