Star Wars Movie Duels

Description
Wow, where to start! I daresay this is one of the most anticipated mods of the year. Ladies and gentlemen, Wector's Movie Duels 2 is here, and it's bigger and badder than ever. Start downloading it now, regardless of whether or not you play SP mods. In fact, download it now even if you don't have the game. Go buy the game while you wait. :p

Now, I know some of you may look at the file size and freak out - the installer is 875 MB. But it's worth every KB! I don't play SP mods very often, and I just couldn't stop playing.

So, let's begin!

First off, those menus are excellent. They are easy to navigate and they look nice. Two thumbs up for that alone. :thumbsup:

One of the unique things about this mod is that you can play on the good or evil side in most of the scenarios. Taking the side that is supposed to lose usually has some creative storyline involved...in fact, it's quite fun for those people who just love being extraordinarily evil for no reason. Like the first version, the only movie-based duels available are the prequels. I guess it would be rather difficult to create duels based on the original trilogy, what with them being less epic and all.

Episode I
[b]Short Negotiations[/b] covers the very first fight sequence in Episode I, where Qui-Gon-Jinn and Obi-Wan are sent as ambassadors to Naboo to resolve the trade dispute. There are many embellishments here, but overall, it's true enough to the original story.

[b]Outskirts of Tatooine[/b] is the duel between Qui-Gon and Darth Maul right before they depart for Coruscant. This one was mostly true to the story, the only thing it was missing was the bike at the beginning (unless I somehow missed it).

[b]Duel of the Fates[/b] - Wowie! Very well done. Beginning in the hangar bay and moving into the purply-white-lightning-tube section, this one had it all. It seemed like every little detail was checked with a fine-tooth comb. Everything worked wonderfully, with one exception - when I took over as Obi-Wan and the force fields released, I ran backwards and was locked out. After a very long, patient wait, I decided it was time to noclip back in and finish the job. The ending cutscene did not disappoint, either.

Episode II
[b]Escape Jengo Fett[/b] is a recreation of the fight between Obi-Wan and Jango on one of Kamino's landing pads. I didn't play the winning side, so I can't say whether or not the fight is entirely accurate. When I played as Obi-Wan, the fight consisted of Boba flying around shooting while Obi-wan tried to slash him up. After enough damage was dealt, a fistfight ensued.

[b]Tusken Camp[/b] should be pretty obvious by the name. Anakin is looking for his mother, and he has found the Tusken camp. The mission is simply to break into the tent from the back and discover your mother is dead. Then all tuskens must be destroyed. On paper, it's short, but in-game, it's a little longer than that.

[b]Geonosis Arena[/b] begins with Windu's appearance during Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme's execution. I had some serious problems while testing this one...when the battle began and I jumped into the arena, the game lagged terribly. I assume this is because of all the AI calculations happening at once - but still, I'm running a 2 GHz core 2 duo - I shouldn't have any problems with that. Immediately afterward, I was looking for the path to travel on next, and I stumbled on a door that could be force pushed. On opening it, I was able to walk outside the map and see the void in many areas. It was obvious I was on the wrong path...so I turned back and found the correct one. After rescuing Shaak Ti, Jango Fett jumped onto the field. He was the final boss.

[b]Battle of Geonosis[/b] was probably the least accurate. A large part of this is due to limitations of the engine and the lack of SP source code, so I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. I just expected "all forward positions are advancing" to mean that somebody, somewhere, was actually advancing. :p

[b]Count Dooku's Escape[/b] is the long duel sequence at the end of Episode II with Count Dooku. Everything seemed accurate here, and I didn't see anything wrong. I think the force battle between Yoda and Dooku could have been elongated, but that would have detracted from the play time.

Episode III
[b]Rescue Over Coruscant[/b] - Defeat Count Dooku. Anakin and Obi-wan fight at first, then you go solo as Anakin. Not much else to say here.

