| Hi everyone. Today we’ve got hands-on impressions of the latest Star Wars game, but first... This week’s top gaming news: On Aug. 19, Ubisoft began sending out early review codes for its newest game, Star Wars Outlaws. Reviewers were told they could publish on Aug. 26, giving them just six days to power through a game that can take dozens of hours to complete. It was a baffling move and a big risk for Ubisoft, which is banking on this new Star Wars game to be one of its tentpole releases for the fall. After spending more than four years and lord knows how many millions of dollars to develop this game, why gamble with the critical reception by creating a situation where reviewers are playing under such a brutal time constraint? Perhaps in part due to this crunch, reviews for Star Wars Outlaws have been middling. It sits at a mediocre 77/100 on the review aggregation website Metacritic. It’s hard to know whether that number would have been higher if critics had more time with the game. But I do know that I have been enjoying Star Wars Outlaws — played on a review copy provided by Ubisoft — in large part because I’ve paced myself, slowly exploring the galaxy far, far away rather than trying to bull-rush through the main story. Play too quickly and it becomes a frustrating, repetitive slog. Star Wars Outlaws, developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment subsidiary in Malmo, Sweden, is the first console Star Wars game to be released since the end of Lucasfilm’s decade-long exclusivity deal with Electronic Arts in 2023. Unlike EA’s games, which mostly featured Jedi, Star Wars Outlaws tells the story of a Han Solo-like scoundrel named Kay Vess. She’s got inconsistent voice acting and very little in the way of personality, but at least she has an adorable pet named Nix who can be used to distract enemies, steal treasure and set off explosives from a distance. There are no lightsaber battles or Force powers here — instead, Star Wars Outlaws is all about spelunking through ruins, trading favors with shady crime syndicates and going on space heists. Kay can sneak around to take down stormtroopers or blast her way through gangs of bandits as she sets out to make as much money as possible (and clear a nasty bounty from her head). The game tries to do a lot of things and isn’t particularly great at any of them. There’s mediocre third-person shooting, serviceable platforming, weak speeder racing, space travel that’s just fine and a ton of mini-games of varying quality. Just tearing through the main missions feels like you’re playing Watch Dogs by way of Uncharted with a Star Wars costume on. There are a ton of glitches (including one so bad that some PlayStation players had to restart the whole game from scratch), and the enemy AI is so janky that it’s hard not to laugh when you watch them fumble through mansions and corridors, failing to notice that you’ve knocked their colleagues unconscious. But if you slow down, you might find a few delights as you romp around planets like lush Toshara and snowy Kijimi. You might marvel at the technology behind all the beautiful, wavy grass movements. You might get lost in Sabacc, an addictive, complicated card game that plays like a cross between poker, blackjack and Uno. Each planet has a restaurant that will serve you truly sickening alien entrees that Kay and Nix devour during a lengthy animated sequence that requires you to press buttons at the correct time as you guzzle down brightly colored worms. There’s also an elaborate upgrade system that requires you to take your time, rack up specific achievements and explore planets for specific materials. If you rush through the story without engaging with this system, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice and making the game less fun. Some of Kay’s most important tools, like smoke grenades and an upgraded hacking kit, can be missed if you don’t slow down. Star Wars Outlaws isn’t the greatest game of the year, but if you take the time to explore its nooks and crannies, it can be good fun. If galactic heists aren’t your speed, check out Visions of Mana, a fantasy action-roleplaying game with candy-colored graphics and a button-mashing combat system. Like Star Wars Outlaws, this new game in the long running Mana series is more OK than great, with a tepid story and some repetitive gameplay, but it’s been fun to slash away at rabites and other classic enemies — even if the overall package is a little inconsistent. | 
