Starfighter is not without its flaws, but fans of the movies and shooters in general may be able to look past those.
But the core gameplay makes up for this shortcoming. It's very easy to pick up and play, although it doesn't have much long term depth. But it's fun. You can move your ship 360 degrees to take out any and all enemies. You can shoot primary and secondary weapons (each character has a different secondary weapon with different advantages and disadvantages), you can brake and boost, but that's pretty much it. You can boost and then brake to powerslide and turn around faster to catch a particularly fast enemy, but that's it for the special moves. But it's just fun killing things in this game. Starfighter is the perfect kind of game for 5-10 minute sessions.
Despite its simplicity, the gameplay in Starfighter is very fun to play. Even if you aren't a fan of the movies, if you're into shooters you'll probably enjoy the combat. The entire game takes place within the confines of your ship, so no ground combat or any other vehicles. There's only subtle differences between the three ships you'll play as, such as one of them can brake to a complete stop, whereas the other two can only slow down. Some are faster, some are more powerful, and each has a different secondary weapon. They aren't different at all in practice though.
Starfighter is played in a mission-based structure. You have several objectives per mission, as well as three bonus objectives which allow you to unlock things, but more on that later. The missions seem pretty different on paper but in practice it's just killing enemies. A few missions require you protect a certain object, but all this means is killing any enemies that try to get between you and your target. These missions don't drag the game down and they aren't too hard. Also there are some missions where you need to destroy buildings, although there's turrets guarding these buildings which you much take care of first.
In each mission, you play as only one ship, and you don't get to choose which one you play as. You can unlock the ability to play as any ship you choose, but sometimes this doesn't allow you to finish the mission because sometimes you need to use one ship's secondary weapon to complete a mission, and if you try to play as a different ship, their secondary weapons do nothing.
There are two different camera angles you can play with, third person and cockpit. I find the cockpit view easier to see (and shoot) your enemies, but either one works. Overall the gameplay in Starfighter is fun but the missions don't have much lasting value and they aren't very long either. On top of that, there's only about 12 missions in the game, the longest of which never go over 20 minutes, if that.
The developers attempted to give the game replay value by adding bonus objectives. These include getting through a mission with all of your guys surviving, taking out a set number of enemies in a set amount of time, or beating the mission within a limited amount of time. Beating these bonus objectives unlocks bonus missions, which are different in many ways than the story mode missions. One for example is a straight-up race where you have to get through the canyons level before anyone else. Another is like a 3D version of the classic Atari game Asteroids, where you shoot asteroids out of space while trying to get as many as possible before time runs out. Also there are a few two-player missions such as capture the flag. But since this game was released in 2001, there's obviously no online play. Finally, you'll also be able to play though any mission of the game with any of the three ships you choose, along with Darth Maul's ship which tears everyone to shreds. These bonus missions add some replay value to the game, but most of them are very difficult to unlock, so you may have to put in a cheat code in order to unlock them. It's still worth it though.
As for the graphics, they look good for a 2001 PS2 game. Obviously the textures and details don't look good at all compared to, say, a 2005 PS2 game or something on the next gen systems, but you can't really expect more out of the graphics from a game this old and early in the generation. One graphical accomplishment this game did make though is the fact that there's often quite a few enemies on-screen, and no frame rate drop to speak of. The sound in Starfighter is good, but that's somewhat expected by the fact that it's a Star Wars game. The voice acting during the cut scenes is not too great though. During the large-scale battles, there's a lot going on though, and while your wingmates may repeat their lines a little too often, they're executed in a believable manner.
One thing is for sure, though. Starfighter could've been longer. Much longer. You can pretty much breeze through it in a weekend. With the exception of a couple tough missions, like the last one, most of the missions are pretty easy too. But on the hard difficulty, each mission with the exception of the very first one will provide a pretty stiff challenge. Even so, the game is short, and the bonus missions don't really extend the life of the game that much. It's fun while it lasts though. And since it's so cheap now, it's probably worth buying.
In the end, Star Wars: Starfighter is not without its flaws, but fans of the movies and shooters in general may be able to look past those and find a fun, but short gameplay experience. I think Starfighter is probably the most underappreciated Star Wars game ever made. It was a good gameplay engine, even though other parts of the game weren't as good. Anyway, you can find this game for only a couple bucks now, so if you're into Star Wars or shooters, and you aren't looking for the best game ever made, Starfighter is worth your time.