I wasn’t sure what to think about SOE’s Clone Wars Adventures when I first read of it. A kid-oriented, “freemium” MMO set in the Star Wars universe? With SOE’s Star Wars Galaxies out for years and Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic set to tear things up next year, is there really any room for yet ANOTHER MMO set in the same universe?
Well, yes, there is. But then, Clone Wars Adventures is not really an MMO. It’s more a lobby from which you can select Star Wars-themed minigames, show off your latest outfits and your home, build your own lightsaber and, well, save the galaxy, one Peggle at a time.
You start as a Padawan in the Jedi training facility on Coruscant, the capital of the Republic. Against you stand the Sith and the Separatists. With you stand all the good NPCs from the Clone Wars cartoon. You’ll get your chance to fight them all.
It takes a few minutes to learn to control your character. Although the game is fully 3D, you can’t move the camera at all. Your character can run toward or away from the camera, run left or right, but you can never get behind your character and see what it sees. Best way to think of it? You’re watching a computer screen, not immersed in the world. That’s not a bad way to think of it; very few of the games feature your character doing anything — I believe Lightsaber Dueling was the only one I tried that did.
Thankfully, that’s a heckuva fun game.
You won’t find many truly new games in the CWA lineup. I haven’t tried all of these, but the ones I have, I’ll try and describe….
Crystal Attunement — this looked like a Bejeweled clone. I hate Bejeweled. Didn’t try it.
Droid Programming — a block matching puzzle
Republic Defender — tower defense, really well-done.
Lightsaber Duel — pattern matching game, lots of fun.
Daily Holocron — locked; for Jedis only
Rocket Rescue — didn’t try it
Speederbike Racing — didn’t try it, but I think I can guess what it is. You can buy better speeders in the store.
Starfighter — a rails shooter somewhat similar to Rogue Squadron or Starfox. Very cinematic. You can buy better starfighters in the store.
Daily Trivia — locked for non-Jedi
Star Typer — typing game.
Blaster Training — didn’t try it.
Infiltration — didn’t try it.
Daily Spin — didn’t try it.
Stunt Gungan — Gungan repel me. Didn’t try it.
Saber Strike — Peggle clone.
Mine Buster — for Jedi only, but come on, I’m thinking Mine Sweeper.
I’ll bet a dozen rebel credits that one of the games I didn’t try is a Sudoku clone.
In the end, it’s all about being a Jedi. In the movies, years of training, meditation, and coming to terms with your darker impulses can only begin to prepare you for the pressures and responsibilities of the Jedi Order.
It’s a lot simpler in Clone Wars Adventures. In CWA, being a Jedi means you put your money in the promotion droid, and it coughed up a Jedi certificate, along with a card you can carry in your pouch along with your spare lightsaber crystals. A Jedi is a paid subscriber to Clone Wars Adventures, though as with its sibling, Free Realms, you will undoubtedly be able to buy time cards in order to become a Jedi on the installment plan.
All of the games I played went only so far and no further — the higher levels for games are reserved for Jedi.
There are no levels in CWA, no experience points, no death, no raiding, no skills save what you bring to the game. It’s nothing more, really, than a game portal, where the games are all themed with George Lucas’ most famous franchise.
That isn’t to say CWA isn’t fun — it IS — nor to say it isn’t well done — because it IS. There’s a back room in that cantina in Mos Eisley, and in it are all of these games, and farm boys come from all around to play them and dream of the day when they, too, can be Jedi masters.
I’ve embedded a video of a few of the minigames below.
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