Star Wars: Episode 1: The Gungan Frontier by Robin Kester Lucas Learning's newest title, Star Wars Episode I: The Gungan Frontier, while not a perfect title, has its own unique style that many Star Wars fans and non-fans alike will enjoy spending time with. The game itself is based on the recently released prequel to the original Star Wars movies, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The story is simple: as the heroes of the Battle of Naboo, you are asked by Boss Nass, the ruler of the underwater city of Otoh Gungan, to help Naboo populate its watery moon. To accomplish your task, you will have the help of the Jedi apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or the young ruler of Naboo, Queen Amidala. You will also have the popular character Jar Jar Binks to help or hinder your progress and give you helpful suggestions. Gameplay occurs in a third-person perspective simulation style, where the player places plants and animals onto the moon's surface and helps them grow and thrive, contributing all the while to the growth of the new Gungan city and keeping public order. Jar Jar and Boss Nass offer you hints and suggestions as to what might help you or what they need. In addition, R2D2 is available for help in placing critters and finding out more about the moon's ecosystem. Your best reference for help and deeper background information on the plants and animals that you are working with is through the animal called "Kresch." The Kresch is a living encyclopedia containing all the knowledge about the Gungans and their culture rolled into a shell-like creature. This critter can be quite helpful if you wish to know more about the critters you are populating the moon with. The game offers beginner and advanced levels of play, as well as multiple missions to accomplish. It features a critter creator to make your own animals and plants, nice 3D rendered cutscenes, and interesting graphics to make a mostly well-rounded game aimed at the younger generation as well as adults who like to have a little fun. Graphics The graphics in Gungan Frontier are a mixed bag. The interface itself is quite nice, not too overly complicated to understand, yet offering plenty of control for any player to accomplish his or her goals for the game. The cutscenes are also quite nice, featuring graphics that follow the look and feel of the movie quite well. Too bad Lucas Learning doesn't upgrade its movie compression or move to QuickTime; the pixelation and banding can get distracting in what is an otherwise nice-looking bit of cinematic action. The in-game graphics themselves are where things go sour. From a distance zoomed all the way out on the interface, everything looks pretty good. All of the plants and critters are small, but there are no real blocky images on screen. However, if you zoom in more than 50%, everything turns to big blocks. This doesn't necessarily detract from the gameplay itself, but it makes the game look almost cheap, even with all of the options set to best quality. It reminded me of playing a game from 3 or 4 years ago. You will find yourself spending most of your game time zoomed out quite a bit, so this doesn't seem to be much of a problem overall. However, it is still a distraction at times--enough so that I felt it was worth mentioning. Interface The game's interface is well done. Each of the many controls is easily accessible to beginners and mostly intuitive. The menu bar at the top of the screen appears when you move your mouse towards the top edge of the screen, and the rest of the controls are available onscreen most all of the time. I did find that the mouse moved a little sluggishly while accessing some of the screens. The main interface is a console at the bottom of your screen. On this you will find access to the Kresch, the zoom controls, the critter cam, species indicator, capture/release/stun tools, miscellaneous graphics to help you keep track of your population, R2D2, and buttons to reach Boss Nass, the newly forming Gungan city, and to set your harvest. The upper left corner has a graph of the whole area so that you can track things from a more distant point, with buttons to turn on and off the plants or animals separately when things get dense and populated. The right side shows your Bioscore, the new Gungan population, and information about the Gungan city if you are on the City display screen. To pick critters and plants and to see how they rank in the food chain, you use the Food Web screen. This screen allows you to pick the beings you are going to put onto the moon, as well as letting you see what they like to eat, and what likes to eat them. This screen is the heart of gameplay because it is where you go to pick new critters to let loose. From this screen you also access the Index screen, which gives you a complete listing of all plants and animals available to you. You can display them by size, type, and so on, to help find a particular animal, or just pick from the main list. Critters A Plenty The one thing this game has quite a few of is Star Wars critters. The game ships with over 80 different plants and animals for you to work with. While this may seem like a lot, you can also use the Create A Critter function to add more new life forms to the universe. The combinations are almost limitless. Furthermore, once you have created your critter, it is added to the list, and you can use it in your own games. This can be fun, as you can easily waste lots of time creating new critters and letting them loose together to thrive or die. The diverse selection of creatures in the game only proves that a manufactured world such as the Star Wars universe can be a solid functional place much like it is in the mind of any fan of the movie series and the culture. And with this faith and knowledge the game's