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Black Mirror III: Final Fear Review

In 2003 we watched in horrified fascination as the noble Gordon family of Black Mirror castle struggled to hold an ancient evil at bay. Years later, we again saw the primeval scourge work its evil on the Gordons, this time on a new generation. This spring, we once again enter the twilit halls of Black Mirror castle as the Gordon family's last remaining scion fights for his life in a cataclysmic clash between good and evil. This chapter, Black Mirror III: Final Fear, proves itself to be the best chapter yet, thanks to some cleverly designed point-and-click gameplay and a spell-binding tale of murder, betrayal and possession.

Black Mirror III takes place in the 1990's in the small English village of Willow Creek. Directly following the climactic events of Black Mirror II, young American college student Darren Michaels escapes a dark conspiracy only to find himself accused of arson and murder. Undaunted, and after finding himself unexpectedly connected to Willow Creek's infamous Gordon family, he makes it his business to discover the source of the Gordon family curse. The main thrust of the game is in helping Darren (who's found his true name to be Adrian Gordon) come to grips with his newfound nobility as well as to resist the dark spirit that's invaded his soul. Mordred, an evil Gordon ancestor, has somehow possessed him and the resulting spiritual duality turns the ordinarily normal young man into a modern day Jekyll and Hyde.

The strain of Adrian's multiple personality disorder affects him badly; the once handsome college student shambles around haunted and haggard, with deeply hollowed cheeks, popping prescription drugs he hopes will prevent his unpredictably violent fugue states. Unfortunately for him and regardless of the medication, as time goes on the visions grow worse as Mordred threatens to overcome him. To make matters worse, he's forced to endure the bias and hostility of Willow Creek's small-minded inhabitants. Staid and proper on the surface, Willow Creek holds more secrets than a Hollywood plastic surgeon; the pub owner is a drunken, abusive thief, the café owner is cheating on her spouse, the hotel manager is a conniving conman, and the psychologist is a compulsive chain smoker. Even the cops are corrupt and led by a bitter police chief who'd rather be anywhere but Willow Creek. Despite their own shortcomings, these residents are not particularly sympathetic to the young Yankee's plight and none too keen on strangers suspected of murder.

This conflict between the American-college-student-turned-English-Lord and the provincials of Willow Creek makes for a mystery that's fresh but familiar. Skillfully blending past and present, the story's bursting with ghosts, hidden treasures, conspiracies, secret chambers and arcane rituals as you follow the trail that leads to the heart of Black Mirror castle. Difficult situations present themselves along the way, most of which can be solved by good old common sense; occasionally you're asked to solve a traditional puzzle of the combination lock or "Indiana Jones booby-trap" variety and these require a bit more brain power. Some of the latter might prove too challenging for less experienced adventure gamers, but many of them can be skipped so that gamers unable to find the solutions can continue to progress.

In addition to the engaging plotline and interesting puzzle design, the game features a solid script, professional (if occasionally cartoony) voice acting and some beautifully complex environment art. Adrian's a likable young hero with a (slightly overdone) Boston accent. A child of the '90s, he's full of slackerish, Gen-X cynicism and prone to making amusingly sardonic comments about everything he sees. The villagers too can be highly entertaining as they go about their paranoid little lives. And though Adrian never ventures beyond the environs of Willow Creek, we're treated to a considerable range of interesting locations, especially once the mystery surrounding the castle begins to heat up.

Black Mirror III can be a mesmerizing game. A few things however, dilute the fun. While the graphics in general are crisply detailed, the cutscenes are blurrily low-res and the contrast between the two is a jarring distraction. Scrolling through inventory items is a pain thanks to a scroll button that repeatedly vanishes. Finally, the game's ending is extremely anti-climactic. After hours and hours of build up toward what promises to be an explosive conclusion, the whole creepy, convoluted, demon-powered thing just…ends.

Closing Comments

Black Mirror III: Final Fear is for the most part, a good adventure game that serves as a fitting end to an absorbing trilogy. It's beautiful, well-written and cleverly-designed and if its only flaws were a flaky scroll button and blurry cutscenes, it would warrant an unmitigated thumbs up. Unfortunately, after working toward a spectacular ending, it disappoints mightily with a resolution that fails to satisfy or even, really, to make sense. Nevertheless, aside from letting us down in the last five minutes, it's a highly entertaining title that's definitely worth taking the time to play.

