The Gungan Frontier is a new educational Star Wars title from LucasLearning aimed at kids of a variety of ages. The game is set on the moon of Naboo where you have to build up a Gungan population. The Gungans live underwater and it is your aim to manage to eco-system so that the city can grow and the population is prosperous.

You start with an empty moon and a voiceover telling you what you need to do, you start by planting a few plants and then place some Kaadu on to the surface. Once you have got several Kaddu you instruct the Gungans to harvest the Kaddu, this is your first shot a managing the eco-system. Whilst you are required to select to maintain the current Kaddu population you can later go back and change the level of your 'harvesting'.

Once you have started to harvest the Kaddu, the Gungan population will start to increase and you can see their underwater city expand with the increasing population. As the game goes on new creatures enter the eco-system and need to be managed. The longer you play the more complex it gets.

Whilst many adults will not be interested in this game I think it will appeal to younger kids, the interface is easy to use and the sound affects are nice enough. The aim of the game is to teach kids about eco-systems and how one decision can affect another, I think this aim is achieved but I can see interest diminishing unless the full game includes a very large variety of animals and plants.

The main concern I have about the game is its performance. On my computer (a Pentium 233 mmx) the graphics have to be reduced to a fairly low quality in order to maintain any degree of speed, as I increased the quality the game started to crawl and became unplayable. The readme file states:

Star Wars The Gungan Frontier features complex simulations of a swamp ecosystem and underwater Gungan city. As such, it will push your computer's processor and CD-ROM drive to their limits.

To be honest the simulation must be far more complex than it seems in order to justify the processing power it requires. If you are considering buying this game then I recomemend taking the time to download the demo before buying, whilst the game seems fairly good I still have my reservations.