[b]Engage General Grievous[/b] includes the original confrontation on Utapau and the ending on the landing pad, where Obi shoots Grievous' insides out. It was a little short, but c'mon, did you really expect to see the entire chase scene recreated as well?

[b]Arrest the Chancellor[/b] was probably the best one, aside from Duel of the Fates. Windu and his three Jedi accomplices walk into Palpatine's office to arrest him, and he fights back, saber in hand. Eventually you, as Windu, force palpatine to beg in the corner of the window, then Anakin shows up. From there, your destiny is in your own hands.

[b]Attack on the Jedi Temple[/b] was hard. Only a few scenes from here were shown in the movie, like the killing of the younglings. But now, instead of the camera cutting away after your lightsaber comes on, you get to kill them yourself. On top of that, you have a lot of jedi to slice through on your way to the center of the temple.

[b]Assassination on Mustafar[/b] involves only one faction - Anakin. You are sent to Mustafar to "take care of" Viceroy Gunray and the other separatist leaders. I was unable to complete the mission without noclip, however - I couldn't figure out how to turn off the force field. Otherwise, well done.

[b]Retaking the Jedi Temple[/b] - Obi-Wan and Yoda have already fought through the clones outside, and now they need to clear out the inside of the jedi temple. Clones are everywhere, and some of them have more than just guns. This was pretty fun - I loved running around as little Yoda, dodging shots and jumping into someone's face.

[b]Masters of the Force[/b] was the epic duel between Yoda and Palpatine, beginning in the room below the senate chambers and then moving up into the chamber itself for an extremely difficult end...the lightning that Yoda and Palpatine were supposed to shoot back and forth didn't seem to work right, though.

[b]Battle of the Heroes[/b] recreates the most intense master/apprentice duel ever in Star Wars. Anakin and Obi-Wan go head-to-head on Mustafar, from the landing pad to the inside of the building, and even across the pipes and onto the equipment hanging over the lava. There was a bug here where Anakin disappeared during a jump sequence...but really, that's easy to overlook when you consider how epic the rest of the duel is.

The Rise of the Empire
[b]An Old Enemy[/b] - Obi-Wan is hunted down by an old enemy that he thought he defeated long ago. It's Darth Maul - refitted with robots legs. Now you have to finish him off...on a rainy tatooine. Yeah, that was a major eye-popper. Rain on tatooine. But the duel was very interesting.

[b]Darth Vader's Redemption[/b] - to become a powerful sith lord, Vader must face his former self and defeat it for good. If he loses, Palpatine dukes it out with the good anakin.

[b]A New Hope[/b] was a neat surprise. For you TFU fans, here you go - a mission with Starkiller in it. I don't care for TFU at all, but if you do, I'm sure you'd be happy to play this one.

Challenge Mode
And if all that wasn't enough, you can play in challenge mode, which takes you from duel to duel with all the major characters. You can customize the character you play as. According to the readme, there are 15 stages. I didn't get very far...I think I should brush up on those lightsaber skills.


Along the way, I did spot many small graphical glitches and some areas I felt could use improvement. But I'm going to omit most of that - honestly, the vast amount of work that was put into this mod is incredible. Anyone with the commitment and patience to produce something on this scale deserves a huge pat on the back (at least) from everyone. There was one glitch on the menus that's worthy of note, though - Battle of the Heroes' missing description is incorrect until you start loading the level.

One last thing I'll mention - at first, I had difficulty testing this out, because none of the maps would start. Instead, I would be kicked out to the main menu with no error message and no way to quit the game except ctrl+alt+del. After several hours of checking installations and making new isolated copies of the game, I remembered to insert the game disc. From then on, it was smooth sailing. You may commence jeering laughter at me. But remember - if you get an error while loading a map, you will get no error screen and instead will have to ctrl+alt+del your way out of the game. It's not a bug - it's an engine limitation, and it's just a minor side effect of having an awesome menu setup.

If you still haven't started the download, do so, and play it when you get a little free time. You won't be disappointed.

~Dretzel