Game Review: Star Wars Droids (Commodore 64, Mastertronic / MAD)

Mastertronic had a habit of releasing a lot of unofficial arcade clones throughout their history (as well as a few titles “inspired” by films and TV shows), but it wasn’t until later in their lifespan when they started to take licensing more seriously. As well as dipping their toes into official arcade conversions with Namco releases such as Gaplus, they also took on one of the biggest franchises of all time with the release of Star Wars: Droids based on the 1985 animated series…

Stuck In A Rut

After the release of Return Of The Jedi in 1983, Star Wars entered something of a slump. While fans were generally aware that plans had been made for 9 movies in the series, it was felt that the saga had come to an end after the three that had been released. With a poorly received failed TV movie featuring the Ewoks in 1984 it seemed as if there wasn’t really anything else to come for the majority of fans. Then 1985 happened…

A second Ewok TV movie arrived with two animated spin-offs. Ewoks (again aiming to cash in on the children’s market) and Star Wars Droids focusing on R2-D2 and C-3PO. The latter seeing the return of Anthony Daniels in his now legendary role. Neither were Lucasfilm’s first attempt at an animated version of Star Wars – that dubious honour went to Boba Fett who appeared in a short that was included in the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special. But this was the best we were going to get.

Instead of continuing where Return Of The Jedi left off, Droids took the unusual approach of setting the series before the Star Wars: A New Hope so we got to see the droids moving from one owner to another, on various escapades around the Star Wars universe.

These Aren’t The Star Wars Droids You’re Looking For

History aside, what’s the game all about? While on one of their adventures, our heroic droids encounter the Fromm gang. They’ve just escaped from a high security prison on the planet Ingo and managed to steal an A-Wing fighter from the Rebellion and escaped to the nearby moon of Auren. The droids, landing nearby when their shuttlepod crashes, are captured by the gang and find themselves swiftly imprisoned by the gang deep beneath the surface in their hideout.

R2 has manged to bypass the lock to your cell and now it’s your job to guide R2 and 3PO back to the surface, navigating the underground complex using C-3PO’s wits and R2-D2’s technical wizardry where rescue awaits.

Race For Freedom

To escape you have to avoid all of the droids that patrol the complex, make your way up through the maze of corridors and lifts, each of which is protected by a series of security locks that only R2-D2 can access. Some need pass keys to use properly and these are dropped behind by the security droids that can be destroyed by C-3PO throwing crystals at them (no, that didn’t make sense to me either considering his non-violent nature). You start off with a limited amount but can collect more as you progress. You also have a set amount of energy and this is depleted as you collide with any droid or energy barrier (which again can be disabled thanks to R2) but when this runs out it’s game over.

Accessing the locks for the lifts, sealed doors and energy barriers takes you to a sub-game based on the classic electronic game Simon. A row of coloured circles appear on screen and just click on each one to match the pattern that is displayed. There’s no limit to the number of times you can try each puzzle but they get progressively harder the further up you go in the complex.

Not Such An Icon-ic Duo

While Star Wars: Droids isn’t the greatest game to bear the Star Wars moniker, there’s one creative decision that was taken by the developers that took it from being an above average game to being one that you’re fighting against all the time and one that makes you feel like rage-quitting more often than not. And that single issue is with the way you control it.

The game takes a side-on view and you would think that using the joystick to move left/right, up to enter the lifts, down to duck and fire to either shoot or to access a terminal would be simple enough. But no… the developers decided to opt for an icon based control system. You still use the joystick but this controls a cursor that allows to to choose the direction you move, firing, accessing the computer terminals, and so on. It makes playing the game incredibly clunky and you end up losing energy far more than you need to in a game that relies on quick reactions throughout.

Playability

And that’s the real issue with Star Wars: Droids if I am completely honest. There is a genuinely entertaining and challenging game here, especially the puzzle segments and while it’s not going to win any awards for gameplay it’s still an enjoyable romp. But it’s let down by it’s horrendous control system and that makes the game incredibly cumbersome right from the beginning.

While you can get used to it after a short while, you shouldn’t have to and you’ll still spend far too much time fighting against the controls and losing energy from collisions when you don’t need to. A game like this needs rapid and responsive controls and they’re just not there and it really takes away the potential that this has.

Send In The Police

Now when I say The Police, I’m talking about the legendary pop band – more specifically one of the members Stewart Copeland. Once the band broke up, Copeland continued his music career but moved into composing and working in film and television and while his name might not be familiar to most (with Sting being the most well known from the trio) you’ll be familiar with his work being responsible for music from The Equalizer, Highlander II, Wall Street, See No Evil Hear No Evil, and numerous video games including the Spyro series and Urban Strike.

But what has that got to do with Star Wars: Droids? Well he was jointly responsible for the end theme for the TV series which is featured as the title theme in the game which has been faithfully adapted to the C64. While it’s quite repetitive and thankfully doesn’t play in-game it’s quite a nice touch to have the official theme included in the game as well as the characters themselves.

Graphics and Sound

On a visual from, the screenshots don’t really do this justice. While C-3PO is a little on the chunky side and only uses a couple of colours he’s reasonably well animated, as is his smaller counterpart. Backgrounds make fairly decent use of the C64’s palette and while they are all quite similar in look from each floor to the next apart from that, there is some superb parallax scrolling in use that helps give the levels some depth.

Sound doesn’t hold up as well though. Apart from the title music that I mentioned earlier which does get quite repetitive (rather like the TV end theme it is converted from) there is little in-game sound apart from the odd sparse sound effect. I really expected much more from a Commodore 64 game and this is quite a disappointment.

Save The Earth!

As with a lot of other Mastertronic titles released around the same time, there’s no loading screen but instead it features the infamous Invade-A-Load so you’re able to play a rather impressive if not frantic version of Space Invaders while the game loads. The only real difference to the original is that the invading aliens fire at you far more rapidly but it’s a fun version of the original. Not to mention Rob Hubbard’s theme from One Man and His Droid playing in the background as well making this a great way to pass the time while you wait for the game to load.

Overall

Star Wars: Droids displayed a fair amount of potential, both on paper and when you first start playing it. The premise certainly seemed to fit well with both the animated series and the characters themselves and the blend of exploration and puzzles worked well. Or it would have if it hadn’t been spoiled by the clumsy interface. And that’s really what lets the whole package down. What could have been a good budget game has been left struggling as a below average release that leaves you frustrated more than anything else. Sadly you’ll get more long term fun from the game’s loader than the main game itself which is a shame.

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