Game Review: Star Wars: Droids (ZX Spectrum, Mastertronic / MAD)

I count myself to be incredibly lucky. As a sci-fi fan, I got to see Star Trek from the beginning thanks to the early re-runs hitting the screens in the UK (helped by my mother’s love of science fiction), watching Doctor Who from the beginning of the Tom Baker era, and remembering seeing Star Wars right from the start in the cinema. That was something I’ll never forget, witnessing that epic opening with the Star Destroyer flying overhead at the start of the film that left everyone’s jaw wide open in the cinema. I tell you, as a six year old it was truly life-changing. So it’s no surprise that a a lifelong sci-fi and Star Wars fan, I’d want to try out every incarnation of the Star Wars: Droids game including this port for the ZX Spectrum…

When Star Wars Was In A Creative Lull

It has to be said that when the Droids animated series was released, Star Wars – or at least its on screen presence – wasn’t in the best of health. While we had the novels and long running comics series from Marvel, there was nothing that could be considered to be “mainstream” after the cinema release of Return Of The Jedi in 1983. It wasn’t really a secret that the initial plan from George Lucas was to produce and release nine movies in the Star Wars saga, but it was generally acknowledged that the series ended after Jedi.

In fact, after the poorly received TV movie featuring the Ewoks in 1984 it seemed as if there wasn’t really anything else to come for the majority of fans. But then something unusual happened in 1985… Lucasfilm gambled on a second Ewok TV movie and then launched not one but TWO animated spin-offs. Putting more faith in the fur, they released Ewoks (hoping children hadn’t lost their fascination with Endor’s native furballs) and the point of this review – Star Wars: Droids focusing on R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Unlike Ewoks, the Droids show saw the return of Anthony Daniels reprising his legendary role. Most viewers weren’t aware that these two shows weren’t Lucasfilm’s first attempt at producing animated versions of Star Wars – that honour went to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978 which had a 10 minute animated short featuring Boba Fett within in.

But back to Star Wars: Droids and unlike all of the current animated shows and TV series being produced based around the franchise, instead of continuing where Return Of The Jedi left off, Lucasfilm took the unusual approach of setting the series before Star Wars: A New Hope so we saw the droids moving from one owner to another, on various escapades around the Star Wars universe. Essentially this gave the show its own self-contained continuity which is completely incompatible with everything we’ve seen since then following the release of The Phantom Menace!

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

Background history aside, what’s Star Wars: Droids all about? While on one of their escapades, our robotic heroes come into contact with the Fromm gang. The gang have recently escaped from a high security prison on the planet Ingo and have managed to steal an A-Wing fighter from the Rebellion and escaped to the nearby moon of Auren (must be a very small gang if they can all fit into an A-Wing fighter if you ask me!).

Coincidentally our two heroes arrive on the same planet when their shuttlepod crash lands nearby. They’re quickly captured by the gang and find themselves promptly imprisoned deep beneath the planet’s surface in their hideout.

Ever resourceful, R2 has managed to bypass the lock to your cell (the prison conveniently having a droid-compatible control panel on inside obviously helped) and now it’s down to you to guide R2 and 3PO back up to the surface, navigating the underground complex using C-3PO’s wits and R2-D2’s technical wizardry where rescue awaits.

That malfunctioning little twerp. This is all his fault.

Thanks to R2, getting out of the cell was easy but now comes the hard part. To escape the prison complex you have to avoid all of the droids on patrol, 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 of these need pass keys to use properly and these can be found randomly as you walk around the complex. You start off with a limited amount but can collect more as you progress. You also have a set amount of energy and this reduces as you collide with any droid or energy barrier (which again can be disabled thanks to R2) but when this is fully depleted 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.

Playing this sub game is simplicity itself. On screen you’re presented with a row of seven lights and they flash in turn, with the sequence growing longer until you complete the code. To select them, just like the Amstrad version all you need to do is press the number 1-7 on the keyboard to match the corresponding light. While the rest of the game is joystick controlled, this works extremely well using the keyboard and is far better than being joystick controlled and is far easier to remember the sequences.

R2-D2 And C-3PO – Icon-ic Duo or Deadbeat Droids?