own creatures come to life as you play. Sound The overall sound in Gungan Frontier is excellent. The music feels like it is right out of the movie with big, full stereo sound to engulf you. The creature sound effects including Jar Jar, Boss Nass, and R2 are quite faithful to their movie counterparts with crisp, clean sounds to enhance gameplay. Each individual creature makes a few sounds, therefore it isn't constantly the same sound. This varies the creatures for a more realistic feel in their environment. Gameplay When you start your game, you are treated to some nice cutscenes and then given a speech by Boss Nass. He will offer you the mollusk-like creature called the Kresch, which houses vast knowledge about the Gungans and the creatures they share their world with. The Kresch interface is hot-linked so that you can cross-reference any item that is clickable and see where it leads. Next, you pick your partner. Your partner can be either the young Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi or Queen Amidala, ruler of Planet Naboo. Each character makes a fine partner due to their background. Obi-Wan is a proud Jedi knight, defender of peace everywhere. Queen Amidala, on the other hand, is a young but brilliant character whose passion for her people makes her a strong-hearted person. And of course, what game based on the Episode I: The Phantom Menace would be complete without Jar Jar Binks? Yes, Jar Jar is back to cause mischief and occasionally poke his head in to make a comment or two. Fortunately, you can tell him to take a nap from the top menu bar. Jar Jar a no like da crunchen, so he goes right to sleep, giving you the chance to work on your mission uninterrupted. Once you have chosen your partner, you are ready to load up your ship and head for the moon. If you chose the beginner level game, you will not need to worry about loading your ship, it will be loaded for you with the appropriate plants and animals. Otherwise, you will be given the chance to add any plants or animals to your ship you wish. The ship holds 12 of each, so there is room for lots of critters. But choose wisely because these same critters will need to work together to make your ecosystem thrive--not always an easy task. With your ship loaded, you are ready to head to the moon. When you reach the moon, several spots for populating are displayed, and one is picked and your ship heads to it. You will splash down and head underwater, then a probe droid is released. This droid splits in two: one part heads to the air to keep tabs on the planet and its creatures, and the other part, to the site of the new Gungan city. This is how you keep an eye on everything as gameplay progresses. The next step is to release some plants and animals. You choose what plants and animals you wish to release from the Food Web screen. If you created animals or plants with the Create A Critter function, they will also be available here. Placing critters is as easy as selecting them and then clicking on the appropriate ground or water where they live--and voilà!--you have started populating the moon. This isn't as easy as it seems, however. Once your population starts to grow, the Gungans will want supplies to help build their new city. And since this is your primary reason for being here in the first place, it might be a good idea to pay attention to them. If you go to the Harvest screen, you will be able to let the Gungans know what plants and animals they can harvest and how often. You will have to watch this carefully because Boss Nass and his busy city builders will literally clean your planet out if you let them. Building and maintaining this ecosystem is a tall order. But as long as you don't do anything too harsh by releasing too much of one species or let the Gungans harvest too much, your moon will thrive in no time. If you decide you can't wait for something to go wrong, you can always play God and let loose a little havoc yourself. The top menu has a whole selection of awful things that you can try out on your unsuspecting critters including disease, moonquakes, and toxic clouds. If conquering a mission is more your style, there are several levels of missions to accomplish. These missions give you a goal to work towards through multiple levels and are available in Easy, Medium, and Hard for those who want a real challenge. One interesting feature in this game is the symbiotic relationship that every creature has with another, just like in our own world. This is where the game's depth stands out. Every single creature and plant can and will affect the others that surround it. Pay attention to the Food Web; it is the source for all of the information that you might need in this regard. Overall While I had some problems with the game's graphics, The Gungan Frontier is a solid product. Just about anyone can have fun with it if they appreciate Star Wars games or are just looking for something both fun and educational. However, if you want something with a little more adult feeling to it, try one of the other newly released simulation games like SimCity 3000 or Civilization II. I would definitely recommend this title to a younger audience, but adults can have fun with it as well. The gameplay is deep enough that entertainment can be found by most anyone. And by offering the player some real challenges in building their new ecosystem and giving the player a chance to learn about the Star Wars universe, Lucas Learning has created a good family-oriented title to add to their library. Pros • It's Star Wars • Fun for any age • Engaging and educational • Provides player with extended information about the Stars Wars universe • Nice 3D rendered cutscenes Cons • Some of the graphics are blocky • Steep CPU requirements • Could use more critters • Gameplay style not for everyone