REVIEW - Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a serviceable but uninspired remaster
Doing minimal business.
By Jonathan Garrett
27/08/24
Reviewed on Xbox Series X.
Review copy provided by Lucasfilm Games.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter elicits a particular kind of nostalgia for licensed games made with actual reverence for their source material. It’s exactly the kind of dream project that fans of The Mandalorian are likely hoping will materialise as a current gen developed sequel in due course. For now, developer Aspyr and Lucasfilm Games have seen fit to bring back the PS2 and GameCube original, with a slick widescreen coat of paint and some quality of life tweaks.
The option for modernised camera controls and the addition of a flashlight in darker areas are the headline additions here, but for the most part, this is the Bounty Hunter title you remember. The linear levels, jet pack shootouts, and janky A.I. are present and accounted for. In fact, this is a Remaster in the loosest possible sense; there’s an obvious graphical polish, but mechanically there hasn’t really been any standout improvements.
It’s the barebones nature of this re release that underwhelms at a time where revisits of past glories are all the rage and have been handled elsewhere in more sweeping and ambitious ways. As much as the option for a functional camera is appreciated, it still devolves into chaos in hectic moments, and its somewhat unhinged tendency to swing wildly when level geometry gets in the way remains jarring.
Gadget swapping and enemy targeting remains faithfully clunky, and although the lack of breadcrumb handholding gives breathing room to exploration, the repetitive texture work can get you all turned around. It’s important to preserve the winning attributes of older titles in these remasters, but the lack of meaningful effort to modernise the experience left us feeling cold.
Bottom line: if you want modern access to this classic package with some sharper textures, that option is open to you. But Star Wars: Bounty Hunter deserved a more comprehensive revisit than this basic effort.
Jango is still cool though.
WORTH IT?
At the bottom of every game review, we ask the question: Worth it? And the answer is either “Yeah!” or “Nah”, followed by a comment that sums up how we feel. In order to provide more information, we also have “And” or “But”, which follows up our rating with further clarification, additional context for a game we love, or perhaps a redeeming quality for a game we didn’t like.
NAH.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is preserved a little too faithfully, with the lack of meaningful changes making it tough to recommend.
BUT
If you want current gen access to a higher resolution version of one of your personal favourites, then this will still tick boxes for you.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