Unfortunately Star Wars: Droids isn’t the greatest game to bear the Star Wars name, and that isn’t helped by one key creative decision that was taken by the developers. This had the potential to at least be an average and mildly playable game but instead you’re left with something that you’re fighting against from start to finish and frankly you just feel like rage-quitting almost from the moment you start playing. And that single issue is with the way you control it.

Star Wars: Droids takes a side-on view of the game and for a game of this nature you would think – as you would for most arcade adventures – that controlling the characters would be a case of using the keyboard or joystick for direct movement either swapping between each droid or controlling one and having the other follow. Regardless, everything should be possible with a single fire button and basic up, down, left and right controls.

But nope, not in Star Wars: Droids… the developers decided to opt for an icon based control system instead. You still use the joystick or keyboard but this controls a cursor that allows to to choose the direction you walk, firing, accessing the computer terminals, and so on. Moving left and right on the joystick moves the cursor from one icon to the other and fire selects the one you want to activate, but this control method 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.

The only thing I will say when it comes to the ZX Spectrum version is that the developers learned from their mistakes made with the Commodore 64 version. In that one, you moved a cursor which physically moved across the screen and you had to point it to the icon you wanted to activate but at least here and on the Amstrad version the cursor jumps between icons directly allowing quicker access. Although for some reason, while getting to the icons is quicker, getting the game to respond to your input is another thing altogether…

Playability

And that’s one of the biggest issues with Star Wars: Droids if I am completely honest. There is a genuinely entertaining and challenging game hiding away here, especially the puzzle segments and while it’s not going to win any awards for gameplay it has the potential to be 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 might try to get used to the strange control system after a while, you shouldn’t have to and you’ll still spend far too much time losing energy from contact with the other robots and creatures patrolling the complex when you don’t need to. A game like this desperately needs rapid and responsive controls and they’re just not there and it really takes away the potential that this has. And this is made worse by the awful collision detection – it’s more luck than anything whether your crystals hit their targets when you want them to, and others seem to be immune to your shots.

Add to this is the fact that it’s incredibly sluggish – not just the controls but every aspect of the game. Movement, turning around, responding to your controls, firing crystals to defending yourself… everything takes far longer than it should for a game that doesn’t do anything that should be taxing the humble ZX Spectrum’s processor in any way.

Insect Invasion!

But that’s not the end of the problems you’ll face here. This ZX Spectrum version of Star Wars: Droids is notoriously bug-ridden and the most notable of these is one that will kill the player off completely at random. Sometimes this will be triggered in certain locations by trying to use the lifts, but I also encountered it randomly while I was trying to access a computer terminal. In both cases, despite having enough energy to continue playing the game suddenly ends, displaying the GAME OVER message on screen.

While there is a POKE available to fix this, I’m only going to consider the game in its final retail state and in this instance it’s something that is so unstable that it’s unplayable.

Graphics and Sound

If you’ve played any of the other versions, comparisons are obviously going to be made especially to the Commodore 64 version. As you’d expect both R2-D2 and C-3PO are both single colour here and there isn’t really much in the way of animation to either and if I am honest they’re probably the least detailed here on all the formats which is quite disappointing. While there’s no background visuals, I must say that I was impressed to see parallax scrolling for the floors and ceiling and while it wasn’t needed, it’s a nice touch.

Sound is limited to a few basic sound effects and the Simon-esque game uses varying tones for each of the light patterns but that’s it really for all of the in game sound. One thing I was impressed with was that 128k owners are treated with a title tune – a conversion of the TV show’s end theme that was originally co-written by Stewart Copeland (formerly of The Police), and having heard it on the Amstrad I would believe that this adaptation is the same one by Tony Williams from the Amstrad port. As with that version, it’s quite short and repetitive but it’s nice to have a 128k enhancement.

Overall #

As a huge Star Wars fan right since it landed in the cinemas in 1977, any new game being released has grabbed my attention. Unfortunately, Star Wars: Droids on the Spectrum has done so for all the wrong reasons. The game could have been a half decent entry into the Star Wars videogame universe… if it wasn’t for its sluggish gameplay, poor controls, unforgivable collision detection, and game-breaking bugs. Not even an improved control system would have saved this version of the game and its one that’s best forgotten.

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