Disney+ is out in the United States, and that means I’ve watched the first episode of The Mandalorian. This is the first Star Wars live-action television productions since 1985’s Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. And it’s nearly as great as The Holiday Special. It’s so good that it’s making me want to go back to Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, which is one of my favorite games in the franchise.
Bounty Hunter is the 2002 PlayStation 2 and GameCube classic that follows Boba’s daddy, Jango Fett. It tells the story of how the Mandalorian ended up involved in the clone army from Attack of the Clones.
But the tale is secondary to the act of playing Bounty Hunter, which has you guiding Jango Fett through the grimy Star Wars underworld. It is primarily an action game, but it has cool planets to work your way through. And it has some experimental gameplay mechanics to bring catching bounties to life.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter’s systems make you feel like a Mandalorian warrior
As you explored these spaces, developer LucasArts did an excellent job of making you feel like a member of the bounty hunters guild. Jango doesn’t just randomly shoot down endless unnamed baddies. Instead, many of the enemies and random non-threatening characters you come across have bounties on them. You can determine whether they are wanted and how much the bounty pays by scanning them with your helmet.
If one of the villains has a bounty on them, you can disintegrate them, but that usually nets you fewer credits. So instead, you want to capture and process them to get the maximum reward.
It’s a satisfying system that was a big departure from the run-‘n’-gun action of most other games in 2002. It also holds up surprisingly well.
And if you are coming out of The Mandalorian with a craving for more bounty-hunting action, it’s definitely worth tracking down Bounty Hunter. The game isn’t on PC and Lucasfilm worked together to release it on PlayStation 4 in 2015. You can purchase Star Wars: Bounty Hunter from the PlayStation Store for $10.