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Portal 2

I may be the dumbest genius ever. At least, that’s how I feel after playing Portal 2’s fantastic single-player campaign. Many puzzles in the last third of the eight to 10 hours (perhaps less, depending on how clever you are) of its brain-bending puzzle “test chambers” had me convinced at one point or another that they were completely unsolvable, and that some bug or sadist game designer placed the exit just out of reach. I’d let out exasperated sighs as every attempt met with a dead end. I’d grimace in disapproval as I plummeted to my death for the tenth time. I’d consider surrender.
Then, through either sudden revelation, divine inspiration, or total accident, it would come to me: use the orange Propulsion Gel to reach the energy bridge, then catapult across the chasm and shift my blue portal to the inclined surface (in mid-air, mind you) to launch me up to the ledge, grab the refraction cube and redirect the laser beam to wipe out the turrets and activate the switch! It’s so simple, I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now. One half of Portal 2’s brilliance is making me kick myself for not thinking of the impossible; the other is making me feel immensely satisfied with myself when I finally do, again and again.
Note: while we’ve made every effort to avoid spoilers in this review, you cannot review a game without discussing what it does well and what it doesn’t. Be aware that reading any review is going to take some of the surprise out of it.

Test Subject: Dan-01

That achievement is made possible by the wondrous Portal Gun, the game’s sole piece of equipment. Unchanged from the first game (except for some subtle but slick texture work and portals that can be seen through walls, Left 4 Dead-style) the easy-to-use gun reliably casts one orange portal and one blue portal against certain walls, allowing you to magically, instantaneously pass from one to the other, regardless of distance, obstacles, or line of sight, while preserving momentum. It’s the ultimate non-weapon weapon, a sort of physics-based Judo-bazooka that redirects the strengths of energy and objects in motion toward its user’s goals—including the user herself. Wielding it makes me feel more powerful—and smarter—than nearly any other gun in gaming.

Lasers always travel in a straight line. Unless there’s a portal involved.

The third half of Portal 2’s brilliance is its story. (Yes, third half. If Valve can disregard the laws of physics in its game, I can disregard the laws of math in my review.) Its chambers are cohabitated by hilariously well-written and acted characters that exude personality, despite none of them being technically people. All three major roles rattle off absurd dark humor and petty insults at every turn. Evil robot GLaDOS is in top politely murderous form right from the moment she appears on screen (spoiler alert: she’s still alive!), but Portal’s show-stealing monotone antagonist is challenged for the spotlight by Wheatley, the bumbling, chattering robot who helps you escape.
Fantastically voiced by British actor Stephen Merchant (basically playing the same mind-bogglingly stupid character from the Ricky Gervais comedy Extras), Wheatley’s a doofus AI who makes you turn around while he hacks doors (he can’t do it while you’re watching). Also in the mix is actor JK Simmons, who lends his fittingly cantankerous voice to the founder of Aperture, Cave Johnson, whose comically sociopathic approach to science is second only to GLaDOS’.
Sure, I saw the plot twists coming, but still looked forward to witnessing exactly how the characters would react. Through death, resurrection, revenge, and reversal of fortune, their charm makes what would otherwise be an empty and lifeless world feel boisterous and alive—and more than makes up for the player character being a faceless mute.
It does all this and more while recycling very few of Portal’s greatest comedy hits—there’s nary a nod to dishonest cake, and the beloved Weighted Companion Cube makes only a cameo appearance. And the finale? Not challenging in the least, but a spectacular and extremely clever finish to the story, with extra points for those who’ve paid close attention to Mr. Johnson.
New dimensions
Without changing the nature of the established and celebrated gameplay, Portal 2’s gentle learning curve begins by reintroducing us to its basic concepts, then keeps on introducing new inventions to use with portals until around three quarters of the way through, and chambers become complex jungles of hazardous obstacles. Lasers emitting from walls combine with moveable Refractor Cubes to create the closest thing Portal 2 has to an offensive weapon—an aimable laser—but more often your job is to focus the beam on trigger switches through portals. Infinitely useful Excursion Funnels (levitation beams) and Light Bridges are more than just here-to-there movers—they can be applied to block or push away turrets, halt a catapulting jump before it throws you into oblivion, or help you climb a sheer wall.
I’m a little less wowed by the three flavors of viscous gel, which flow with a hypnotic globular effect from spouts and coat the environment in bouncy, speedy, or portal-receptive ooze. Unlike most of Portal 2’s other devices, these have only a couple of uses at most, and can be difficult to control. It’s a hassle when you’re trying to paint an orange runway up to a blue bouncing patch that launches you through a portal cast on a white patch, only to have an errant blob of blue splash over everything. That’s not to say that it’s not great when your work of physics-defying impressionistic art comes together, of course.

