Star Wars: The Clone Wars Game Review

Note, I made a short review on this blog years ago, that one is outdated and this is my more updated thoughts. 

I played this game a few years ago on emulator and while I remember liking it, I might've screwed up the controls for it since I was emulating the Gamecube version Dolphin, on top of that due to this, I don't think I customized the controls right to make me play effectively, on top of frame rate drops on certain levels, as a result I had to beat the game using cheats the first time through. The game recently came to PS5 with the new PS2 emulator Sony dropped what made get buy it again and play it all was because of it's cheap asking price which is under $10, compared to how Tomb Raider Legend's PS5 port was extremely overpriced, I'd say this Clone Wars game with save states and especially rewind is well worth at under $10.

The port runs mostly well except for some audio skipping and the save states bugging out when you try to save again after a few seconds, but the latter is no big deal since it still mostly works. At least it's not at 480p like Tomb Raider Legend.

Upon playing the Clone Wars game again, I still really like it. The game almost in a lot of ways feels like a redemption arc and a better attempt at a vehicular based Star Wars game than SW Demoliations was. It was also Pandemic's first SW game that predates their versions of Battlefront 1 and 2 but I might prefer this game over both in some ways.

Good things about the game is that the story is pretty good especially if you are a fan of the SW Prequels era content like I am, the whole story can feel like it can be an episode of the non canon 2003 Clone Wars show, it has many of the same voice actors from that same series after all. The in engine cutscenes are pretty stifly animated with no camera angles or anything going on where characters talk to each other with stif movements. The CGI cutscenes do pick up the slack and do geniunely look pretty nice to this day. The story might not have the status quo change since well Episode 3 would come out 3 years later, but the stakes are high enough with Dooku making a doomsday device and even refrences ancient Sith lore, and how it does a good job at giving Anakin's character importance since he's the one who takes down the device that it feels like a solid enough narrative to keep an action game narrative going. It's not going to win awards but Pandemic could've chose to barely have much narrative at all, the fact they had a story that can feel like a lost episode of the 2003 Clone Wars show especially in a game that is primarily about blowing up vehicles, I commend them for what they did.

More good things the game does is that the controls for many of the vehicles you control while dated in some respects like pressing L2 and R2 to strafe instead of using the right stick is easy enough to get used to especially if you play a lot of late 90s and early 00s games like I do, worst case scenario, you can probably go into the settings of the PS5 and customize it to your liking.

The main vehicle you will be using is the IFT-X and the best way of describing combat in this is like the Batmobile combat in Arkham Knight before AK except unlike that game, you got more methods of attacks like missiles as well as your default laser beam, various powers and you got at least 3-4 enemy types rather than just 1 or 2 like in AK. There's various other vehicles like the LAAT Gunship and many of them are protect missions but luckily you got a super powerful laser attack as well as missiles to make short work of many of the enemies, only problem is constantly getting attacked from behind from fast moving droid ships. There's a variety of other vehicles to use and there'd be too many to list but generally speaking the game's combat revolves around using the auto aim, and avoid projectiles during land based battles, some vehicles can strafe while others have a shield while also having various special weapons like missiles.

Might as well get to the negatives, the on foot levels are not very good, luckily they are over pretty fast but the on foot sections uses tank controls which is something even 3D games at the time stopped using, and it mainly consists of spamming lightsaber throw and killing enemies within it's reach. If you want a Jedi power fantasy game then play Jedi Outcast and Academy instead. These sections could've been cut out entirely and Pandemic would improve upon them greatly in their Battlefront games.

Also, there is just too many escort and protect missions, this could make or break the game for someone, if you don't like these kinds of missions and are interested in the game than be weary, and even I got to admit, I lowered the game to the easiest setting because on the first mission where I died because an NPC's health reached zero and not because of my own skill, I was like, "no way". With save states, occasional rewinding and easy mode the game is certainly beatable enough to me.

Overall, Star Wars the Clone Wars is a well made game for what was esstentially a movie tie in game for SW Episode 2.