For the most part, the graphics in Star Wars: Starfighter are absolutely fantastic. Flying around in space with tons of ships zipping by is just breathtaking, and the planet surfaces are only slightly less so. The engine does snag a little when there's a lot of on-screen action, but it's not so much as to make the game unplayable. The draw distances on the planets is a little shorter than I'd like as well. It's not unmanageable, but it is something of an annoyance.

There's some full motion video in the game, and while it's not Square level, it's certainly passable. It also continues the story in a logical fashion, which is something a lot of FMV nowadays keeps forgetting to do.

The voice acting in SWSF is quite solid as well, with appropriately Star Wars-y voices for the various characters. There aren't as many clips as I would have liked, and the wingman can get mildly annoying by the end of the game, but it's nothing major. The sound effects are right out of the movies, from the laser blasts to the explosions. And the music is precisely what you'd expect for any Star Wars venture -- a sweeping, orchestral John Williams bit. Good stuff.

And while it's a little more stripped-down than I would have liked, Star Wars: Starfighter is an enjoyable gaming experience that'll have you trying to get all of the medals to unlock all the goodies. Though the single-player mission is a little on the short side, you'll be trying to master each level completely for a while.

SWSF tells the tale of three different pilots -- Rhys Dallows is a rookie from Naboo, Vana Sage is a mercenary with a heart, and Nym is a pirate who gets embroiled in it all. Each character flies their own ship, and each ship has its own main and secondary weapons. You don't choose a pilot for a given level, but you'll fly all three of them enough throughout the main game. The storyline itself is congruent with the first movie, but fortunately is nowhere near as annoying in its execution, and in fact ends up being quite interesting in its own right.

The core game mechanics are the same ones that we've been playing with since X-Wing, or more appropriately the Colony Wars games. There are attack missions and defend missions, for the most part, and you'll spend time in the cockpit hunting down enemy ships both large and small to end the threats. Space sims are pretty established nowadays, and SWSF doesn't do much to challenge that establishment.

One of the nicer features of Starfighter is the addition of a sniper mode, which zooms in on your targeting reticle. This is essential for long-range attacks, as unlike most games of this type, your shots go pretty much as far as you'd like them to. You can take out half of a wing in long-range mode, and often have to if you don't want to be blown to bits.

Yet, with that plus, comes a downside. In the stripping down of the typically complex space sim hud, Lucasarts got rid of the radar. While at first that seems only a minor inconvenience, when you get to some of the sprawling levels where you're asked to take out certain types of ships, and you have to pump the damn 'cycle targets' button like a madman, you'll wish for a radar. And when you have to defend a location or ship, it would be really nice to see them on a radar. While I understand that it may have been confusing to first-time space sim gamers, it would have been nice to have the radar and been able to turn it off.

There's a lot of stuff to unlock, but the game itself only lasts for a little over a dozen missions, which means that a good player could get through them all in a day. Unlocking is the key to longevity, which isn't terrible, but I wish there were more missions to go on in the main storyline.

You pick your difficulty level when you start a level or game, and until you exit it, you stay at that level. There's Easy, Medium, and Hard, and they're all quite indicative of the challenge of their levels. The game keeps track of the hardest difficulty level you've beaten a mission on and the number of medals you got in that mission. The missions themselves are usually not too terribly difficult, although there are a couple that are downright challenging, especially if you're going after the bonus goals. As with any of these types of games, perseverence is the key.

Star Wars: Starfighter uses every bloody button on the PS2 controller, including R3 -- you know, when you push in the right analog stick? The control scheme is complex, but it's very easy to pick up, especially if you've played any games of this type before. It's also configurable, but I suggest sticking with the original scheme. The core mechanics are solid, as any good space sim should be, and although I wish the missions had more variety, you can't fault the general formula. The menus are Spartan, no-frills affairs, but they certainly get the job done and done right. My only technical beef comes with the load times, which dance dangerously inside the 'annoyingly long' zone, especially when you're trying to get some hard-to-accomplish secondary goals.

Star Wars: Starfighter doesn't do much new for the space sim genre, but what it does, it does quite well. With a gorgeous engine, lots of furious action, and more Star Wars ambiance than you can shake a stick at, any fan of the genre or of Star Wars should definitely check SWSF out. Anyone else should give it a rental to see if it's their cup of tea. Chances are good that it'll strike your fancy, and you'll be blowing away Trade Federation baddies with the rest of us.