Excursion Tunnels: one of several ways to fly.

Behind the science
Locations are amazingly varied, as they must be to support this extended-length puzzle-athon without becoming monotonous. Aperture Science has fallen into disrepair in the indeterminate length of time between the greatly exaggerated “death” of its caretaker overlord and now, and many of its once-spotless test chambers are now rusted, grimy, and overgrown with vegetation. Maps shatter in front of our eyes as Aperture collapses on itself, while GLaDOS’ hundreds of robot arms gradually repair and rearrange the chambers piece by piece. All of this scripted activity animates what would otherwise be still and samey-looking rooms due to Portal’s lack of foes other than stationary turrets.
The Aperture facility is far more vast than we could’ve imagined, and the quest to escape leads through its industrial bowels, a cavernous underground sewer-like area, and a long-forgotten retro 1960s version of Aperture, among others. Some areas are so dramatically different that even the basic button triggers and doors have unique looks to them, and everything is impressively modeled and textured, right down to the Easter-egg graffiti hidden throughout. Fine-brush touches extend to the sound, too, such as the wind wooshing in your ears during long drops, or tingly electric chimes that introduce themselves to the background music when you’re speeding on Propulsion Gel. Between puzzles, Portal 2 is full of thrilling showcase moments, such as a mad-dash escape from an angry intelligence that controls the very walls, followed by a surprising take on the boss battle that, without a shot fired, made me feel dangerously out-classed next to my adversary.

What potato? I don’t see a potato.

Size matters
Right around that time is when the test chambers become increasingly elaborate and intimidatingly huge—to a fault in some cases. These jumbo puzzles are so immense that, even using the handy camera zoom function, spotting the exit can take a few minutes of exploration. Setting out to solve a puzzle when you don’t know what objective you’re working toward is the wrong kind of challenge, and some will find it frustrating. Later levels have multiple contiguous puzzles that can seem like they might never end, and made me miss the pace of the early game where I’d get a refreshing break between challenges.
I always solved them, though. Even though a couple stumped me in a very serious way for up to a half hour, I couldn’t give up until I made it to the other side. If you like a challenge, it’s impossible to put this game aside until you’ve burned through all of it.
Portal 2’s story doesn’t end with the single-player campaign, however. Read on as my co-op buddy Evan takes you through the entirely separate and equally innovative and interesting multiplayer campaign.

Test Subject: Evan-02

Two heads > one
I played the first Portal cooperatively. I always had a backseat driver—a roommate or a girlfriend—hovering over my chair, feeding what-ifs on where to sling my colored ovals. In Portal 2, Valve has officially supported that functionality, allowing you to share the burden of crunching your spatial options with another human brain. With the right sidekick, Portal 2 co-op is some of the most social gaming you’ll have. The occasional headaches that you’d get when you’re stuck alone are alleviated by communication and dimensional horseplay.
You and your partner play as P-body and Atlas, a Pixar-esque Laurel and Hardy droid duo running the testing gauntlet at GLaDOS’s whims in a separate, sillier story. They’re not big talkers, only managing a few expressive squeaks and squeals of triumph and defeat, but their animations are lively and a joy to watch, and they’ve got some amusing celebratory co-op emotes.
Five different testing zones are accessible through a massive hub room, for a total of more than 40 chambers (many of which are multi-part puzzles). Next to the single-player tests these puzzles are doubly complex, but co-op wastes no time babying you with tutorials—it ratchets up the difficulty immediately. Just the second one had us scratching our heads for several minutes trying to wrap our brains around the idea of linking our two sets of portals to achieve even-more-impossible feats that couldn’t be navigated alone.

