GamesRelay

Name: Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes

It's a rare occurrence when a movie tie-in game actually exceeds ones expectations, you see, these types of games usually offer your basic run through the movie with sub-standard gameplay and nothing spectacular or unique, they're more of a bandwagon money making game. Some of the Star Wars games past and present hold true to this, you could say they're fickle, there has been so many games released under the Star Wars name that it becomes hard to distinguish what's going to be good and what's not. So when the TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars hit our television sets, it was pretty much guaranteed that we would be seeing a game brought out after the movie was released, with the same unique CG art style that they have taken with the series.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes is an action adventure game set between season one and season two of the The Clone Wars TV series. You take the role of various characters from the show such as Anakin, Obi-Wan and Mace Windu as they set out to stop an evil assassin. The main plot revolves around the Separatist droid armies with Count Dooku and General Grievous at the helm but you'll also come across the bounty hunter Cad Bane who becomes one of the primary antagonists and a few other evil people who are set out to make everyone else's life a living misery. (Isn't that what the Empires all about? Oh sorry, this is the Clone Wars..)

The plot isn't anything fancy, however, the story is true to the source material which is great if you're a keen follower of the Star Wars universe. Most of the time you'll find yourself doing a number of tasks with plenty of lightsaber and blaster battles in between such as solving puzzles by moving obstacles with your force powers and collecting Jedi holocrons which can be turned in for various unlockables. It all sounds fun but unfortunately it gets tedious all too soon. You'll find there are just too many things one needs to do to progress, there are no large long lasting battles you need to hold your own against, it's simply small skirmishes with pressure plates and levers to be used in between. You can switch between your characters while playing which is a nice touch but it doesn't distract from the overall nature of the gameplay which is disappointing.

While the game lacks any multiplayer support it does allow you to compete for a high score against a friend if they have their own copy of the game. Again this involves the same tedious nature of playing it alone and you really are alone since you're not playing co-operatively, nor does it appear so on screen. The type of gameplay is begging for co-op support and why it wasn't included is a rather good question.

On the other hand, (hopefully with the stylus, since the game uses it) the controls are fairly intuitive and easy to get to grips with. The stylus is used for your characters movement and combat actions by simply dragging the stylus across the screen wherever you want to go and by tapping on the enemies to attack them, it's simple, but it lacks any depth which a combat system needs to keep you wanting to play. This changes when you come across some of the tougher enemies which involve you following various patterns with the stylus on screen to take them out, this results in a special attack with some fancy moves to finish it off but it's nothing special or engaging. While movement is fairly simple, you'll come across various gaps which need to be jumped in a sort of quick time event mode, these jumps have you tapping the on screen icons when they're green to pull off the jump, but tapping the icon while its red results in your death and a very painful save game reload, which can become annoying.

LucasArts created a unique art style for The Clone Wars TV series and movie, and one which could translate into a game exceptionally well. Republic Heroes doesn't however, the graphics are sharp and well presented but the camera angle is far back from the action thus making your characters and enemies look like pixel blobs flickering around as they perform various acrobatic manoeuvres and attacks. The brief periods where one of the characters talks with their head appearing on screen however is fairly well presented allowing you to easily recognise the familiar faces of the Star Wars characters from The Clone Wars. Sound on the other hand is fairly good, the lightsabers and blasters are well made even on the DS, and the soundtrack is compelling but doesn't make up for the gameplay aspects we mentioned earlier.

In closing, Republic Heroes isn't one many will like, young kids may enjoy it somewhat, but then it is primarily targeted with that generation in mind on the Nintendo DS. Unfortunately with its tedious gameplay and lack of anything uniquely engaging, this is one you'll probably want to miss.