Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Review

In a land far far back in the year 2002, there was a Star Wars videogame where you played as a helmeted bounty hunter known as Jango Fett. This videogame was a straight-up blastathon, set in a fractious Star Wars universe that behaved like a Lara Croft Tomb Raider game set in space-except replace the platforming with jetpack exploration. Now twenty-two years later, we’ve got ourselves a remaster, but sorry to disappoint all you nostalgia-craving canaries, Bounty Hunter is not strong enough to save the galaxy, it’s merely a competent-yet-outdated Star Wars videogame squatting in a pool of other Star Wars games both better and worse, but let’s find out why the force is weak with this one.

One of the problems many “remasters” have is they don’t do much to fundamentally upgrade many of the outdated aspects of the game, although the subtle improvements made do make them smoother and more enjoyable to play for a modern audience. Bounty Hunter is over two-decades old, and while it’s accompanied by a pleasant bolstering to its technical performance, textures and lighting, some elements are too archaic such as the wayward camera control, and robotic enemy A.I. Suffices to say the flourishes are respectable, but it still carries itself like a game from 2002 in problematic ways. 

Bounty Hunter‘s story will be most-pleasing to Star Wars aficionados, as it fills in gaps from films in the Star Wars franchise, so offers plenty of juicy lore for fans to soak in. Set in an expanded universe that adds juicy insights to the comic book Jango Fett: Open Seasons, as well as acting as a prequel to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Bounty Hunter is positioned to appease the most ardent of Star Wars fans, which may leave newer and younger fans in the lurch, but there’s enough on Jango’s plate regarding hostile forces to swat away like they were an angry swarm of locusts, that the game’s existence gives itself some weight despite feeling like a mere gap-filler.

Jango is saddled with many enemies in Bounty Hunter that he has to fend off – who says the life of a bounty hunter would be easy?  Not only is he tasked with eliminating Dark Jedi Komari Vosa, but he’s also embroiled in a trafficking conspiracy, and he’s got criminal syndicates bearing down on him, and he wants to finish a feud with an old rival as well. All told, Bounty Hunter has some sizable reasons to exist, though it still feels squashed in like an unneeded extra, especially considering all the other Star Wars videogames that fill up the galaxy. 

One of the most notable and commendable aspects of Bounty Hunter is that it’s a no-nonsense run and gunner, meaning Jango’s main directive is firing his laser weapons at any who fire towards him, so the action is continuously ratcheted up. It’s undeniably cool to play as a badass bounty hunter who can mow down enemies like they were feckless fodder. This gets doubly cool when you gain access to a jet pack, so no enemy shall pot shot you like a bundle of cowardly ingrates anymore.

However, no matter how cool Bounty Hunter is conceptually, or how novel it is to revel in a Star Wars run and gun game, it loses a lot of steam by not only existing as an archaic two-decade old game with a standard remaster job bolted onto it, but playing like one as well.  Why the decision was forged to remaster a mid-level early 00s Star Wars game is anybody’s guess, but let’s find out what holes remain on Jango’s spaceship shall we? 

As previously stated, the running and gunning is all well and good, but blasting laser weapons at a gaggle of aloof galactic crims is hardly enjoyable. The pack of copy-paste clones are far greater in numbers than they are alone, and they’re easy picking, yet their defensive capabilities are non-existent, meaning you’ll carelessly shoot at them like a cowboy rather than a bounty hunter, minus the lasso and sombrero. 

The jetpack allows you to elevate yourself to higher and otherwise-unreachable platforms, and while it works as intended, the game does a poor job of instructing you how to use it effectively. Sometimes you’ll be holding down both sticks on the controller, when you only need to hold down one in order to ascend to a reasonable height where a difficult-to-reach platform is. Holding down both sticks at the same time doesn’t afford you the height you need to cross some of the platforms that are tougher to reach, so you may find yourself befuddled and annoyed at the limitations of the jetpack. 

Level design is another sticking point. Despite the levels looks flat and drab, navigating them is undesirable. Despite Bounty Hunter‘s linearity, it can still be somewhat challenging to know where you need to go to make progress, and without markers to guide you, you’re left to find the way forward for yourself. Jango has access to a laser tool that can cut through grates, which does help with navigation provided you can find where the grates are, but most of the time you are left to your own devices to figure out where to go.

 Bounty Hunter doesn’t shy away from joyless tedium then, but thankfully it’s not so bad that you’ll want to turn away from this bounty. The forward momentum and the peow-peow appeal of Bounty Hunter does help it to retain some enjoyability, although despite the appreciable polish job done here, it’s very much still a relic of the past you’ll need to assert a good dab of tolerance for in order to summon the most pleasure from it.

Shinier than the original version and given a commendable visual uprez, Bounty Hunter looks OK, but the ugliness of the environments don’t help it along, but considering this is a remaster it’s not fair to be too harsh about how the game looks, though it’s kinda comparable to Darth Maul’s face as the polish job bleeds into an ancient graphics engine. It’s a fair effort overall, though a remake of Bounty Hunter would’ve been better to iron out most if not all of the game’s antiquated features.

Conclusion

If you’re starving for more Star Wars nourishment in videogame form and you haven’t given Star Wars: Bounty Hunter a whirl, there are far worse games that make use of the Star Wars license. It can be a blast to blast around linear levels with Boba Fett and his jetpack while repelling galactic grunts, but no matter how slick the remaster job is, it cannot hide how old this twenty-plus year old game is, and the frustrations inherent within it are too apparent to ignore. So Bounty Hunter isn’t the worst Star Wars outing and the remaster doesn’t do a bad job, but just like the original game, it might be worthwhile for Star Wars geeks to froth over, but it’s otherwise a despairingly middling affair. So go give Jango and go, but this one doesn’t steal the show and it sorta blows.