Review by Matt_B on 09 Nov 2011 (Rating: 3)
No, it's nothing to do with Star Wars, but this is another of those games from 1985 where Mastertronic were just starting to turn the corner from a churner of cheap tat to putting out great games at a bargain price.
The plot is fairly simple, you must fly through space to five mines and shut them down in order to save the Empire. Since parts of the fifth mine are inaccessible until you've shut down the first four, you've got to tackle them first.
The flying through space part of the game is the weakest bit; the 3D effect isn't very convincing and totally goes out the window when asteroids that were zooming towards you suddenly start to slide across the screen at random. Avoiding them isn't too hard though and eventually you should arrive at one of the mines.
Getting through the mines is tricky and requires a bit of study. Generally you'll find a safe spot to perch in where you can watch the droids moving around in their repetitive patterns before making a dash to the next safe place. You've got to shut down a number of cores in each mine and then it's off through space again to the next one.
On the whole, it's a rather flawed game with multiple parts that don't gel together well. Still, it wasn't that bad for a couple of quid back in the day and was a lot better than most of the fluff that had preceded it on Mastertronic's budget label.
