Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels

Review from Cav - Wednesday, 31 December 2008 @ 7:19am

Wii and Lightsabers. Lightsabers and Wii. They were made for each other. It is your destiny. Well that’s what an entire planet full of Star Wars junkies have been hoping for since the Wii’s conception, but alas this hasn’t happened in the latest game: Star Wars: Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels. In fact I will be very surprised if this ever really happens on this version of the Wii console, even when and if the Motion Sensor attachment that was shown at this years E3 ever comes out. I just don’t think the current model will be able to cut it. Not since the release of Masters of the Teras Kasi for the PlayStation in 1998 has there been a dedicated Star Wars fighter on any platform. While many people disliked the game, I was a fan just because it was Star Wars. Other people who liked it were probably lonely 15 year olds who were overexcited due to the fact that you could play as Princess Leia in her Jabba’s Palace Slave Girl outfit. The game was pretty rough in the way of its game play, but I had a hell of a lot of fun being Hoar, the Tusken Raider, beating the snot out of Luke Skywalker and saying “Yeah, that’s how it should have been done in 1977, bitch”

I see you have two lightsabers - see, two fingers?

Ten years on and we now have Star Wars Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels, brought to by Australian Studio KROME, the same people who brought us The Force Unleashed on the Wii. Once again, I like this because it is Star Wars and that’s about it. I don’t think anyone will truly love a Star Wars fighter until the motions are one to one. Don’ get me wrong, this game holds it’s own, but I think it’s the length of this game that lets it down. You can play against friends until the cows come home, but the replay value on the single player campaign falls a little short. You can also play through as different character, but with all the moves barely differing between them, there seems no real reason to do so. There are set moves for each character with players thrusting the WiiMote up, down, left, right and stabbing in a forward direction, as well as moving the character with the nunchuck joystick. Flailing around like a fool does work and looks awesome to your friends (and they WILL remind you how you looked) but you just won’t hit combos doing that. The instruction book shows combos with arrows and an S, of course meaning stab. You have to be slightly gentle with your stabbing motion as on more than one occasion I stretched the nunchuck cord to its extreme. Bring out the goodies scored at Christmas! Why? I am now the owner of a wireless nunchuk! Also a younger member of my family got themselves an after-market ‘Lightsword’ attachment for her WiiMote, which takes a couple of batteries and has a light up blade. I wonder what is going to be used first: that or her new DS? Anyway, a certain points during your battle, you and your opponent with lock sabers in battle. No, not like in Spaceballs, but just enough to add a little drama to the battle. Faces get close, death stars exchanged. You wait patiently and then hit the move that appears on the screen. I found that it wasn’t often that I lost that contest.

Hold still while I get that octopus off your head

The story mode follows the animated movie closely and elaborates further (or I fell asleep at the cinema, but I think it is the former and not the latter) with the rather annoying voice-over guy who did the Brendan Fraser ‘George of the Jungle’ narration. Star Wars never had a voice-over, unless you count Ben Kenobi annoying the piss outta Luke while he was trying to blow up the Death Star, so let’s just say I’m just not a huge fan of this … but that’s probably another movie problem and not a game problem. The voice work for the characters is done by the original players from the movie, but sometimes it slips in and out of sync, giving it that Asian Martial Arts movie feel. The levels are a little restrictive in area, but are very Star Wars. Keep an eye out for Jawas when facing Count Dooku, I felt I was slipping to the dark side because I just wanted to grab them with the Force and hurl them at Dooku. Now that would have been cool.

Cool! We made a letter A! We should be on Sesame Street!

SWCWLD gives us a host of ‘baddies and goodies’ to choose from including Jedi Council member Plo Koon, who gamers first saw in Jedi Power Battles on the PlayStation, General Grievous, the robot like dude with four arms and a kick arse case of emphysema. Ahsoka Tano and Asajj Ventress who both appear in the animated film are selectable as well. Each character has a set of combos, some of which are also used by other characters. They funny thing is that not all combos with the same name actually use the same motions. This adds a slight touch of difficulty when going through Challenge mode. ‘What?’ I hear you say? Oh I haven’t mentioned that yet? Well let’s just take this opportunity to insert a picture and I’ll tell you about it.

I told you not to order the Bantha Burger Special at the Cantina

Challenge mode is a very welcome addition to the game, where task are to be completed by various characters with certain goals to be achieved. This is where the mastering of combos is needed as opposed ‘air-hacking’. I really had to concentrate on getting the moves right to succeed, unlocking further challenges as I went. I completed one challenge set for a character, but then decided not to go on with another character as it was getting a bit samey: Fight for three rounds, listen to repetitive comments, move on. The difficulty level of these challenges does get harder as you progress and NO that ISN’T the reason I bailed on further challenges, I just grew tired of it.

Pros

It's Star Wars and it's the closest thing to using your WiiMote as a Lightsaber. Without challenge mode it would be lost

Cons

Gets repetative at times Wiimote doesn't always do exactly what you want it to do .... but when does it?