Can your crumby old Weighted Companion Cube do this?

A handful of puzzles are wonderfully distinct from what you do in single-player: in one, I guided Dan through a contained rat maze of spiked walls that resembled GLaDOS’ grisly version of a Pachinko machine, carefully hopping on and off a pressure pad to reverse the direction of an Excursion Funnel to float him forward, juggling him back and forth to avoid death by giant stompy pile-driver while he cast new portals to change the path of the beam. Several times, Dan created a ceiling-and-floor loop that I’d fall through infinitely, until he re-cast one portal to launch me toward an objective at terminal velocity. Other rooms prompt careful timing: after many minutes pondering one, it finally dawned on Dan that we had to fling ourselves from opposite-facing portals and collide our bots in mid-air in order to safely land on a platform below. Gameplay-driven robot chest-bumps: Portal 2 has them.
On three
For the timing puzzles, there’s an awesomely simple, non-verbal tool for syncing with your partner: holding the F key initiates a three-second countdown timer visible to both players. Two other tools tremendously supplement your (totally necessary) voice communication: marking, which lets you tag any spot or gizmo in the environment with a temporary pointer that’s highlighted on your teammate’s screen, and a seamless picture-in-picture toggle that shows you exactly what your buddy sees in the corner of your screen. Both are effortless to use and completely unimposing to the UI and gameplay, and between the two of them there’s no confusion which acid pool he wants you to help him leap over.
I love the way that trust manifests as a gameplay mechanic, and the instant, painless respawning leaves room for antics: every few stages, I’d grief Dan a little bit by keeping him trapped in a levitation beam, moving a portal to remove the Light Bridge from under his feet, or overwriting his portal with mine at the last moment to steal a launch we’d set up.
These intangibles arise from the complex fun of moving and solving with another person, the most gratifying of which is having a gaming context where you can demonstrate your spark of awareness, creativity, or problem-solving knack. There’s a wonderful reflex when this is about to happen—your eyes widen, a corner of your mouth rises. You’re the only one in the class that knows the answer, and you are about to enlighten your teammate. It almost always starts with, “I have an idea.”

The simplest of co-op collaborations: passing a ball.

Eureka!
There’s also a fair amount of making fools of yourselves. In one of our prouder moments as a team, Dan and I spent 10 minutes trying to outsmart an Excursion Funnel/Faith Plate combo. We were so busy activating switches and scouting the room for new options that it was some time before I realized that we’d forgotten the most basic part of Portal science: you can walk through the portals, not just send things through them.
From beginning to end, the co-op puzzles are excellent but brief. Dan and I zipped through all 40 in around four hours, which means you’ll be able to finish both the single-player and co-op modes in a long weekend—partly because you won’t want to stop playing. It’s a minor shame that Valve didn’t use co-op as an opportunity for a handful of optional, brutal obstacle courses like Portal’s challenge chambers—some of those take a weekend to work out.
Glad we came
It makes us both a little sad that, having played through once, we can never look at these puzzles—in either single-player or co-op—with those same bewildered eyes again (barring, as Aperture would call it, “a very minor case of serious brain damage”). The included developer commentary, and of course an encore performance from the cast, would be the only things that might make us start playing again after Jonathan Coulton’s new song, “Glad You’re Gone” (which is good, but “Still Alive” is a really tough act to follow) rolls with the credits.
For that reason, our strongest words of caution are to choose your co-op partner carefully. You only really get one shot at these puzzles—don’t waste them with someone who’s already been through, as that would spoil the many surprises and the victory of discovering them for yourself.
We’ll definitely remember all of Portal 2 fondly, though, and as one of the best-written and finely polished gaming experiences in recent memory.

Dead Island preview

There are a lot of things you expect to find down a dirt track in Poland. Bears, a vodka factory, an actual zombie. But not the home of the most exciting undead happening since Danny Boyle made them run in 28 Days Later. Techland, best known for cowboy series Call of Juarez, have taken the best bits of zombie killing and mashed them all together into one open world adventure. Oh, and you’ll want to pack the factor 50, because it all takes place on the sunny island of Banoi in Papua New Guinea.

