Star Wars Lightsaber Battle Game

My wife, bless her cotton socks bought me this for Fathers Day, it's kind of like those all in one joystick retro game jobs in the respect that it runs on batteries and plugs straight into your tv and has that retro 16-bit graphics going on.

So you plug the training droid in and put it on top of your telly - go through some calibration and a training round & you're ready to defend the galaxy!

The cool thing here is that it's a bit like an eye-toy, the training droid (the white sphere) has an 'eye' that detects the movement of your lightsaber. The lightsaber itself has no batteries - if I've figured this out right the training droid has 4 infra-red lights that reflect off the lightsaber and is detected by the camera (sensor?) back on the unit.

Whatever it all works very well, better than I expected actually. I found it works best with the lights off.. which kind of helps cos I feel a bit dicky waving this lightsaber around in broad daylight. Aah bugger it, who cares .. I've asked my wife (who's just got a new sewing machine) to do me up a jedi outfit so I can get into character next time I play.

This game did suck me in, I stand there at the ready - lightsaber poised to deflect incoming lasers (yeah you get to do that, its cool!) - learn special moves and duke it out with the big guys like Darth Maul (he's a first level pussy, my 3 yr old daughter brought him down).

This isn't a kiddy game though, I found it quite challenging on the later levels, I'm up to about 4 of 7 I think - not only do you have to know the right moves and get your timing right - you have to physically do it - and reasonably accurately. Holding the lightsaber in a poised position shows the lightsaber beam accross the screen matching the angle and position you're holding it - this allows you to block those incoming shots. Slash the lightsaber and it streaks accross the screen damaging whatever's in its path (and close enough - the guys in the distance you have to bounce their shots back). Special moves like swinging in a certain pattern causes more damage, or there's a special blocking move where you spin the blade.

I'm up to the big Jango Fett battle - it's very ticky, he flys accross the screen laying out a stream of laser bolts you have to deflect or (and this is really tricky) flick the blade at the right time to bounce the bolts back.

This is a really cool game, I loved it as any star wars fan would.

The game is a little hard to find, but it is available through K-mart in Australia for around AUD$60.