Reviews / previews
As a grown-up, it was hard not to approach the "9 & up" Gungan Frontier as another Lucas money-making, screaming-kiddie gimmick along the lines of the rotating Darth Maul lollipops at Target.
Happy surprise: this Lucas Learning ecosystem sim not only entertains, but is strategically complex enough to provoke hours of thoughtful play.
The game starts where The Phantom Menace ends, after the Battle of Naboo. The Gungans, led by Boss Nass, have an overpopulation problem and want to colonize Naboo's water moon. He asks you (playing as either Obi-Wan Kenobi or Queen Amidala) to create an ecosystem there that will sustain itself and the new colony's food and shelter needs.
Play as a beginner and your Mantaris Amphibious transport is automatically loaded with an unlimited supply of plants and animals from various exotic planets in the galaxy, including Dagobah and Tattooine. R2-D2 takes you to a habitable spot on the moon, where you choose and release species to the ecosystem via probe droids. In this level, releasing an animal also releases its complimentary food source, so you're free to learn about plant environments, animal behavior, the delicate balance between predator and prey-and the terrible impact civilization has on that balance.
But that's kid stuff. Gungan Frontier gets infinitely more sophisticated in Advanced mode, in which you must load your own selection of life forms. This takes a lot of research and consideration. With the game's choice of more than 80 animals and plants, plus the Create-a-Critter function, endless strategies present themselves. It was here, poring over biocharts and the Index, that I began to formulate how I wanted to play--strategizing for resources, for a vegetarian-based ecosystem, for an environment heavy on predatory animals, and for an ecosystem made up entirely of my own creations.
If GF couldn't be played at this level, all the squealing R2-D2s and blustering Boss Nasses in the world wouldn't hold interest outside the junior-high set.
On the other hand, you gotta hand it to Lucas Learning. If it weren't for the lovable aliens and big-name draw, how many kids would study this thinly-disguised lesson on the precariousness of ecology?-- Karen Eng / GamePro
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