Star Wars the Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels

Preview from Simon - Monday, 29 September 2008 @ 9:25pm

Lame movies often translate into decent games; this is because a horrible movie’s writing is on par with a great video game’s. Yeah you heard me. Speaking of lame movies, I hear The Clone Wars was a total tank (space tank). I haven’t personally seen it; I had every intention to until people started treating it like the bubonic (space) plague. So I must say I approached a preview of Star Wars the Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duals for Wii like a colonist approaches some mysterious pulsating eggs sitting in a thin layer of mist.

The Star Wars license is a really big deal; no longer just a story about a young vapor farmer from Tatooine, but an entire universe of material. Personally I’m not down with all this, ‘metaclorians’ and kiwi storm troopers. Greedo did not shoot first, stop messing with the things I love! Let go George, just let go. Ok I’m vented… Darth Vader built C-3PO?! Dfgsdfkhb!@

Back on track! The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duals, built by our very own KROME Studios, is a fighting game for Wii utilising motion controls for combos and lightsaber wailing. The game is based on both the animated TV series and film, using the cast of characters. The first thing everyone said when the Wii was unveiled was ‘LIGHTSABERS!!!!’ Well here you go— lightsabers!!!! The game is built for the Wii market, very ‘pick up and play’ on the surface but with a surprising depth for the more hardcore players. It took me a few tries to get my head around the controls, but after a few rounds I was already testing tactics. Clone Wars uses both nunchuck and Wiimote, with lightsaber swings, combos, blocking and evading on the remote and movement and force powers on the chuck.

The core mechanics are very paper scissors rock— you have 3 offensive and defensive techniques. You have basic combos, force combos and force object throws on offence and block, parry and evade on defence. A combo can be blocked, a force combo parried and a force throw evaded. To mix it up some characters might not have force abilities, such as General Grievous who instead has a crazy flailing charge, which afterwards leaves him coughing out his robot lungs and open to attack. All characters have unique animations and fighting stats, Ahsoka the sassy Togruta apprentice has amazing speed but lacks power, Grevious is slow but all ‘punch’ and Obiwan is more rounded and strong with the force. I only saw 3 characters but I assume they will all greatly vary, such as hopefully a hard to hit Yoda (unconfirmed).

There is heaps of dialogue and banter between the characters, depending on the matchups and combat situations. Even unique dialogue; if say Obi-wan is fighting himself, “If I’m Obi-wan, then you must be Obi-two!”. The dialogue is a real fan service, all written by the Clone Wars series writers, complete with quotes and decent voice actors. Hopefully with all the constant banter we won’t be hearing the same lines over and over.

The stand out thing for me was the dynamic environments. The first level I saw was the 'Teth Bridge', a basic circular training room, but as the player’s health got to a certain stage a door burst open and droids spewed out, shooting at the players who automatically blocked away the fire and occasionally throwing damaging grenades. After the first round the fight was taken to a large bridge (I assume a Teth one) with a great cloudy background. Again after the players health reached a certain point an epic space battle started in the distance which eventually blew up a chunk of the bridge and toppled a distant pillar. The second level 'the Skytop Station', was a giant platform which eventually broke off and free fell as the battle continued. What is crazy is if a dark side character is winning, the battle in the distance will be in their favour, so the Clone Wars equivalent of a tie fighter shooting down the Millenium Falcon. While you’re playing you probably won’t really notice but as a spectator it’s such a nice touch, similar to watching the band in Guitar Hero.

There is plenty of promise here for a good party style ‘hand around and play’ fighter, very competitive and fun to watch. I didn’t get to see any of the single player or most of the characters and levels but I imagine it only builds on this already solid product. Man, I’m almost a little too enthusiastic, hey? I think they might have done a mind trick on me. The game launches in November, so check it out, if for Lightsabers alone!

BWZZZ!