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PRE-GAME

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

The end of the Clone Wars is at hand, and battle rages in the skies of Courscant. In a daring attack, Sepratist leader General Greivous has captured Chancellor Palpatine and taken him aboard his ship. Now it’s up to Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker to rescue him before the Sepratists can escape. Follow along the paths of Obi Wan and Anakin as they battle there way towards their final confrontation.

EYE-SPY

THE HOOK:  Star Wars has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. While I wasn’t around to see the original trilogy when they were first released, I must have watched them on tape a thousand times. I’ve read all the books, played all the games, and collected lots of action figures. The release of the final Star Wars film marks not only the end of an era, but also an occasion of great importance in my own life. So naturally I just had to play this game.

HOW IT LOOKS AND FEELS: The graphics in Episode III aren’t the best. The animations of the characters movements and such are quiet well done, but overall there’s not a lot of detail in the games visuals. They’re not bad, they’re just nothing to write home about.

The controls are easy enough to pick up. Square, Triangle and Circle are your attack buttons, while X is the jump button. The shoulder buttons allow you to use your various Force powers. You move with the left analog stick, and there’s no camera control. That’s pretty much it.

HOW IT SOUNDS: While not all Star Wars games are worth playing, they all shine when it come to the sound department, and Episode III is no exception. Drawing on the library of music and sound effects from the films, this game really does a great job when it comes to sound. The music always fits the occasion and sets the mood quite well. A lot of it will be familiar to those who’ve played previous Star Wars games, as well as those who’ve only seen the films.

The sound effects are all spectacular as well. From the hum of a lightsaber to the shots ringing out from the blasters and the sound of exploding droids, everything is taken straight from the films.

There’s some voice acting in the game, and it’s all well done. Most of the characters are voiced by the voice actors from the Clone Wars cartoon series rather than the actors from the film, though one or two are done by the actors from the movies.

EXTRAS: Aside from the single player campaign mode, there’s a two player duel mode where you and a friend or computer opponent battle against one another as any one of a dozen or so Jedi and Sith characters from the game. There’s also a co-op mode, but there’s only four missions in it, and for the most part they consist of standing in a room fighting a few waves of enemies before moving to another identical room and fighting some more enemies.

You can also unlock some bonus single player missions in which you play as characters you won’t be able to play as anywhere else in the game, such as Yoda and Grevious’s body guards. For the most part though, these missions aren’t much better than the co-op missions. All in all there pretty boring with the stand out level being last one where you play as Darth Vader and you duel against Obi Wan Kenobi on the Death Star.

You can also unlock some production art that can be viewed from the main menu.

CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE: Episode III features about 12 minutes worth of footage from the upcoming movie, and it all looks great. There’s also some in game cutscenes, but they’re nothing spectacular.

BEST PLAYER: In campaign mode you get to play as both Obi Wan and Anakin. You don’t get to choose which one you play as; it varies from level to level. Out of the two I’d have to say I prefer Obi Wan to Anakin, though there both good.

In versus mode I like Mace Windu.

CHEAT CODE YOU NEED: There’s quite a few available already, and one of the best is:

BELSAVIS: Fast regain of Force & Health

CHEAT CODE YOU WANT: Well, there’s pretty much cheat codes for everything already. If anything I wouldn’t mind being able to go back through campaign mode as any of the characters I have unlocked.

OH MAN! MOMENT: The end of the final mission is pretty cool.

GLITCH ITCH: There are a few bugs in Episode III. For starters this game has fixed camera angles, and that can some times create situations where your view will be obstructed. I’ve also had my character turn invisible randomly a couple times. Once while fighting a crab droid the camera got stuck and zoomed in on the droid, making it impossible to see where my character was.

FAN SERVICE: Aside from all the footage from the new movie, the bonus mission where you recreate the final duel between Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi aboard the first Death Star is definitely for the fans.

END GAME:

Who wouldn’t want to be a Jedi? With the lightsabers, the superhuman reflexes, and all those oh so cool Force powers, being a Jedi must really be great. That’s what the developers of Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith had in mind while working on this game. So the question is: did they deliver?

Sort of.

The folks at the Collective and Lucasarts went to great lengths to make the lightsaber combat in this game the best ever seen in a Star Wars game, and by all means they did a great job with it. The lightsaber combat is highly stylized, with plenty of variety and combos to master.

The problem is that while the lightsaber combat is great, all the other elements of the game just aren’t up to par. The Force powers are poorly implemented. They don’t always work right, and sometimes you’ll wind up hitting the wrong thing with them. They also feel a bit weak even when maxed out.

While fighting your way through the various levels you’ll encounter loads of enemies, and killing them earns you experience points. At the end of each level you can spend the points you’ve earned upgrading your force powers and you combat skills. Each power and skill can be upgraded a maximum of three times. By the end of the game you’ll have no where near enough exp to have maxed everything, and while going back and playing though the missions again will let you earn more exp, you only get more if it’s over the amount you had on your first play through.

The level design isn’t that great. Mostly long hallways and wave after wave of enemies with the occasional boss thrown in. It’s a lot like the game based on The Return of the King. Although that game had a bit of puzzle solving in it, this game lacks anything like that. This game is pure hack and slash.

The bonus missions are pretty dull, and the co-op should be avoided. The versus mode is fun; the battles against other Jedi are the best part of the single player game, and versus lets two people in on the fun. Still, versus mode will only keep you amused for awhile.

By the time you read this review you should hopefully have seen the Episode III movie in theaters, so spoilers shouldn’t be a problem. If you haven’t seen the movie then it still shouldn’t be to big of a problem. This game only concerns itself with the lightsaber battles in the movie, so anything other than that from the movie is never addressed in the game. Also, if you have a general idea of what’s going to happen already you probably won’t be too surprised. The only thing this game showed me that I didn’t already know was the order of some events in the movie. The only people who should worry are those that have no idea what’s going to happen.  

Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has some great lightsaber combat, and a lot of not so great supporting details. In the end it looses replay value quickly. I’d only recommend purchasing it when it’s down to $20, or unless you’re a hardcore Star Wars fan. Other than that it’s still a solid rental.

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