THQ let you relive the closing moments leading up to the destruction of the Death Star of Star Wars: A New Hope. But does it wield the true power of the force, or is it as fun as counting mediclorians?

Well, first off, those expecting a mobile edition of the Gamecube Rogue Squadron are in for disappointment, this game does not have that kind of scope. However, those of you who remember the classic arcade experience will be taken down memory lane. Don’t worry though, this isn’t a graphically limted vector based game like the arcade original, far from it, it almost looks as good as Rogue Squadron. But, from a gameplay point of view it’s pretty much the same.

From the main mission mode, you start out orbiting the Death Star where you must take down the attacking Tie Fighters. Control is through accelerometer to fly the X-Wing, and two simple touch areas for shooting (right side of screen) and activating Force power (left side), this force power slows time allowing you to react better to on-coming obsticles or get a lock-on a tie fighter. On completion of the dogfighting you will then be taken into the trench run scenario. Here you must avoid turret fire, overhead obsticles and finally watch your back for Darth Vader. After the signature scream of “you’re all clear kid” from Han Solo, you must then ready yourself for the final hoorah of the torpedoes down the exhaust port. Job done!

While these sections are selectable as separate missions, played together they all merge as one. Once complete, however, there isn’t a whole lot more to do. You can play through it again for a better score, or try a harder difficulty… and there is an arcade mode that takes each mssion and replays over and over increasing difficulty each time… similar to a wave based shooter.

As I said before, those expecting something deep will be disappointed. But perhaps they are missing the point. To me this is a re-imagining of the arcade classic… and for that it does a great job, perfectly replicating the sound and action of that closing act. However, with it’s relatively high price point, and when compared to other fly and gun games like Above and Beyond and Top Gun, it doesn’t really stand up from a value and content standpoint.

Star Wars Trench Run is out now for $4.99

Review disclosure: Any games reviewed on this page may have been provided to us by the developer for the purposes of this review. Note: the resulting review score is never impeded by this fact, all opinions are that of the TouchGen reviewer and not the developer. This is in keeping with our O.A.T.S oath. Read more about O.A.T.S here

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