As someone who once hosted a Star Wars themed podcast, I am predisposed to give SW licensed products a chance. I mean look how great Republic Commando was – a diamond in the rough of bad Star Wars games. Even The Force Unleashed was a lot of fun, if a little frustrating at times. I am a big fan of the new Clone Wars cartoon, as well. They have taken a lot of characters and added meaning to their existence in a good way.
Unfortunately, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes is not a gem, but more coal in our Christmas stocking this year. I can’t help but think that Krome was not given enough time to finish the project, or possibly set their sights too high for this venture.
Republic Heroes, other than having far too long of a name, places you in the roles of big name Jedi’s and clone troopers and expects that to make up for infuriatingly erratic controls, horrible level design, and possibly the worst AI since… well, ever.
Read on for more…
With all of the great games out this holiday season, I figured that Lucasarts would bring out its big guns to compete with the likes of Modern Warefare 2, Dragon Age, Left 4 Dead 2, etc. With so many games to play and so little time, my gaming time is very limited.
I haven’t thrown my Wiimote in a while. I now have a sign that says
“0 days without Wiimote incident”
I tell you all of that to tell you this – I am very disappointed with Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes, and even more disappointed with George Lucas and Lucasarts for letting this game out before it was done. I honestly see the makings of a fun game if it weren’t so broken.
Drop in/out 3rd person action/adventure co-op – something poorly lacking in the Wii’s (and everyone else’s) lineup. This is a game that the family could play together. My wife and I play these games together and get a great amount of enjoyment out of them. Usually. This type of game is one that, if it worked well, would encourage multiple play-throughs because of the upgradeable skills. The story isn’t that important because fighting stuff as a jedi should be fun enough.
The graphics on the Wii aren’t always the best, especially when playing in Hi-Def. However, most of the time the developer changes the art style or at least make some accommodations for the different strengths of the Wii, but comparing from 360 to Wii Republic Heroes looks like a hasty port. Its darker, and much harder to see when playing. The geometry trips you up at every turn, and many times your allies are as much a threat to you in terms of avoiding pitfalls as the enemies are.
Wii Version
360 Version
Controls on the Wii are good when playing as the clones. Basically you use your Wiimote to replicate the absence of a 2nd analog stick by pointing it at the screen where you want to shoot. The controls feel pretty simple and natural. When playing as the Jedi, however, it feels very chaotic. You can either waggle your control or push B to swing your sword in whatever direction you’re facing. With the Jedi’s acrobatics, however sometimes they jump right off cliffs or into enemy fire or some other inconvenient place. Being as RH is a platformer, you can see where this would become problematic, especially when you’re fighting on small ledges or cliffs.
Speaking of platforming, this is the reason, along with AI, that my Wiimote incident count is now back at zero. When jumping from platform to platform, when you push the analog stick towards where you want to jump, many times a small icon will appear, confirming your selection, and then you hit jump.. and then you die. You either jump over your targeted tiny piece of floating rock, not jump far enough or miss it entirely. Sometimes this happens, oh, two or three or eleven times. When playing co-op, many times my partner would drop out on platforming sections because sometimes there are not enough platforms for both of us to survive. This is just a failure to QA the game completely. With the amount of people willing to give away their free time to test games, you would figure Lucasarts would tap into this at least a little and pay them a little something to help avoid the these kinds of problems. Such as the one that actually froze my character in mid-air while fighting a boss battle. Unfortunately I was invulnerable while frozen, which made sure that I did not move and my AI companion went happily to their death over and over again.
Then, all of a sudden, my Wiimote and Nunchuck were across the room. I’m not sure how it got there as I’m a bit hazy of the whole event. I’m pretty sure the force was involved somehow. But I figured I should, as a reminder, change my 2+years of Wiimote safety back to 0 days. Fortunately, I picked up the other Wiimote and played as the 2nd player and killed the boss and the game level completed. That apparently was the trick to unfreezing me.
Then, to really top it all off, the AI of the game was nonexistent. The game frequently checkpoints your progress as you move along and this seems like a neat idea so that if you die you don’t have to go back very far. Actually this is not for you most of the time – your AI companion falls to their death at least 2-3 times per checkpoint and this allows them to come back to you somewhat nearby. However, this does not always happen. Once, when platforming, my buddy kept running off the cliff immediately after they respawned. I sat there a moment thinking – “I’m pretty sure a Jedi should be smarter than that.” The AI of the enemies is just as bad, as they tend to group together in small pods, allowing you to annihilate them with one charged up force-push. Boss battles aren’t even gimicky, as running up to them and just mashing on the attack is usually enough to wipe them out quickly. There are staged bosses, in which you have to do one thing to do the next, but its so buggy that it took me a while to realize what I had to do.
Honestly, there isn’t much more to say regarding Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes. It is a sad attempt to get people to buy a game based on the name and hope they don’t notice how bad it is. It seems like the game is targeted at small children who may not notice some of the problems, but I think our kids are smarter than that these days. we’re on the 3rd or 4th generation of kids who have grown up with games in the home and even they will realize that this game is just not fun. Outside of the novelty of being a Jedi, the game never really lives up to its epic potential as a fun arcade-style action/adventure game.
Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes Review Score: 4/10
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