Star Wars: Dark Side Rising is a co-operative card and dice game inspired by the events leading up to and through Star Wars: A New Hope. [1] However, the duelling is quite rigidly structured. You basically have to parry three blows and then win a stand-off, at which point you can wail away at your opponent and try to take as much health from them as humanly possible. As a result, it all feels oddly formal, and not enough like a proper lightsaber duel. Those wanting to relive childhood dreams of playing Luke as he takes on his dad might not have their perfect game yet. In the game, players must work together to recruit rebels and prevent the construction of the ultimate weapon, the original Death Star. Each player starts with an individual board that indicates the Rebel cell they are leading: Intelligence, Leadership, Support or Tactical. The player boards depict the Base of Operations — Tatooine, Alderaan, Yavin 4, or Lothal — and team leader (starting character asset) for each player: Captain Cassian Andor, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, and Hera Syndulla. Kinect Star Wars is a pleasant surprise. It has its share of issues and, inevitably, some parts of the game work better than others. Yet, it’s a very entertaining Kinect experience, an enjoyable Star Wars experience, and generally more fun than we expected. If you take a po-faced attitude to gaming or Star Wars, and you’re looking for a deep Star Wars adventure that lets you wield the force and a lightsaber with flawless motion controls, Kinect Star Wars isn’t it. But if you’re happy with a lighter, more family-oriented title that you can trot out on a Friday night with Star Wars-loving friends and on Sunday with Clone Wars-crazy kids, then Kinect Star Wars will do very nicely. In X-Wing players can choose from a variety of Rebel and Imperial vessels, including X-Wings (obviously) and TIE Fighters, before engaging in a head-to-head dogfight with their opponent - apparently in the middle of an enormous space battle, according to the game’s description. Each turn players secretly select a speed and manoeuvre to perform, with the aim of catching their opponent’s ship off-guard and successfully landing a shot. Every ship’s piloting dial, which is what players use to determine speed and manoeuvre, is different, with unique advantages and disadvantages to each one.

a b Deesing, Jonathan (5 April 2012). "Kinect Star Wars Review for Xbox 360". G4. G4 Media. Archived from the original on 11 March 2013 . Retrieved 5 April 2012. Let’s finish this list with a new take on an old classic, Risk: Star Wars Edition. You can’t really go wrong with Risk, it’s a classic beginner board game that’s a fantastic introduction to some pretty standard tabletop mechanics - area control, dice rolling and card playing, but to name a few. There’s a reason why the Risk series has remained such a staple of the board game industry in the over 50 years since the original released: it’s easy to learn and still (mostly) fun to play. The reviewer did notice the respectable graphics during the Dark Side Rising campaign, and the review team enjoyed Galactic Dance Off. [5]One thing jumps out immediately about Star Wars: Dark Side Rising, and that’s the giant bust of Darth Vader looming over the middle of the table like an asthmatic Pop-Up Pirate. It’s massive. Despite our collective mothers warning us against judging books by their covers, things like this tend to set off something of a warning siren in my head. Like the 50-year-old executive with the Lotus, it makes you wonder what the flashy ostentation is making up for.

In the game, players must work together to recruit rebels and prevent the construction of the ultimate weapon, the original Death Star. Each player starts with an individual board that indicates the Rebel cell they are leading: Intelligence, Leadership, Support or Tactical. The player boards depict the Base of Operations — Tatooine, Alderaan, Yavin 4, or Lothal — and team leader (starting character asset) for each player: Captain Cassian Andor, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, and Hera Syndulla. However, they aren’t as many games that appeal to the family crowd as you’d expect. They’re either quite complex or are so simple that they might as well be Monopoly. What you want is a game that elicits the thrill and excitement of the movies whilst still being straight forward enough to let a disinterested sibling or parent also have fun. Star Wars Dark Side Rising is one of those games; mechanically interesting enough to appeal to none Star Wars fans, but yet interesting enough to keep wannabe Jedi engaged. Of course, some of them are undeniably awful - Trivial Pursuit DVD: Star Wars Saga Edition has incredibly strong 2005 vibes, and 1977’s Escape from Death Star set a poor standard from the off. Others are simply straight-up copies of existing board games, such as the many, many versions of Star Wars Monopoly out there. However, some are prime examples of how to make excellent movie franchise board games to fill in gaps in the narrative or to let players live out their Jedi or Sith fantasies.Overall this section of the game is a very satisfying game of risk, reward and resource management. Using your re-rolls, abilities and alliance tokens in the right combinations to make the most efficient use of your turn isn’t easy but sits nicely on that line between mechanically accessible and good strategic depth.

