Jedi Challenges: life-sized stormtroopers in your living room

For anyone who's ever wanted to wield their own lightsaber, Lenovo's "Jedi Challenges" could make their childhood dreams come true. It transforms your living room into a training centre for aspiring Jedi knights with augmented reality goggles, a cable, a glowing coloured ball a plastic lightsaber.

For anyone who's ever wanted to wield their own lightsaber, Lenovo's Jedi Challenges could make their childhood dreams come true. It transforms your living room into a training centre for aspiring Jedi knights. 

You will need a recent smartphone - models from the iPhone 6 to Google's new pixel smartphones are supported. Then add Lenovo's augmented reality goggles, a cable and a glowing coloured ball. And finally the plastic lightsaber.

The equipment is a bit tricky to handle at first. Players download the app onto their smartphone, then connect the lightsaber via Bluetooth and calibrate it.

They then insert the smartphone into a cassette, which they slide into a slot in the headset and connect with a cable. If this sounds complicated, it actually is the first couple of times. But the somewhat wobbly setup is soon forgotten when the first holograms appear in front of your eyes.

Because "Jedi Challenges" does just that, with Lenovo's Mirage headset: Star Wars style holograms are displayed in the real environment. Life-sized stormtroopers appear on the living room carpet or in the office. A glowing tracking beacon is seen at the centre of the playing field. The menus or the star map, which is often used for navigation purposes, are hovering above it.

There are three game modes: strategic combat, holochess and lightsaber battles.

The first is a kind of strategy game. Players can run through the map and solve tasks. This is quite hectic and sometimes still rather imprecise. Although someone somehow always wins in the end, it is not always clear exactly how.

Holochess, which made its first appearance in the first Star Wars movie, is much more fun. Game pieces compete against each other and must be cleverly controlled. But the main attraction are the lightsaber battles, in which players compete against well-known opponents from the "dark side" like Darth Maul or Seventh Sister.

While the entry-level opponent can still be defeated relatively easily, the second boss with her rotating double sword is a tough challenge - and not only technically. The further you fight your way into the game, the more physically demanding it becomes. It's pretty exhausting by the end.

From a technical point of view, Jedi Challenges works amazingly well. The batteries in the lightsaber and headset last longer than any smartphone and can be quickly recharged.

Both the motion control and the positioning of the holograms in the room are usually right. during lightsaber combat, however, you often have to readjust your virtual laser blade.

In conclusion, Lenovo's "Jedi Challenges" shows what is now possible with augmented reality (AR) gaming. The challenges are fun, and game play is mostly technically reliable. Fighting against imperial stormtroopers in your living room doesn't seem odd at all - apart maybe to onlookers, who can't see what's projected in front of your eyes.

Entry into the augmented Star Wars reality is not exactly cheap, however. The package comprising headset, tracker and lightsaber costs €300 (RM1,445). That's in addition to the required smartphone. — dpa