Bounty Hunter takes place shortly after Episode I. With the Galactic Republic in disarray an uprising of rebel Jedi, called the Bando Gora, take advantage of the mass confusion by staging attacks on the galaxy’s most powerful industries. The dark lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious, views these rebels as a danger to his own nefarious plans. Commanding his new apprentice, Darth Tyranus, who once was a former Jedi named Count Dooku, to eliminate this newly formed threat and to also find the perfect specimen for Darth Sidious’ soon to be created clone army. Darth Tyranus decides he can take care of both commands simultaneously, by putting a huge bounty on the head of the leader of the Bando Gora; he can rid himself of that problem while attracting a bounty hunter worthy of cloning.

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a third person action adventure title with plenty of style and ambiance. The story of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter revolves around the relentless Jengo Fett, a bounty hunter of exceptional skill and reputation. Jengo’s weapons of choice are his signature twin blasters, but he doesn’t limit himself to only the use of those. Jengo can use a number of weapons and devices; from the famous Mandalorian Whipcord and jetpack missile to the more conventional blaster rifle.

LucasArts has really succeeded in capturing the feel of the Star Wars universe in this title, and the city and landscapes are done extremely well. Also, something particularly unusual occurred when I was playing this game, the floating camera worked, it didn’t get in my way, and it flowed in combat with me. And get this, you could manually position the camera, and it didn’t fight you. Bad camera angles and controls have plagued third person action games since the genre started, it was a pleasant surprise to see that someone implemented a camera that worked so well on its own, and also didn’t fight when you wanted to see a different angle.

The controls for Bounty Hunter are solid, moving Jengo around is done with the left analog control stick and camera controls are on the right analog control stick. Also the auto-targeting works fairly well, allowing you to keep your sights on your foe while you are strafing and avoiding other enemy fire. However, this is not a game without flaws; the most horrid of these flaws is the collision detection. At times, when you have to maneuver in tight areas, you often get “caught” on the wall, or other inanimate objects. This is not a case of you just running into to it, it is a case of the object or you taking up more space than you can see. With the collision problems, flying can become such a pain when you have to use your jetpack in the tight city based areas.

All in all I was incredibly impressed with Bounty Hunter, the levels were superbly done, and the essence of Star Wars was genuinely captured in this title. Also Skywalker Sound providing sounds straight from the movies, just increases the already awesome atmosphere that was created by the characters, level design, and controls. If LucasArts can clean up that collision detection issue, it would be a near-perfect third person action engine for future releases. However, Bounty Hunter will make an excellent addition to anyone’s PlayStation 2 collection, both for the diehard fans and those who have not purchased themselves a Jengo Fett lunchbox, yet.