The Ram goes on the rampage.

You’ve seen the trailer, the little girl, the biting, the falling out of a really high window in backwards slow motion. This is all about being a bemused holidaymaker suddenly caught in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and scrambling to survive. One minute it’s Bermuda shorts and cocktails with umbrellas in, the next it’s bashing in the head of a walking corpse with a plank. You get to play as one of four characters, each with their own special skill set and weaknesses, such as speed or strength or ability with sharp things. I mainly got to see Sam B in action, an ex-hip hop star with a gnarly top hat and a passion for melee weapons. The other characters include Mohican-sporting Logan, an air hostess with quick moves and a glamazon bodyguard. Each is somehow immune to the infection, although, obviously, not immune to being eaten alive. Whichever you choose, there’s an RPG-lite system for levelling up that should enable you to tailor your character to your own violent needs.
Four main characters? Obviously that means four player, drop in, drop out co-op for Left 4 Dead-style japes among the bloody surfboards. Not that this was always the plan; the game was originally conceived years ago, before co-op was fashionable, leaving the team to integrate the idea at a later stage.
“It’s a deadly combination,” says Techland’s Blazej Krakowiak “because first we’ve done an open game, which in itself is a huge challenge to balance and predict, and then you’re screwed because you have four live players trying to mess things up.”

The fashion police slayed anyone in Bermuda shorts.

It’s certainly tricky. Compared to something like Left 4 Dead’s enclosed warehouses and fenced-in farms, the island of Banoi is massive, replete with story missions and side quests but Borderlands has shown this can work. I saw some very early missions, including going to search for a lifeguard and protecting someone from a zombie attack, but later objectives will help you discover what’s happened on the island, and open up new areas. Outside the hotel resort you start in, there’s jungle and even a town to explore, where you’ll have to face not just zombie enemies, but human ones too, such as looters or a gang who’ve taken up residence in the police station. Techland say they’re concentrating on the moments just after the outbreak, so people are still expecting the military to come and fix everything, there’s still some semblance of law and order and, importantly, money still has value. Expect the chance to buy new weapons or equipment as you explore.
Given that this is a holiday island rather than a war zone, finding weaponry is going to be a problem. It’s not as if there are racks of AK47s lined up next to the souvenir postcards and delightful shell collectibles. You might find the odd gun lying around, but even then, ammo is equally scarce, so you’ll need to get a little Blue Peter on what’s available to maximise the smash and smoosh. Planks, boats oars, baseball bats and machetes are all useful in their own right, but they degrade, and to really do damage you’ll want to take them to a workbench and add your own special features. It’s not just about duct-taping a chainsaw to a surfboard, but more like the World of Warcraft enchanting system, as with applying an electrical charge to hammers or blades.
I saw the shock machete in action – it can remove limbs and provides an entertaining light show. Krakowiak adds: “Some of them are more basic, like nails; others are more complex like the shock weapon, and there’s everything in-between. So it’s not about Dead Rising, putting some wacky things together and trying dozens of combinations. It’s about making the weapons more effective.”
The team certainly seems sensitive to comparisons with Capcom’s comedy zombie caper. “It’s like comparing Dead Rising to Left 4 Dead. It doesn’t make much sense and we are a different game altogether,” Krakowiak argues. “Dead Island is more about the characters you play and the story, and how it unfolds. Dead Rising, for me, is a toy box.”

Think tattoos make you tough? Think again.

