Family Game Review: Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes
The Clone Wars rage on in Lucasarts latest game, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes. This game is based on the hit Cartoon Network CGI animated show Star Wars The Clone Wars. This action/platformer is full of the kinds of action and story-telling you would expect from a Star Wars game. You control many of the characters from the show like Anakin Skywalker, his padawan Ahsoka Tano, Obi Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu any many more. You can also play as a Clone Trooper and drive a few of the vehicles seen in the show. There are 25+ levels to play through, so enjoy the ride.
Lets start with the controls, which are really user friendly. The jedi controls are as follows: X button swings your lightsaber, Y button is for the force push, A is for jumping and double jumping. The clone trooper controls are easy as well; instead of the lightsaber swing you have a general melee move with X, and instead of the force push you throw grenades with the Y button. The RT is used to fire your pulse rifle, and A button has you vault over low lying walls or debris. Different characters have different skills as well, for instance Jedi can “droid-jak,” or jump on top of a droid, use the force to take control of it, and use its firepower against your enemies. As for the clone troopers, they can use rocker launchers and different grenades to disintegrate the droid army
Graphically this game delivers pretty well. Its not quite Pixar quality animation, but its not far off from the animated series that it is based upon. The character models are exactly as they are in the t.v. show. The sound effects in this are exactly what you would hear in the big budget Lucas films; all of the explosions and pulse rifle fire buzzing by your head makes you feel like you are in the game. The voice over for this game is really well done; all of the voice actors from the animated series do the voice-overs for their characters in the game.
Last but not least the achievements. For the most part the achievements come pretty easily as you play through the campaign. There are a few that will require a bit of effort from the player, like the collectible ones, and the co-op ones. With a good guide found on the net, the collectible achievements will be easy, as will the multitude of odd-ball others. You will need to play through the game at least two times to get all of the games achievement points. Also, all of the points are achievable offline as there is no online campaign. You can use in-game points to purchase various cheats that you can use and still attain achievements.
To wrap things up, if you have kids in your house that are Star Wars fans or if you are a fan yourself, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this game, you won't be disappointed. It will keep you and your children busy for quite some time and its something you can play together. I have enjoyed my time with it and so will you. I give this game a 7.5 out of 10.