Is Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order
a good Star Wars game?
well that's a tough question to answer...
But we did it!
If you want to know if Fallen Order or really
any Star Wars game is any good just ask yourself five questions.
The first question is does it have the iconography
Star Wars games should let you do things
that can only happen in Star Wars
like chillin' in a cantina or
flying a spaceship too fast through an enclosed space or
using telekinesis to choke an old British man.
Shadows of the Empire tried to capture some of the magic with
these one-off levels where you do real Star Wars stuff
but you spend most of the game
playing as a bargain bin Han Solo shooting an AT-ST's in the ass
It''s not iconic.
on the other end of the spectrum we've got Battlefront,
which packs so many Star Wars icons onto the screen at any given moment
that it almost feels like overkill.
It's uh, it's kind of like the Traveling Wilburys of Star Wars games
it's cos
The Traveling Wilburys was a rock supergroup with Tom Petty
and Roy Orbison and George Harrison...
Second question: does it sound like Star Wars?
Does it have the (blaster noises)
and the (light saber hum)
and the (TIE fighter sound)
In the original films Ben Burtt combined the sounds of an old
film projector and a TV tube recorded through a faulty microphone cable
to create the sound of the lightsabers.
He banged wrenches off of metal cables
And then John Williams came in and did his John Williams thing.
[STAR WARS THEME]
in the old games the sound just didn't sound
big enough.
but this is the thing that's improved with video game technology
and some games really go the extra mile
on top of the perfect ship sounds and laser blasts
Rogue Squadron 2 also went out of its way to get that familiar sort of crackly
distortion to the radio chatter
"Rogue Leader, this is Base 1, [unintelligible] out of range for the next run."
That's a good Star Wars.
The third question,
is it fashion?
Star Wars jams together bits of sci-fi speculation and military history and high fantasy
with a healthy dash of the good old 1970s
Most of these dudes look like they're here on shore leave.
The fashion doesn't just create that unique Star Wars look,
it also tells you things about the characters.
if you need to know what somebody's all about
just look at their fit.
Just a glance you can tell that
Ben Kenobi is a reclusive monk slash Samurai warrior
and that Poe Dameron is a dashing pilot
and that Lando Calrissian fucks.
Force Unleashed was really missing that 1970s flavor
It's streamlined a lot of the costumes your
soul thing and things that were either too gritty or smooth or just video game-y.
This is Juno Eclipse,
a star war!
Star Killer looks like the protagonist of a mid aughts action game
called Mind Prophecy: Dark Visions.
give him a mustache.
If you're still trying to figure out if this is a good Star Wars game
use the fourth...
Thing on this list
[LAUGHTER]
Does the setting feel real, believable and lived in?
If so it does not belong in Star Wars!
Star Wars is all about shockingly impractical architecture.
Walkways next to bottomless pits with no guardrails,
or a circuit breaker on a little platform surrounded by a bottomless pit,
or maybe a hard drive array, dangling in the middle of a room,
over a bottomless pit.
But bottomless pits aren't the only unifying design element of Star Wars environments.
There are also holes, shafts, chutes,
chasms, caves, crevices,
and the occasional
yawning abyss.
Seriously this is so important to Star Wars,
there needs to be a sense of constant peril,
like one wrong step would just lead to you plummeting
a billion feet to your death.
Jedi Outcast totally nailed this,
especially the Nar Shadda level,
which was like 95% bottomless pits,
4% Rodian's,
1% places you could stand without dying.
And five,
is it good?
You may have noticed that we made it this far without even
discussing the quality of the gameplay,
and that's because in the big picture,
it doesn't really matter all that much
We'll put up with a lot to be whisked away
to the magical world of Star Wars,
so if your controls are dog shit
or if your game is stupidly hard
it's still pretty magical.
So what happens when we apply this to a good Star Wars game?
Well let's take a look at Super Bombad Racing–
[Clayton] Not today Patrick.
Today we're going to use this rubric on the Platonic ideal
of a good Star Wars game.
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.
Does is have iconography?
You bet!
And not only that, but Bioware had to work in a part of the
Star Wars timeline that no one else had before
so they had to understand the archetypes of Star Wars.
The dashing rogue, the reclusive Jedi,
the sarcastic robot, the Wookie!
And it sounds great too
the lasers go [LASER SOUNDS]
and the lightsabers go [LIGHT SABER SOUNDS]
music sounds like John Williams without actually using John Williams.
[STAR WARS MUSIC]
and they nailed the costumes too.
They evoke Star Wars without outright copying it.
There are Mandalorians with Boba Fett style battle armor
and cyborg Sith villains.
Even the Jedi evoke different styles from the rumpled hermit Jedi
to the warrior monk
But where does it take you?
All over the galaxy baby!
You can go to Kashyyyk, home of the Wookies, who live up in trees,
but don't worry
you're going down to the surface where all the apex predators live.
or what about Manaan?
A planet covered in one giant ocean,
there are floating cities but don't worry,
you're gonna go down to the bottom where the apex predators live!
And guess what's in the final level!
And that's why Knights of the Old Republic is one of great–
I forgot
Is it a good game?
Well, it is a solid Bioware RPG, with some
atrocious racing and turret mini-games
Which is why it is the greatest Star Wars game ever made.
And now let's talk about Kotor 2, the SIth Lor–
[Patrick} Mom says it's my turn on the Star Wars.
So can we apply this to the new Star Wars game,
Jedi, Fallen Order, Star Wars.
First question, iconography.
Yep, nails it, we got a lightsaber right off the bat.
We've got a beautiful, unique, baby droid
who I will die to protect.
And the demo that we saw starts with
a flyby from a little spaceship.
It sounds like Star Wars!
Lightsabers, perfect.
They actually brought back Ben Burtt,
that guy we talked about earlier
to create the sound of your beautiful baby droid friend
uh, so, [KISS SOUNDS] they did it.
Question 3, did they get the costumes right?
No, they're cowards.
Just look at this Riverdale haircut.
Doesn't have a bad mustache or anything
and you just don't know exactly what he's supposed to be
and that kind of sucks.
and even the villains that we've seen so far
are sort of less intimidating versions of Sith villains
we've seen in the past.
and the fourth thing, does the setting make sense?
absolutely not, it's perfect.
like seriously as soon as the demo starts
there is a bottomless pit and within like five minutes of landing on this
planet he's already fighting all of the apex predators that live there
he has to walk through a tunnel that has a rotor spinning in it for some reason
a bunch of giant grinders, next to a prison
next to a pit
what are they doing there?
the Jedi guy is standing over a platform with a fucking spinning bridge in it
which has no reason to exist
what are they– what were they doing?
It's perfect.
and the final question and whether or not this is a good Star Wars game.
is it good?
I mean we don't know, I haven't played it.
have you?
does your uncle work at Star Wars?
can I do a Wookie?
[WOOKIES SOUNDS]
No, I can't do a Wookie.
[WOOKIE SOUNDS]