With the imminent DVD/VHS release of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, LucasArts has managed to put out a combat title in which the player uses a variety of craft (including speeder bike, fighter tank and gunship) to fight against the separatists. The story starts up near the end of the movie, in which Mace Windu leads the clone troopers into Genosha to free Anakin, Padme and Kenobi. From there, the player visits five other planets and performs in sixteen missions that go over the length of the conflict.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward, as players are expected to finish a series of objectives in each location, ranging from protection to rescue to search and destroy. Most locations are fairly large and packed with tons of enemy and ally troops, which helps in drawing the player into the war theme. While each vehicle controls along the same lines and has both a regular and special attack, there is enough variety to keep them from feeling too similar. Players will need make sure they look over the controls in the pause menu when using a new vehicle as certain controls, like the use of the Left and Right triggers, changes depending on the vehicle. With the fighter tank and in the rare on-foot missions, the triggers allow you to strafe, but when using the gunship, it will allow you to decrease or increase your speed, which is useful for coming in slow and peppering ground units in certain objectives. And when you need to get somewhere fast, you can use a limited boost. In each mission area, there are places to pick up more ammo and health for your vehicle. Along with the main objectives, players can also finish bonus objectives to unlock things in the game. Bonus objectives range from finishing missions within certain time limits, finding hidden locations and keeping convoys from receiving too much damage.

On top of the single player mode is a multiplayer mode that includes team-based and co-op modes. There's also deathmatch and a king-of-the-hill mode. Considering that the game only has sixteen missions, the multiplayer modes add needed extra gameplay to this title.

Visually, the game's strength lies in both representing the Star Wars universe well and presenting large amount of active characters on screen at any given time. Each of the different worlds look fairly accurate and during the heat of battle, you'll feel transported into Lucas' universe. Players will be impressed by the vast armies on screen and you'll easily feel like you're in the battle. There are a few bland textures here and there, and the character models look underdeveloped compared to the vehicles. This is especially noticeable in the in-game cutscenes, which look clunky, especially compared to the more polished CG sequences at the beginning and end of most missions.

Audiowise, The Clone Wars draws from the same pool of resources as every other Star Wars game before it. Both the music and sound effects are dead on and the voice acting, while not accurate, does a good enough job to carry the story on in the limited story sequences. If you've heard any other Star Wars game, you know what to expect.

I will have to say that the on-foot missions seriously feel tacked on. The controls are clunky and the character models look inferior to the rest of the game. Fortunately, they're such a small part of the game that you can look past them. The game also suffers from the occasional bit of slow down when multiple explosions occur during combat.

Star Wars fans should probably look into this game. It's not the best Star Wars game ever made, but it's still a fairly good combat action title that provides some strong gameplay during the single and multiplayer modes.

- - Kinderfeld