Playing Return of the Jedi (C64)
Hi there!
What, no vectors?!? 
Well, Atari probably figured that they wouldn't get away with yet another recycling of the old Star Wars vector coin-ops, so they returned to more common raster grahpics to finish the Trilogy.
Of course I choose the C64 version. And it's horrible. I kinda understood the poor C64 versions of the vector games, but delivering such a mess for RotJ is insulting the unstoppable 8-Bit juggernaut. The C64 definitely can do a much better job at some diagonal scrolling sprite game!
Everything looks rushed, from graphics to sonics - and partially it's just buggy! On the surface the gameplay is there: You get the Endor part, the Deathstar destruction and from the 2nd round onwards also the alternating walker / space shooting parts.
The fun from the Arcade (or the 16-Bit conversions) is almost gone though. The collision detection is flawed, there's no noticable enemy AI, the graphics seem to stutter and the animation is choppy. It kinda feels like a prototype: All required elements were quickly thrown into the game and then they just shipped it, without bothering much about a polishing phase or even some more beta testing...
It's pretty short - so the torture ended fast. Just like the other games of the series, the 4 phases repeat just over and over again, with only little changes from the second round onwards.
Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Atari Arcade conversion in the form of "Blasteroids", but first it'll continue with something else.
Greetings,
Manuel
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