Last week, I purchased LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars for the PS3. It took me about 5 days and 25 hours of gameplay to complete the game fully, including 100% on-game completion and the platinum trophy (my first platinum). Now I bring you my review, the first review for the shoulders of Firey Vengeance blog, in both video and written form.
Lego Star Wars III costs only $49.99 new at gamestop, a $10 downgrade from most other newly released PS3 games. This is both good and bad news. While it does allow many more to access the game easier, it also shows a considerable downgrade in the confidence TT Games have with their series. Still, the upcoming release of LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean shows that TT are relentless and diverse in the production of their games.
I hope that LEGO Pirates does well in its own right, but today I'm here to talk about LEGO Star Wars III (Although it is actually the fourth in the series, technically). LSW3 is a giant step forward from the previous LEGO games, and a small nudge forward from last year's excellent LEGO Harry Potter (Expect a sequel 3rd or 4th quarter). While the ability to design customized levels and any online option are omitted, other new features bring the game forward in a new and improved direction.
The first new thing I noticed about LSW3 is that it is abundant in content. Dozens of characters, including all of your favorites from the TV show, some returning characters from the movies (you unlock characters such as Vader and even Vader's Apprentice from collecting all the mini kits on a level) , and the ability to make your own custom characters, up to 18.
Also, there is a giant boost level-wise. This time around, levels are bigger, more difficult (especially on the true-jedi front, if you don't get score x2), and, unlike some of the abominations of levels filling the blasphemy of a tribute in LEGO Indiana Jones 2, more true to the series. The cutscenes capture and lighten some of the great moments from the series, and, as a rare watcher of the show, make those who haven't had the chance to see the show more curious of the actually, pretty good series. In addition, a new mode, named "Assault" has been added. This mode is reminiscent of Star Wars Battlefront's galactic conquest mode. Although not as long-lived, completionists and those looking for an extra challenge will have their time taken up capturing bases (Basically command posts, except captured slightly differently), destroying statues of Yoda and Grievous, and building escape pods. There are a bunch of these missions, too many to count, and they are available as both republic and separatist campaigns. While fulfilling (and a requirement to get that prestigious gold brick collecting trophy), these levels are extremely repetitive and tedious, and take up hours of time better used when playing story levels. Another refreshing feature is the great new ability to both fly starships and walk on land in two levels.
The main hub of the game is ridiculously over-done this time around. You can travel between two ships, the republic and separatist ships, and visit countless numbers of rooms. Some can only be unlocked by collecting a certain amount of gold bricks, which are rewarded when you complete, get true-jedi, or get all minikits on a level, and when you complete a bounty hunter mission or assault mission. the game isn't particularly hard, especially now that the red bricks are much easier to get (you don't even have to pay for something if you type in the code for it, and you'll still get the collect all red-brick trophy). Still, it's more difficult than previous games. Also, there are gold brick missions to do in between the two hub ships, where you can fly vehicles.
All that's really left to talk about are the graphics, which are awesome. It's 10 times more HD that the previous lego games, and the lighting effects are superb. The game is almost completely glitch-free, although I had to restart my PS3 a couple times since there was so much content on the screen at once (they can now have like 500 characters on screen at once). Sound-wise, nothing much has changed, except for the addition of terrible elevator music on the republic HUB ship and awesome elevator music on the separatists HUB ship. The camera is not different from that of LEGO Harry Potter, and is pretty solid, at least in comparison to LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga.
Overall, LSW3: The Clone Wars is a solid game, and a vast improvement over it's predecessors, especially in content amount. There are still improvements to be made, but TT Games have definitely taken the right step.
Pros:
- An amazing amount of new content and gameplay modes
- Graphics have gotten a much needed boost
- Stays much closer to the parent TV-series than other LEGO games
- More difficult this time around
Cons:
- Republic elevator music sucks
- A lot of content creates glitches
- Assault missions are tedious
- Camera issues
