Version Reviewed: GameCube

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an action/arcade game picking up the events in the Star Wars universe immediately following Episode II. It's gameplay style derives from the mold of the Rogue Squadron series and adds a few tweaks of it's own. Developed by Pandemic Studios, the guys who have more recently produced both Battlefront 1 and 2. It's a frenetic game that puts you in the centre of the action from the first mission and doesn't let up until the curtain falls at the end.

The game opens with you taking the role of Mace Windu in a search for Obi Wan and Anakin on Geonosis. The plot is typical Star Wars fare, I won't go into the detail here as I don't want to spoil it, but suffice it to say Count Doku's plotting something and it's up to you to save the universe from assured destruction once again. Throughout the game you change character and craft from time to time with most missions being played as Obi Wan or Anakin.

Reasonably quality FMV is used to bolster the plot at several points between levels and coupled with the mission introductions the plot is held together reasonably well, even if you could guess the final outcome well before you're anywhere near the end of the game.

To anyone that's played one of the Rogue Squadron games you'll find most of the mission structures familiar, there's the typical 'destroy building', 'protect convoy', 'destroy all enemies' fare. One of the missions is a fun chase on speeder bikes where you must prevent your quarry from making it back to their base and alerting all and sundry to your existence.

Your missions often take place with a wider battle taking place around you, battleships fly overhead whilst armies of republic soldiers go head to head against battle droids underneath as you zoom past on your way to the next objective. Whilst this helps to bring the missions to life it can't mask that the missions themselves are often simplistic in concept and execution. You don't get to make strategic decisions during any of the levels as all your objectives come over the radio to you, this leads to feeling that you're playing on rails rather then really being involved. Perhaps it would have helped to make the game more involving if you were able to choose between a variety of objectives yourself.

Most of the missions are split into several sections and should you die you restart the level from the last subsection start point, you have as many lives as needed to complete each section and there doesn't seem to be any penalty for failure. This 'restart' style differs from what you might have expected if you're familiar with the Rogue Squadron series which sees you restarting from the same point in a level at which you died but with a limited number of lives.

A variety of craft are available including a basic Land-Speeder, a Republic Gunship, a Republic Walker, a Speeder Bike and even a Maru. There's no training available so the first time you find yourself sat in a craft you're testing the controls at the outset of the mission but they're easy to pick up and you'll soon find yourself in command of the vehicle. Each craft varies and has its own strengths and weaknesses, maneuverability varies widely but all craft feel like they pack a decent punch with their weapons. They all have an infinite use primary weapon and a secondary weapon such as missiles which you only have a limited supply of, however this supply is frequently replenished through power-ups which means you've normally got a few missiles to launch at the tougher guys.

All craft are fitted with an auto targeting capability. This locks on extremely quickly and you only have to point your craft somewhere near your target then start blasting away. This auto targeting coupled with the generous availability of ammunition firmly puts the play in the pick-up-and-play arcade realm, often all you need to do is strafe past an area firing your guns and your targeting will take care of the trickier task of actually hitting things for you. I'm in two minds about this targetting system, on one hand it does help keep the pace of the game high as you're always firing and destroying things, on the other hand it does detract from the satisfaction of making a really nice well aimed shot.

Some sections of the game take place on foot but are laughably poor and are fortunately short lived. The controls are very simplistic, you can swish or throw your lightsaber or you can force push and that's it. It's surprisingly difficult to use your lightsaber without throwing it, for some reason your character seems to just swish randomly with almost no relation to what you are actually wanting to do.

Your enemies take the form of the droid separatist armies, and mostly consist of tanks of varying descriptions, static cannons, and a variety of droids including spider droids and some rather funky looking wheeled droids. On some levels you are also faced with a small amount of air combat to contend with, although this is normally limited to just a few ships. After every few levels there's a traditional boss character to destroy, these are the usual 'fire at the right thing', 'fire at the right time' or just 'fire as much as you can' fare and they disappoint with their lack of originality.

3 levels of difficulty are available, 'Padawan', 'Jedi Knight' and 'Jedi Master'. You are free to chop and change as you go through the game with no penalty so if you're finding a level too tricky you can drop back a difficulty level then change back for later levels. This helps to ease the frustration of being stuck on a level and being unable to progress through the game. A few bonus objectives are available for each mission and these add the only replay incentive, completing the objectives opens up access to extra multiplayer levels along with a 'making of' movie and a few other titbits.

The multiplayer levels are good for a quick blast but aren't really interesting enough to keep you playing for more than a short while, they just don't offer anything that you haven't seen done better elsewhere before. Up to 4 player games are possible on the GameCube, with an X-Box you can play 8 player games through X-Box live.

The graphics throughout the game are pretty decent, and the large amount of action going on does work to create a environment you can feel involved in. Widescreen display is supported on the GC release and probably others. The sound track is what we've come to expect from modern Star Wars games, it's pretty decent but at times it's context sensitivity seems to be a bit off. The voice acting is okay but it's not going to convince you that you're listening to Euan McGreggor or Samuel L Jackson.

One minor niggle is the existence of 'glass walls' that prevent you from accessing certain areas, these surround each play area as you might expect, but from time to time they prevent you from taking obvious short cuts which can be frustrating when you find yourself suddenly coming to a stop while you're trying to nip behind a tree.

Overall The Clone Wars is an enjoyable if shallow game. If you're after a quick blast through waves of enemies then there's much to enjoy here however if you're looking for something with a bit more depth then you'll need to look elsewhere.