Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

Are We There Yet?

In Revenge of the Sith, you play as Anakin Skywalker or his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Pretty much, you’ll plod along engaging in lightsaber battles and duels, shooting turrets and blasters while trying to get to the end of the game. The game follows the movie, minus those cheesy, overdramatic emotional scenes, and takes about as long to beat. Story mode took me 3 hours, with each of the 16 missions average about 10 minutes to complete. There are hidden missions and items to unlock, but nothing extraordinary that will make it worth your time. The only other mode that some might enjoy is Duel mode. You and an opponent select from a number of fighters to have a one-on-one duel. There’s not much depth to his straightforward fighting game. I was bored after a few fights.

The enemies are way too easy. From droids to bosses, no one foe seems to harm you enough to hurt you. A simple push of the dodge or block button gives you the chance to unleash a lightsaber combo or a Force trick with ease. You do have something to work for, though. At the beginning of the game, both characters have similar moves and simplicity in control. As you progress, you gain more Jedi tricks and lightsabers moves which you can string into wicked combos.

Where in the World is Ewan San Diego?

Even worse than the storyline is the voice-acting. Revenge of the Sith does not use the original actors to voice the lines. Instead, the game uses some unknowns and I don’t know how much they were paid, but it was too much. Dialogue is wooden (and it wasn’t even Lucas’ fault!) and dead-panned, and the comedy portion of Kenobi and Skywalker’s light banter tried too hard.

You might think that the musical score could save some part of this game, but you’ll find nothing new or even from the movie. It would have been cool to have John Williams pen something original for this game, but he was probably busy composing the score for Episode 7: Return of the Generic Game.

A Small Saving Grace

The graphics in Revenge of the Sith are top-notch when compared to other 3rd person beat-em-ups. The characters are modeled true to life and have unique animations associated with each. The levels are grand in scale and vary in background to keep things interesting. Unfortunately, there is some slow-down when there’s a lot of action on the screen.

Thompson’s Two Cents

I am a fan of Star Wars, but haven’t been a fan of the licensed games for years. The quality just hasn’t been there and Revenge of the Sith follows right in line. With a jagged storyline, boring gameplay, and repetitive fighting, you’ll find that you’d rather sit through a 4-hour interview with George Lucas talking about how much fur Chewbacca had. Even though the graphics are good, you can’t get past all the aforementioned negatives to make this game worth buying.