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Star Wars: Pit Droids
 With the release of Episode One: The Phantom Menace, LucasArts had the chance to create cash-in games based on the new (some would say) cash-in movie. They released various games set in the new Star Wars universe and while none were terribly poor, most turned out to be merely mediocre. Lucas Learning's Star Wars: Pit Droids is a puzzle game based in the Episode One universe, so is it an average game with a popular license or a good game that doesn't need to rely on its setting? This review intends to find out, and I will begin in an original and unpredictable way:
Watto, the gambling creature from the movie, is always looking for a bargain and recently found a great deal, a shipload of pit droids, small robots that repair the pod racers raced on Mos Eisley. Unfortunately, the programmers of the droids have done a rather shoddy job, as while they are excellent at maintaining pod racers, more common tasks such as not walking into other droids have been left out (there's a Microsoft in every galaxy). Watto has hired you, an anonymous character, to help guide the pit droids through various locations to reach the race arena in what I call the "quest" mode.
The droids are deployed one after another in single file. To direct them you must place tiles in their path that will direct them to the exits while avoiding any possible hazards. Things start off simple with levels that only need you to change the droids direction. Obviously, they don't stay this simple and you soon have many more things to worry about. These include exits that accept a limited number of droids, sorting droids by their colour and tools they carry, guiding each different type of droid to corresponding exits, and of course, avoiding the Spinning Fans Of Death. All the while only using the given amount and type of tiles.
To make things even more complicated, you only have a certain number of droids and it gets progressively harder to get them all to the exit. You need to get at least 144 droids in each area to unlock all eight to complete the game and only 48 can be shipped at a time... and that's only if you save them all (which most expert players will rack their brain in trying to do).
 In easy mode, which is best suited for children and beginners, you have an unlimited supply of droids so players don't have to worry too much. Medium gives 480 droids making things a bit more tense. Hard is where things get much more headache inducing, giving players a measly 240 droids leaving little room for error and re-enforcing players to try and save as many as possible. Each difficulty also uses a different set of puzzles.
Copyright © Andrew Gray 2002.
All rights reserved.
So how does it play? Quite well, actually. It's played from an isometric 3D perspective, meaning that the view is from above, but titled at an angle giving a 3D feel. All the graphics are sprites however, so high system requirements are not required.
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