Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes is the game of the Cartoon Network show Star Wars: The Clone Wars. LucasArts has hinted that this will be a big part of the future of the franchise, so start getting used to the style now.
You begin as Anakin Skywalker, but switch between a large number of characters during the course of the game – including Rex, the squad leader of a troop of clones. It's designed primarily for two-player co-op, so if, like me, you are companionless, you have to suffer a computer-controlled sidekick for much of the time. In the Jedi scenes, this is a giant-eyed alien girl whose cutesy asides I found irksome, though fans of the cartoon may already be used to her. The 3D CGI/anime hybrid graphics are heavily stylised and studiedly bloodless; it's very pretty and colourful, but makes lightsabre combat look like the mosh pit at a Klaxons gig.
The gameplay is let down by its 2D-platformer-3D-environment mechanics. Some bits appear to be designed to be moved through at one very specific angle only, which is pretty frustrating, especially when the camera is so zoomed-out you can barely see where you're trying to go. I spent more than an hour trying to make Anakin find a platform that couldn't have been more than three feet away and directly in his path. Watching him fall into an abyss for the billionth time contributed to a dramatic ebbing of my sympathy for the character.
The sections where you play the leader of a troop of clone soldiers, are a bit flawed, too. Firing ranged weaponry depends on an auto aiming system which has a nasty habit of flipping you 90 degrees to the right when all you want to do is make a minute aim adjustment, and can also lock stubbornly on to the wrong target. Gunfights are a case of shooting in all directions and hoping against hope that the auto-aim is on your side.
Another problem with these sections is that they don't really address the difficulty of leading a squad composed of identical clones, all wearing the same uniform, and all spending most of their screen-time firing various pieces of unnecessarily pyrotechnic weaponry in seemingly random directions. Not one of the development team appears to have spotted the headache this was going to give you trying to work out which one is yours. Under such adverse circumstances, negotiating the platform elements and trying to shoot at the baddies doesn't require skill so much as blind faith.
Maybe this is a game for all ages, which anyone can enjoy, but I felt too old for the cutesy graphics and saccharine dialogue. Unfortunately, back when I was the age range this game is trying to reach, I was playing Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, which managed to do everything I think this game is trying to do, only only much better. Better atmosphere, better-looking levels, better combat mechanics. Plus, it did it all on the Quake III Arena engine. It ran on the GameCube, for God's sake. In comparison, Republic Heroes falls a little flat.That's progress for you.
