The plot for the game, Phantom Menace, is drawn from the film of the same name. Ever heard of it? The plot is similar to that of the film, but does not follow it exactly. Changes were made in order to make the game possible. The differences taken individually are minor, but there are so many of them that they really break up the flow of the story. They're also noticeably contrived in order to add more play, which hurts the immersive quality of the plot as well as the game in general. LucasArts and Big Ape deserve kudos for taking the risk of attempting to tie a game this closely to a film. Unfortunately, it doesn't work perfectly because, frankly, games and films have different plot needs. This situation is similar to the Wing Commander film. It was a movie based on a video game plot. The Wing Commander movie sucks eggs.

The game play in Phantom Menace is quite similar to Tomb Raider, but you traded in your huge tracts of land for a blue hot poker. Just think, while Lara Croft appears on many lonely gamers' walls, Obi Wan will probably end up on many many more. He probably won't be showing as much thigh though. Ok, back to work. The game play consists of kinetic puzzles, switches, combat against various foes, puzzle solving, avoiding direct confrontation with more powerful enemies, climbing, finding objects, and all those other things which Lara does so well. There are really only four differences between the two games. The first we already mentioned, Obi's csabas aren't nearly as plump as Lara's. The second is that you talk and interact with a few characters throughout the game. Some give you extra missions to complete, others you need to protect in order to defeat a level. The third is that the camera angles of Phantom Menace are more distant and from different angles, as opposed to the up close panty line shot of Lara. The forth and last difference is, it's the Star Wars universe instead of some mystical 'Indiana Jones minus the Y chromosome' universe.