LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

The Cartoon Network show, the Clone Wars, gets the Lego treatment in Lego Star Wars III: the Clone Wars. <br />Just like every other installment in the Lego franchise of video games, this one has a main segment where you play three sets of six episodes. Each set has to deal with a certain Star Wars villain: Count Dooku, General Grievous and Asajj Ventress. Each episode has you solving problems and blasting the bad guys using mostly Jedi and Stormtroopers. <br />With the Jedi, you can cut opening through parts of a wall, throw their lightsaber, deflect fire back at enemy droids, and use the force to manipulate some objects to get further into the level. <br />Stormtroopers can use their grapplers to pull levers and slide down rails, they can command other units to destroy large object, and they can just plain blast droids. <br />One again, the high mark of the game is how fun it is to use each character’s ability, and to demolish certain objects to gather up studs. It’s even more fun with two players; the AI controlled character has a tendency to walk off cliffs and go places I didn’t want him/her to go to. <br />Another great thing about these games is the sharp humor in the cut scenes. They put more character into these characters than the cartoon series does - even without voice acting. <br />But some things I didn’t like: moving objects with the Force can get frustrating, the fighter combat was a bit too simplistic, and swapping between two sets of characters in an episode made the game more confusing than fun. <br />The main stage takes about eight hours to go through from start to finish, but even longer if you want to find all the hidden goodies. Still, I had a lot of fun with this LEGO installment - as much fun as any other LEGO installment (including Indiana Jones, other Star Wars, and Harry Potter.) LEGO Star Wars III: the Clone Wars may be even better than the cartoon show. BUY IT.