Hands-On with The Clone Wars

There may not be a single booth bigger than the one George Lucas and company are trotting out at this year's Comic-Con. The combined efforts of the film and videogame branches of the Star Wars creator's empire--Lucasfilm and Lucasarts, respectively--make for a spectacle that stands out even on the chaotic show floor of Comic-Con. But when we heard that Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels would be playable somewhere in this gargantuan booth, we had to make our way in and see for ourselves how this lightsaber-based fighting game for the Wii really works.

Turns out, the basic controls are fairly simple. No matter which character you choose from among the dozen or so featured in the Clone Wars movie due out next month, you do a light attack by issuing a horizontal swipe with the wii remote (your direction from right to left or vice versa being reflected on-screen) and a more powerful attack with a vertical swipe. Then, depending on your selection, you can do a force attack by building up your force gauge and holding the Z button to either lift up a nearby object and fling it at your opponent or just doing a regular force push to knock them on their rear end. These attacks are only limited to tje Jedi and Sith characters. Our first match was with General Grievous. Since he's neither Jedi nor Sith (cyborgs have a long way to go in the Star Wars canon), Grievous couldn't use these force attacks, but he made up for it with the ability to wield four lightsabers at once with a special attack that twirls them like a Dutch windmill from hell.

Each character has about five combo moves you can pull off with varying directional movements, and a dash that can be exectued with the A button. Occasionally, though, the game will stray from the traditional fighting genre by throwing a few competitive quick time events your way. These prompts pop up when you get locked into a lightsaber strike with the other person. Depending who can respond to a series of wii remote motion prompts the fastest will win, giving them a free move over their opponent. There are a few variations on these, including one that builds up tension with no prompts, until it finally throws one at you like a wild west draw to see who has the quickest reflexes.

The game controls pretty well, and you never really feel like you're flailing around with all the motion controls. The presentation is also quite nice. Each level is ripped from the movie and will actually change over the course of the fight. In the Sky Station level you see airships fighting in the background as the surface your standing on gradually goes less and less horizontal until it topples over and crumbles. The character models also look good, maintaining that same blocky cartoonish look you'll see in the movie. It's definitely one of the nicer looking Wii games.

Altogether, The Clone Wars should provide a nice addition to a system starving for quality fighting games. The controls are definitely on the simple side, but we had fun with the force attacks and interactive environments nonetheless. At the very least, The Clone Wars is a game in which you can force throw a metal crate at Anakin, and that's alright with us.