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The Force is moderately strong in this one [PSP]

There was a time when reviewing the latest Star Wars videogame was largely straightforward. As each game built upon a near-universally recognised and understood mythology but displayed a near-universally poor quality of gameplay it was mostly a case of listing the genre, the faults and then making a droll 'This is not the game you are looking for' closing remark. Then Knights of the Old Republic, Lego Star Wars and, to a lesser extent, the Battlefront and Rogue Squadron series broke the write-by-numbers template either by featuring characters and scenarios far outside the films' timeline or providing gameplay that was reasonably exciting, interesting or well-executed. Stars Wars Lethal Alliance certainly fulfils the first criteria, focusing on an unknown pair of protagonists: Rianna Saren, a Twi'lek mercenary and her security droid Zeeo.

As a billboard duo of leading names they're hardly a Luke and Leia or C3PO and R2D2 but nevertheless, they form an interesting slave-girl/robot partnership that serves the game (and budding fan-fic writers) reasonably well. Rianna is best understood as a female Han Solo - a rogue mercenary lending her battle expertise to the Rebellion cause. Her Swiss Army knife of a robot, Zeeo (or Z-58-0 to note-taking droid watchers) provides back-up in the form of computer hacking, narrow tunnel navigation or impromptu transport as the couple undertake an overarching mission to steal plans for the Empire's least-imaginatively titled weapon: the Death Star.