Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels (Wii)

We rented Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels on Thursday night. Normally, I wouldn't put up impressions after only one hour of play, but because the single-player campaign ONLY LASTS ONE HOUR, I'm going to make an exception.

That's right. One hour. In other words, absolutely, positively, do not buy this game. Rent it instead and save $45, since you can see everything the game has to offer (easily) in a weekend.

So what do you get during that hour? Lots of cut scenes and 6-8 (can't remember the exact number) lightsaber duels that are best two out of three rounds. No levels, no exploration, no nothing--watch a cut scene, get dropped into a lightsaber battle, win, and move on to the next cut scene. The amount of time you actually spend playing the game in campaign mode is no more than thirty minutes.

What's really too bad is that the lightsaber combat is decently done, and combat would be very entertaining as part of an actual level. The engine seems quite capable, but this was pretty clearly jammed out the door for the holidays. Even if you include the other game modes, I've seen plenty of Wiiware games that have more content than this.

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