There certainly seems to be a more serious mood to the whole thing and not just because of all the gore. “We’re trying to do something mature – it’s not about funny Dead Rising stuff. It’s not like there’s a crazy doctor with crazy experiments,” adds Adrian Ciszewski, a producer so committed he broke his leg showing an actor how to do a proper zombie fall during motion capture.
One of the major differences is the innovation that’s gone into the enemy design. Your basic cannon fodder zombie is a pretty standard walking corpse. The only difference is that they’re zombies dressed in bikinis and speedos, which just looks… wrong. They level up as you do and appear in small groups rather than unmanageable hordes. Sometimes they’ll even come in handy, like when you’re facing human opponents and you need a big fleshy distraction to allow you to slip past.
These basic zombies look disturbing, but they’re nothing compared to some of the trickier, and massively ickier, shufflers you’ll face later on. There’s The Ram, wrapped in a straightjacket with a Hannibal Lecter style mask. He’s an unstoppable tank who’ll charge you like a furious rhino, and the only way to take him down is to hit the weak point on his back. There’s the Drowner, a zombie who’s spent too long in the pool, and is swollen with water, with skin stretched so tight you can see his organs beneath.
Clean freaks will want to stay away from The Suicider, riddled with pulsating, infected boils, begging you to help him. Get too close and it’ll get real messy real quick, because he’ll explode in a shower of pus. The most nightmarish of the lot is The Butcher, who sports redneck dungarees, a deformed face and exposed forearm bones he uses to stab and slice at his prey. To be fair, you’d probably be in a murderous rage too; those arm stumps must make enjoying a tube of Pringles really tricky.

It's so pretty. Let's move to Dead Island for good.

Talking to the team, it’s no surprise that the zombie designs are so spot on. They list everything from Romero to Walking Dead to 28 Days Later as massive influences and have strong ideas about why zombie slaying is such an enduring joy to your average gamer.
“Zombies on one hand are relateable. They’re partially human, not like aliens or killer plants,” says Krakowiak. “I won’t get into how they represent the mundane lives of office workers or something. That’s a topic for a conversation after a huge amount of alcohol. In general they are human enemies, but on the other hand you can kill them without any remorse whatsoever.” Sadly, Techland did have to turn down a fan suggestion about a giant killer octopus that players could use to trap and eat zombies. Something for the DLC perhaps?
Until we’ve seen the real mechanics of the game – the four player co-op especially – it’s hard to know if Dead Island can live up to the promise. What I do know is that what I’ve seen is exciting and packed with grisly promise, which isn’t bad for a game originally revealed in 2007, and forgotten about since. Whatever else it’s going to need to succeed, there’s zombie-loving passion aplenty. “We’re not trying to recreate a certain kind of movie genre like voodoo zombies” says Krakowiak. “We are following our own way, but of course remembering the zombie legacy that’s out there and that we love.”

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars encapsulates the far-reaching breadth of war. Space assaults pit plucky fighter crafts against monstrous battle cruisers; on land, a battalion of rocket-wielding clones take on a six-legged tank; and the entire affair is tied together with a sweeping story that includes dozens of characters from across the universe. This game is absolutely bursting with content, and the variety and scope of battles separates it from its much more restrictive forebearers. But all is not well in this far-away galaxy. Obtuse puzzles and directionless objectives force you to frequently stop your lightsaber-swinging fun to figure out what the heck you have to do next, and an assortment of control quirks have you fighting the game as often as you're fighting the empire. These problems pervade every inch of this epic adventure, overshadowing improvements in other areas. The Clone Wars contains the lighthearted fun the series is known for, but frustration bubbles just below the surface in this uneven sequel.
6306654Evil cannons, the bane of Jedi.None
The theatrical releases of Star Wars have been tapped dry at this point, so The Clone Wars draws its inspiration from television's well. The animated series hasn't ingrained itself into the popular culture quite like the beloved movies, however, which means there's a chance you may not be familiar with the plight of Commander Cody and Wag Too. It's easy enough to understand the gist of this mostly silent story, but a lot of the more esoteric references will be lost on casual fans of the franchise. Although this tale may go over your head at times, your eyes will be captivated nonetheless by the impressive visuals. In a marked step up from previous games in the series, Lego Star Wars III has a unique style all its own that meshes realistic environments with Lego characters and ships. Foliage-dense planets teeming with miniature droids are a sight to behold, and a variety beautiful vistas ensure there's always another piece to this delectable puzzle. The nod toward realism does remove some of the Lego personality that defined the other games in the series, but it's ultimately a worthy trade-off for the eye-catching landscapes throughout this adventure.
There are 18 distinct missions across 13 planets in The Clone Wars, and it can take more than 20 hours to reach the ending credits. Roughly half of the game should be familiar to series veterans. You stroll through tanker ships, desert towns, and all manner of alien environs solving puzzles and cutting down foes with your crew of merry do-gooders. Each character class has its own set of powers--for instance, Jedi can move items with the Force, droids can open locked doors, and clones can grapple up ledges--and you need to switch between them on the fly to solve puzzles and take down enemies. Whacking the environment to get studs is as addictive as ever, and there's a good mix between puzzle solving and combat to ensure you don't get bored. It's a fun, though somewhat predictable, jaunt, but a number of small problems continually interfere with your enjoyment.