The use of Star Wars characters and locations manages to give Kinect Star Wars atmosphere, and the game is cleverly balanced to appeal to both the thirty/fortysomething nostalgics who saw the original trilogy on first release, and the younger fans who came in with the prequel trilogy or Clone Wars. It also shows how far Microsoft has come in terms of making Kinect controls more sensitive, and more suitable for more demanding games. Most of all, Kinect Star Wars is a great game to dip in and out of, and a fine one to watch, making it a natural hit with families or groups of friends. This might not be the motion-controlled Star Wars game that so many of us think we want, but who cares? The bottom line is that Kinect Star Wars delivers a lot of Star Wars fun. In Dark Side Rising two to four players must work together to thwart the evil machinations of plastic Darth Vader - his disembodied torso perches in the middle of the game board - as he attempts to build his ultimate weapon. Each player assumes control over a different Rebel cell - intelligence, leadership, support or tactical - as well as their own base of operations: Tatooine, Alderaan, Yavin 4 or Lothal. With resources and allies at their disposal, these players must strategically coordinate their efforts to defeat enough Imperial agents before it’s too late. As new threats arise, players will also be able to call on iconic Rebel allies like Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker for help. In this mode, very similar to Dance Central, the player copies dance movements the characters on screen perform. Several famous songs are used in the game, such as "Ridin' Solo," but given slight re-writes, such as "I'm Han Solo," to fit the Star Wars universe. Players must coordinate efforts to recruit iconic characters, such as C-3PO, R2-D2, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Admiral Raddus and Han Solo, and organize their cells to thwart the Empire's rise to galactic domination.Star Wars: Dark Side Rising is a co-operative card and dice game inspired by the events leading up to and through Star Wars: A New Hope.

Both these miniatures games do a fine job of allowing players to re-enact classic Star Wars space battles, whether you’re looking for something faster-paced like X-Wing or slow-burning like Armada. Weekly Sales Analysis, 7 April 2012 - Kinect Star Wars at VGChartz on www.vgchartz.com (archived from the original on April 18, 2012) The final mode might be the most controversial. Galactic Dance Off is a clone of the excellent Dance Central games, but with the action moved to classic Star Wars locations such as Jabba’s Palace or the Bespin carbonite freezer. Fellow dancers become exotic aliens, or established stars like Han Solo or Princess Leia. Even the songs get reworked with Star Wars-related lyrics, so that the old Christina Aguilera hit goes from Genie in a Bottle to Princess in a Battle, with Leia urging Han to man-up and join the rebel alliance. Good movie board games should be about skillfully recreating cinematic moments from the films they’re based on, which Star Wars: Imperial Assault accomplishes with absolute flourish. Set after the events seen in Episode IV: A New Hope, Imperial Assault has its players facing off against one another in an epic clash between the mighty Galactic Empire and scrappy Rebel Alliance. To use these dice, the symbols rolled must be matched to one or more cards in the system the player is active in. Matching all the symbols on a Rebel agent allows the player to recruit that agent while matching all the symbols on an Imperial troop allows the player to damage, and possibly defeat, that troop. Doing the latter also rewards the player with a powerful one-time Alliance token, each of which can be cashed in for a different effect. The component quality of SW:DSR is undoubtedly high.

In the game, players must work together to recruit rebels and prevent the construction of the ultimate weapon, the original Death Star. Each player starts with an individual board that indicates the Rebel cell they are leading: Intelligence, Leadership, Support or Tactical. The player boards depict the Base of Operations — Tatooine, Alderaan, Yavin 4, or Lothal — and team leader (starting character asset) for each player: Captain Cassian Andor, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, and Hera Syndulla. [1] Kinect to launch on November 4 in North America, 15 launch titles on www.vg247.com (archived from the original on September 8, 2015) This is unfair. Plenty of games out there from Wingspanto Tang Garden have wonderful components and it is legitimate for the quality of the design in a board game to be part of its appeal. I would advise interested parties happening upon Star Wars: Dark Side Rising not to be put off by the flash because there is a very solid, co-operative game underneath. Even Forrest-Whittaker-eye isn’t enough to put off Big Daddy Vader. Kinect Star Wars becomes first Kinect exclusive to lead UK sales charts on www.gamasutra.com (archived from the original on October 2, 2020) Alternatively, you could play Star Wars: Force and Destiny, a roleplaying game more concerned with the struggle between the Sith and Jedi than the two major armies. In Force and Destiny, players can choose between following the dark or light side of the Force as they develop their very own Force-sensitive character. Join the Rebellion, become part of the Empire or ignore the conflict altogether and go your own way - Force and Destiny lets you decide.