Ellington

You know, sometimes the gaming industry confuses me. I'm really not sure how you can take the concept of "Star Wars"and make a bad game. It's one of, if not the, biggest movie series in history, and it's hard to deny how loved it is. But time after time, crappy games are released under the "SW" title. Attention all designers: Slapping a popular franchise name onto your high school science project is not an excuse for a game. So, against my will, I'm going to play the latest "game," affectionately re-titled by me, "Star Wars Episode III: At Least We Aren't On Hoth."

"SW: III" allows the player to play through snippets of the movie as either Anakin or Obi-Wan, depending on the level. The Lightsaber controls are fairly deep. You've got heavy light, grapple and critical moves, depending on the button you press. There are some cool combos you can pull off, and as a standalone system, it's impressive.

But there's a problem. In the entire game, there are around 10-15 types of enemies, as well as a few bosses. So instead of throwing fresh new foes at you, or challenging you to actually use all those lightsaber moves, they make you do the same thing. Over. And over. Again. Another thing that made me angry was how the lightsabers did or rather didn't do damage. I may be influenced by the movies, but I always thought they … y'know … hurt you. After about an hour of stabbing the same Grapple Droid, I started to wonder what they're made of.

The droids are stupid, yet some are unbelievably hard to kill. Large droids are able to block all of your attacks, so your awesome combos become obsolete, replaced by button-mashing. The smaller droids effectively simulate what happens when a sword made of laser hits you, but they're so gimped it's pointless to even worry about them. Honestly, walking behind these guys is enough to throw them off for a while. The one redeeming feature of all this is the Lightsaber duels. With a friend or against the computer, you get a chance to use all of your moves and skills. The duels are fun, and in my opinion, should have been the focus of the game.

The graphics are surprisingly good. Nothing like "Knights of the Old Republic," or "Jedi Academy," but hey, it's PS2. The clips were nice, but they were so edited it, looked strange. I think the lightsaber graphics could have been a bit better, but maybe I'm being too picky.

The music is all from the movies, created of course, by John Williams. That alone puts it a notch above the rest, but the sound is also done well. The same movie actors, however, don't do the character voices. It seems the cast from the Clone Wars cartoon has stepped in, and, to tell you the truth, they didn't come close to the originals.

The plot obviously follows the movie, deviating some at times. I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but I'd really suggest you see the movie first.

Finally, replay. Like I said before, lightsaber duels with friends can be fun, but there aren't too many characters. Watch the movie, rent and play the game with your friends, and then take it back.