Star Wars: Obi-Wan

It's official, anything related to the prequel trilogy outside of the clone wars TV show is garbage as this is a game that has the best story those films have to offer that's ruined by terrible gameplay and weak presentation.

I so mean it when I say I prefer the story here to the film it's based on, it's the phantom menace but told strictly from Obi wans point of view and even incorporates several storylines from the books such as the Jin ha which this game retains as what happened immediately prior to when he and quigon are sent to investigate the trade federation on Naboo. Because it's an Obi wan story, several of the worst aspects of the film are absent and replaced with him needing to rescue the queens double and presumably realising who Padme is prior to her reveal in the film (the double never confirms her identity on screen even after he rescues her on Tatooine.) It's a well told story that's ruined by its gameplay as Obi wan has very slippery controls here that cause him to wander off cliffs and platforms with minimal effort. This is made worse by it being a platformer that utilises the force jump quite a bit, making platforming very tedious as you figure out where you're meant to go in these environments. As this is an early Xbox title, we have large empty areas that were clearly meant to showcase the games technology but fail to do anything impressive with these environments. I guess these large areas do explain why the graphics are complete shit as character models look like they were ripped out of the phantom menace game and upscaled for the ps2, to say nothing of the bland textures of the environments which make the otherwise colourful Naboo seem cold and uninviting now. The game tries to put in collectibles to encourage exploration, however they're only trinkets which are rare, and most people likely won't even realise they exist in game even after collecting a few of them. The worst example of meaningless areas in a map is when you return to Naboo and there's entire sections that aren't required to explore that take up these maps, particularly the buildings which you can go into and explore balconies that don't offer any rewards to help make these levels easier to complete. Like the phantom menace, I get the feeling there was a cut morality mechanic in this game as there's several innocent civilians our hero can kill that don't serve any real purpose in game, the only penalty for killing them is that his force temporarily depletes after doing so, which I pointless as they usually appear in sage areas where there isn't any combat to take advantage of this handicap.

It's probably the best story the prequels have to offer, but what's the point in a good story if the visuals are atrocious and the gameplay is shoddy? If you want a compelling narrative of Obi wans ark in the film, find a compilation of the cutscenes online and knock yourself out as that's all this game has to offer.