One Jedi and a speeder versus an army of robots. Hardly seems fair.

The most pressing issue is a lack of clear objectives. The Clone Wars does a poor job of pointing you in the right direction, and lousy visual feedback further hampers your chance for success. For instance, a door may flash red when you shoot it with your blaster, which means the door is destructible, but you have to guess how to blow it up. You may need to keep shooting it with your current character or switch to someone else with a different power, and there's a chance no one in your party can destroy it. Basic explanations of how your actions are affecting the environment are absent in The Clone Wars, and this leads to lost hours while you dumbly explore every option and hope you happen upon a solution. Fundamental problems don't stop there. Using the Force to move objects will give you new appreciation for Luke's struggles on Dagobah. Telepathically maneuvering items is incredibly sloppy, yet the game demands that you be ultraprecise at times. Switching between characters requires you to be standing very close together, which is a serious inconvenience when your party is split up. Respawning enemies are a tiresome annoyance that makes it difficult to focus on the puzzles blocking your path. And targeting is a complete mess. You're just as likely to select an ally as you are the intended object in the background, and this ineptitude turns even breezy diversions into painstaking affairs.
The Clone Wars doesn't confine itself to the narrow corridors of previous games in the series. There are large-scale battles as well, and these offer a vastly different experience. In a nod toward real-time strategy games, during some missions, you need to build up your base to overthrow the invading forces. A dozen or so small camps dot the landscape, and you control each area by clearing out your enemies. Once you've taken over, you build cannons, barracks, shields, and other tactical tools in an attempt to make your army strong enough to declare victory. It's a neat concept that doesn't quite capitalize on its promise. First of all, the levels are so large that it takes forever to jet from one place to another. There are vehicles to speed up the locomotion, but this doesn't help matters. You spend more time schlepping from one place to another than planning assaults, and this leads to tiring monotony. Second, arbitrary camera restrictions limit your power. You need cannons to destroy some of your enemy's structures. Once these big weapons are erected, you hop inside and point where you want to fire. But oftentimes the camera inexplicably snaps back after you've locked on, and the constant pull and tug with your view makes it unnecessarily difficult to launch an offensive volley.

Even bounty hunters like ice cream.

The final part of the Clone Wars experience is the space battles. These are some of the most exhilarating sequences in the game. Lasers flood the screen, enemy ships scream in from all sides, and explosions dot the black sky with red flames. The uplifting score and bombastic sound effects add to the chaos, creating a volatile atmosphere that captures the galactic rush from the movies. But just like every other aspect of this disappointing game, the potential is limited by a number of festering problems. The controls are the biggest culprit here. Movement is jerky and unintuitive, so you're frequently turning in the wrong direction or performing a barrel roll when you just wanted to cruise around like the Jedi stud that you are. And though the vast expanse of space is spread out all around you, you're restricted to moving on a 2D plane (you can't fly higher or lower). It feels stifling to move in such a limited space, and the hokey method of exploring other sections diminishes the immersion. You have to latch on to what looks like a satellite tow service to shoot to another plane, and having to artificially travel to higher parts of space makes you feel like a Jedi baby who still has his training saber.
Cooperative play elevates every part of this adventure to a higher level. The pacing and control issues aren't nearly as damaging with a friend by your side, and two brains can figure out the obtuse puzzles more quickly than one. If you're feeling feisty, you can challenge your friend in head-to-head matches in the RTS mode, and that provides mild entertainment for a little while. Unfortunately, there's no online option, so another good idea is tempered by subpar execution. And that is the theme that carries through every aspect of The Clone Wars. This game is a noteworthy leap in a number of key areas, especially visuals and gameplay diversity, but these positive steps are hindered by archaic design choices and a lack of fine-tuning. The Clone Wars proves that you need more than ambition to shine.