If you like your games, you’ve probably come across the Lego franchises at least once. Lego has tried to stay relevant in a digital age by, among other things, retelling popular movies with a humourous Lego bent… I say tried because… well… Minecraft. Did they see that one coming? Minecraft is effectively one giant lego set that lets the player build almost anything they can imagine in a 3D world. My other issue with Lego is that there are now so many custom Lego pieces and kits. What happened to kids making shit for themselves? A-N-Y-W-A-Y… so far the movies to receive the Lego treatment are Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and more recently, Batman. I’ve not played the HP or Batman games, but Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones successfully captured the story and spirit of their inspirations.

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (LSW3 from now) picks up the plot from The Clone Wars animated movie and series and also has a lot of parallels with SW Ep II: Attack of the Clones. Perhaps I’m alone in saying this, but the whole SW story is very confusing with the exception of the original trilogy (and I consider myself a massive fan). BTW, did you know Lucas is converting the SW movies into 3D? I hope this added depth rubs off on the plot—SNAP! So I’m not going to bother with the story for now… why should I when I don’t think they have? SNAP2!



The Game
Typical of any Lego games, it’s funny. Funny in a cutesy, slapstick way that will have you snicker through your nose most of the time but would inspire deep, belly guffaws in drunken people. It’s much bigger than previous games and it feels it. The locations feel bigger, with larger open expanses and a huge increase in on-screen characters—I’m talking hundreds. The geeks behind the scenes have certainly massaged a lot out of the game’s engine; I really am impressed by this. The very first scene of the game launches you into one massive fracas where you’re encouraged to plough your way through myriad droids with your lightsaber. It’s quite satisfying and I found that I forgot about the mission as I hacked and slashed at anything that moved… including my allies. Later, some missions require you to control large cohorts of clone troops adding a touch of RTS—still, it’s no Shogun Total War (still a favourite of mine).


It's funny... in a cutesy way

Story Swap Mode is a nice feature that allows you to switch between characters that are in different areas in real time, much like a movie. This probably says a too much about me, but any time I made a swop I got anxious for the character I left behind.

The new hub (kinda like an interactive home screen if you’ve never played a Lego game before) is much bigger. Rather than the cantina on Mos Eisley, the hub is now set across TWO ships. This in itself is a decent part of the game where you gradually explore the first ship before hopping across to the second (I’m not there yet).

The fluidity of the graphics and the great sense of scale initially give space battles a nice sense of freedom, even though you’re heavily constrained by your mission and the bounds of the battle theatre. A really nice feature of space battles is that you can land your ship and get out and kick ass. It seems like a simple concept, but few games with the scale and scope of LSW3 can do this and even then most can only do it with the aid of a cut-scene.

I was hoping to bring this to you last week, but I’ve barely scratched the surface as far as progress goes. With 20 missions, 40 bonus level and the hub ships which are games in themselves, the game is massive. Not to mention all the coin that you accrue… I’m a bit OCD like Dracula in that I cannot allow one coin to go unchecked. Needless to say it can be a bit annoying playing co-op with me because I’m constantly going back to pick up coin—I blame my humble background.

I did find that the big scenes with 200 characters on screen got very confusing. Often it wasn’t obvious what I was supposed to do and it was easy to miss some of the queues. Not a massive complaint, but it did slow my progress a little. I’m still finding this as I push through it.

Graphics and sound
I’m playing the Xbox version ATM, but I wouldn’t expect it’s too different from the PS3 and PC versions. [I asked for the PS3 version and received the Xbox version. I wasn’t too pleased as I thought my Xbox was on the blink with the dreaded red ring of death. However, I found punching the top of the Xbox three times fixed it perfectly. It even runs a lot quieter now. Boners! Bonus!] Whilst it doesn’t look out of place today, LSW3 is light years ahead of earlier Lego games, which have really dated. I didn’t think you could do much to enhance the blockiness of the Lego world, but now the developers have worked in rafts of improved lighting, high-res textures and some very slick effects.

The sound is great. All the sound FX that we know and love from the movies are delivered in DD 5.1 surround, unless you’re playing on a Wii where you’ll be listening to the pseudoness of Dolby Pro *heaves* Logic. The music is as good as ever in LSW3, helping to create an immersive experience—it’s not a SW game without the soundtrack.

The End
Once I got over the fun of slashing everyone with my lightsaber, it took a bit for me to really get into this game. However, as I’ve progressed a bit further into it, certainly as I’ve opened up the first hub ship, I’m really starting to enjoy it. Apparently there’s 10 hours of gameplay for the main missions, but I think the average busy guy (work/TV/masturbation), or girl (work/babies/make-up)* is going to have a hard time matching that. If you’ve got a bit of time to spend on a big game and (guys if you’ve got a hand free), you should probably check this game out.

*You KNOW I’m joking ladies, MWAH!