Another year, another attempt by LucasArts to milk the teet of its most lucrative property. While recent Force-fueled entries, such as the LEGO Star Wars series and last year’s The Force Unleashed, have made wielding a virtual lightsaber a mostly worthwhile experience, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes may tempt you to turn your Jedi sword on yourself.
Based on the 3D animated television series, Republic Heroes adopts the same tone and style. So, the characters are cute, the colors bright and the banter grating. To be fair, it is a title meant more for Padawans than seasoned Sith-slayers, so the presentation is in-line with the targeted demographic. Still, the same can be said for the LEGO games, and armchair Jedi of all ages enjoy those titles.
The problems don’t lie so much with the youth-aimed presentation, but the unpolished production. For starters, the visuals border on last gen. The animated show looks fantastic, so reproducing its crisp, colorful aesthetic should have been a top priority for Republic Heroes’ dev team. Instead, we get an Xbox 360 production that’d barely rank as average on the comparatively under-powered Wii. The characters look okay and are certainly recognizable from the series, but outdoor and indoor environments—an integral part of selling a slick sci-fi universe—lack the pop-off-the-screen coolness we’ve come to expect from the show. Additionally, animations are sloppy, making the Jedi look more like grade-school gymnasts than acrobatic bad asses.
Even if a Jedi mind trick fools you into forgiving the lackluster graphics, you’ll still have to contend with the frustrating gameplay. Republic Heroes incorporates tons of platforming elements, but none of them are very good. On the contrary, hopping around as a Jedi—something that should feel friggin’ awesome—is usually frustrating, as the act often ends in a leap to your death. The jumping controls are imprecise, but even worse, the depth perception is out of whack, usually leaving you wondering if an object is right in front of you or totally out of reach. Thankfully, you spawn-in right where you left off, but that hardly alleviates the annoyance of having to attempt a jump six times before sticking it. If this were an isolated issue, it could be excused. However, I repeatedly ran into platforming problems that left me begging for permanent death in the belly of the Sarlac beast.
On the plus side, Republic Heroes enables you to don the robes and armor of all your favorite Jedi and Clone troopers. There’s 40 missions, and by the time you reduce that final robot to a heap of sparking metal, you will have gotten behind the blasters and lightsabers of a brimming variety of canon characters. Additionally, the ability to knock entire groups of the Empire’s metallic menaces on their tin asses with the Jedis’ Force Push and Troopers’ grenades adds some diversity to the combat. You also have the skills to hijack bots and use them against their own, or clear blocked paths with their rock-crushing lasers. Sadly, though, this mechanic is way overused; hopping on a bot and blasting his buddies with his own firepower will feel cool at first, but later in the game—where it’s often required to progress—it’ll feel about as fun as moisture farming.
Republic Heroes does utilize drop-in/drop-out co-op locally and online, so, as with similar such titles, you’re likely to find its more fun battling through with a buddy. There’s also tons of bonuses, upgrades and collectibles to earn. While both these elements make the game’s many shortcomings a bit more tolerable, their inclusion makes me wonder why LucasArts didn’t just turn this license over to Traveller’s Tales. While another formulaic LEGO entry wouldn’t exactly feel fresh, it would have at least offered a reliable romp, while also allowing the Clone Wars’ characters to shine through that franchise’s blocky charm. As is, this one’s lack of polish and annoying gameplay will likely have you ejecting it from your X360 and reaching for your copy of LEGO Star Wars.
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