Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a 2002 action-adventure created and published by LucasArts for PlayStation 2 and GameCube simultaneously. The player takes on the role of bounty hunter Jango Fett in a story set shortly before Episode II, in which Jango, on assignment for the dark lord Darth Sidious, tracks the fugitive shapeshifter Zam Wesell across several planets of the galaxy – from the Coruscant underworld to swamps and industrial complexes – while along the way upgrading his gear with new weapons, grenades, and armor improvements bought with bounties paid out for completing side objectives, such as capturing a target alive instead of killing them. The game thus also tells the story of how a mercenary hunter became the template for the clones of the future Grand Army of the Republic.

The PlayStation 2 version uses the console's standard controller for acrobatic moves that later also made his son Boba Fett famous – a double jump with the jetpack, briefly clinging to walls, firing both blasters at once, and aimed rocket launcher shots at tougher targets and end-of-planet bosses. The game emphasizes a smooth blend of platforming sections with firefights and occasional duels against other bounty hunters chasing the same reward as the player, and it also serves as an unofficial prelude to the visual look and gear of Jango Fett that audiences only briefly glimpsed in the film. The individual planets are divided into shorter missions with their own rating based on completion speed and the number of side objectives completed, which motivates players to replay the same level.

Why play it: Bounty Hunter is for fans who want to experience Jango Fett as a playable character with his own bounty-hunting story, a role he only had on the sidelines in the films, in an action-adventure built directly around his arsenal, jetpack, and mobility across platforms and firefights.