LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars PSP Review

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is the first LEGO game I've played on handhelds. I've never been particularly impressed by any of the series' platforming, combat or puzzles, but I've been able to largely look past that because it throws enough variation at you to be entertaining from start to finish, and, more importantly, it's had cooperative play. Take away the cooperative aspect, though, and what's left is a competent platformer with boring combat and far too easy puzzles. Not bad, just not enough for the charming aesthetic and license to be a must own for anyone over the age of 10.

If you've followed the Clone Wars cartoon through the first two seasons, then you'll likely recognize the stages in LEGO Star Wars III. Each level distills an episode down, taking the big moments and letting you play through them with a distinctly LEGO-like artistic license. The cartoon has silly moments, but don't be surprised when this game takes them to the next level --- it's for kids, after all.

The levels themselves boil down to a few repeated parts that, while decent, grow wearisome over the course of campaign. Each stage you take control of a few notable Clone Wars characters, using their special abilities to overcome the most basic of puzzles. Actually, calling them puzzles is being overly generous in this case, since every time you have to use a specific character's power it basically indicates it by either outright telling you or blinking the icon of character needed. Expect to repeat the same actions over and over in all of the 13 levels, to the point where you'll know what the designers intend for you to do before they even lay it out. I understand it's mostly for children, but at least in the other versions they try to include some genuinely clever puzzles alongside the kiddy ones.

When you're not using a few cells of your brain to "figure out" a puzzle, expect a constant stream of enemies for you smash, or an awkward platforming sequence. This isn't unlike many of the other LEGO Star Wars games (which I enjoyed), but at least in the case of those games they varied up what you were doing just enough to keep it from becoming stale. Despite a couple of welcome respites such as the space combat missions (where each time you pilot a starship and blow up some enemy fighters), all the levels feel too similar. It's not anger-inducing or crappy, but it lacks the charming, inventive feel that the other entries in the franchise have had.

The lack of any cooperative play takes away a lot of the value. While you can go back and play through the campaign in Free Play mode, using whatever characters you've unlocked so that you can find even more collectibles, you still have to do it alone. The PSP supports ad-hoc and Wi-Fi, so it seems like a strange omission, especially when that's what people love so much about the franchise. The levels on their own aren't interesting enough to warrant playing through more than once when you can't even justify it as playing with a friend.


You can get a little extra mileage out of LEGO Star Wars III by exploring the hub world, but, unlike the console versions, there isn't all that much to do. The hub world is a big starship you return to in between stages. Here you can unlock new characters, create custom characters, and unlock any special bonuses like the really terrible mini-games they've included. If you want to do things like play a terribly awkward round of Volleyball with R2-D2, go for it, but these games feel tossed in and are best left alone. The inclusion of the hub world is nice, but next time there needs to be more to hold my attention.

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