Why am I so harsh on a game I have confessed to eagerly anticipating?
The last two times I've been playing through the continuous Return of the Jedi challenge, the 360 freezes up. It is the annoying, crash-so-hard-I-have-to-restart-my-360 crash. Despite troubleshooting in this and other games, I have not been able to discover the problem. The RotJ challenge is the last of the offerings within the game left for me to conquer. Theoretically, all I have to do is get through this one hour challenge and I will unlock the 100% complete achievement.
The problem with the challenge is not merely the freezing, but also the two kinds of cut scenes. The most common types are the story sequences between chapters. They are funny and pretty well rendered. However, after I have seen the scenes three or more times, I would like to be able to skip through them. Unfortunately, Traveler's Tales did not build that functionality in. Thus I have to sit through one, two, or even three of the cinematics between gameplay spurts. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the other kinds of cut scenes.
In some levels you are shown approaching enemies or devices powering up. During each of these 5-10 shots, the challenge clock keeps ticking. I have found no way to bypass these interludes. During my first attempt at the Empire Strikes Back challenge the first Hoth level cost me 15 seconds that I ended up needing to have later to finish the final level. When playing casually I don't necessarily mind the visual transition, but when the unforgiving timer is counting, nothing short of gameplay better be running.
The gameplay is fun if you can get a decent player to join you. Unfortunately, I have been left to only have the AI as my assistant, and the intelligence is certainly lacking. The computer-controlled character can shoot, strike, and slash all day against enemies, but they will never inflict any meaningful damage. That means when a whole cadre of stormtroopers or packs of Gamorrian guards have spawned, I have to take my attention away from whatever puzzle I am trying to solve and dispatch them. It is annoying during the first two Episodes, but Return of the Jedi is simply punishing without some efficacious assistance.
I suppose the evidence I have presented can only confirm that the honeymoon is over and a long hard look at a game I had eagerly anticipated has left me feeling empty. Only Burnout has been of any consolation. Since I have completed the majority of offline achievements, my only place to gather points is online. If you'd like to play, let me know.