Story
“Star Wars” meets “Twisted Metal” with Jabba the Hutt playing Calypso, and running a vehicular combat sport as a way to profit off of entertainment across the galaxy. Some of the combatants are forced to participate while some are doing it for their own reasons.
Graphics
“Star Wars: Demolition” has beautiful environments and hot looking combat special effects for a PlayStation game, but for the most part, the visuals aren’t the game’s highest selling point. Sometimes, the graphics will appear pixilated with jagged edges and such; in addition, the frame rate may slow down every now or then when there’s a lot of activity taking place on screen.
Gameplay
This is where the game really shines. The combat in “Star Wars: Demolition” is incredible, just as fun as the “Twisted Metal” games. Like those games, it lets you compete head on with a friend or team up and battle everyone else.
‘Demolition’ contains four game modes which include Tournament, High Stakes, Battle, and Hunt-A-Droid. You have 10 characters/vehicles to choose from, each with their own sub-story and personality. Beating the game under all of them will unlock more planets and vehicles. All the vehicles work differently and present a unique combat style. The worlds you fight in are mostly open-ended and destructible.
Controls
If you’ve played the “Twisted Metal” games, then you should have no trouble learning the mechanics of “Star Wars: Demolition”. They’re very straight forward, there’s a button for each of the following: Accelerate, reverse, brake, weapon switch, fire, and special weapon. This is all fine and simple here. Whether you’re a fan of this type of genre or not, the learning curve of the controls should pose no problem to you.
Overall
LucasArts has had its share of both good and bad “Star Wars” games, but “Star Wars: Demolition” deserves to be on the good list. This game offers a unique angle into the “Star Wars” universe, thanks to the vehicular combat video game genre. The plot may not be anything close to a masterpiece, but then again, plot has very little to do with the games of this genre.
Just look at the plot of the “Twisted Metal” games, look at “Vigilante 8”, “Rogue Trip”, and “Critical Depth” – it’s all the same case, but they’re very good games, all within the same genre. “Star Wars: Demolition” is worthy due to its addictive gameplay value. I’d say it’s about time this game had a sequel already?
