jrutz

Clone Wars is supposed to come out today. Has anyone picked it up or seen it in stores yet? Care to share your thoughts with the rest of us? Does anyone really care? Bueller? Bueller?

Jeremy

Trigger

Never heard of it... you mean Knights of the Old Republic?

AgtFox

Interestingly, Microsoft sent out a Press Release yesterday where they are doing a Live Tournament with the chance to go to E3 and compete in Wolfenstein: Tides of War and Midnight Club II. The first stage of the tournament is becoming one of the top 64 players on Clone Wars and then you battle until the number comes down to 4.

You can read the news item here and can also check out the Press Release from there. It sounds exciting and if you get down the last 4 you get to go to E3 and play some new and upcoming games on Live.

By the way, the link is to the site that I work for. I did that news item.

AgtFox

No, it's the Xbox version of Star Wars: Clone Wars that came out for the PS2 and GC last year. This game is Live enabled and has evidentally seen some upgrades from the PS2 and GC versions which evidentally stuttered in the framerate category.

Trigger

So was it just some flying around in the space ship shooting asteroids and other space ships sort of game?

AgtFox

To be honest with you Trigger...I do not know since I never played it. Looking at my site's review it seems to be a lot more ground battle than anything. You fly big ships or other vehicles and complete missions as Obi-Wan, Mace Windu or Anakin post-Episode 2. So, it's not quite Rouge Squadron as you are flying slow ships.

You can also look at GameRankings numerous reviews for the PS2 (Average: 70% based on 31 media outlets) and GC (75% based on 49 media outlets) versions. The Xbox version supposedly has clean framerate and the addition of the Live modes.

jrutz

Clone Wars is mission-based vehicular combat.

And there's a Jedi arena multiplayer mode that was in the PS2 and GC versions that would be a scream to play XBL. Imagine SmashTV, but with lightsabers and tons of battle droids coming at you from all sides, and that's what it is.

Jeremy

KingSmoth

I never played the game itself, but I did play the Jedi Arena mode, and it is a blast with four players. Only problem with it is the camera zooms waaaaaaay back if the players spread out too much, which makes it very difficult to discern what is what on screen(played on 53" HDTV).

jrutz

IGN posted their review - can anyone post the summary?

Thanks,

Jeremy

flashburn

here you go

Presentation
Looks and sounds like a Star Wars game from beginning to end. This side story is about as interesting as the main plot of Episode II.
7.0
Graphics
Nice textures, lighting and framerate all work well, but without many moving parts, that's what we expect.
7.0
Sound
The authentic music from the movie and the library of sound effects puts Clone Wars in line with so many other Star Wars titles.
8.0
Gameplay
The control scheme is good enough to work in other games and Conquest mode offers a nice new challenge over Xbox Live.
8.0
Lasting Appeal
Online play means you'll always be able to zap somebody when the AI leaves you bored and the online enhancments to Conquest mode make a difference
8.0
OVERALL SCORE (not an average)
7.7

ILikeDVD

Looking forward to buying this title, but i'm looking for a deal on an XBOX Live kit. I posted on the Hot Deals section for that.

Corky Roxbury

ILike DVD, at ebgames.com if you buy clone wars and live starter kit you get $10 off.

jrutz

Thanks, flashburn!

Jeremy

flashburn

Anyone pick it up yet? If so how is it? I think I might head out in a little bit and get it.

jrutz

Alright, I just picked it up. Should have some opinions tomorrow.

BTW, don't forget to use the $10 mail in coupon for EB, brings it down to $39.99.

Jeremy

flashburn

Didnt see anything about a $10 mailin coupon..

dgc

Yes Jeremy, please elaborate regarding the $10 mail in coupon.

Looking forward to your 1st impressions.

BTW, I'll definitely be picking this one up.

See you on Live.

DGC

jrutz

The $10 coupon is in the April 2003 EB catalog, available in store. Receive a $10 mail-in rebate when you purchase any Xbox game $39.99 or higher. Good 'til 5/15/03.

Okay, now for impressions. I didn't get to play multiplayer yet, only single player, but I must say I'm a little disappointed. It reminds me a LOT like the original Rogue Squadron title for the N64. Complete with the same choppiness and stuttering in the cut scenes as well as in the gameplay. I could overlook some of the slowdown during the game if there was some stellar graphics, but the game looks like it just reused the textures and effects from the PS2 version. If you are hoping they updated the game to take advantage of the Xbox's muscle, think again. For instance, during the first missions they simulated dust clouds by creating a flat, transparent, scaling texture above the ground. Looks kinda weird when you go from above it to below it.

While I'm on the gameplay, I find the targeting system to be a little too loose. For the ground missions you can control your ship left and right, forward and backward. You can't target your crosshairs up or down, so you depend on the automatic targeting system to find an enemy long enough for you to be able to fire on it or lock on so you can fire missles at it. Well, the game doesn't lock on too long, and because there's so much going on that once you reposition your craft you usually lose the lock-on. I've wasted more than a few missles this way, where I was locked on and right before I hit fire I moved and lost the target, and the missles went awry. It also has the problem of having you get too close to an enemy before it targets it, which usually leaves you open for enemy fire.

The flying missions suffer from some poor level designs. Usually the environments are in such close quarters that making tight turns are near impossible, causing the craft to hit the side of a hill or mountain. This isn't too bad, because it doesn't result in any major loss in your health meter, but it jars the camera and turns your craft in some random direction, and it takes a few seconds to regroup and readjust. So close quarters and frequent crashing = kinda frustrating gameplay.

Sound rocks, I dont have a DD setup but wished I did with this game. Especially for the beginning when you are on Geonsis taking down the Core Ships. Awesome. John Williams music is what you would expect.

So there you have it. I have a feeling the bread and butter to this game is the multiplayer. I just hope the stuttering and questionable frame rates are resolved within the multiplayer modes, since that's where the developers spent the most of their time in the Xbox port. You will have to play through the single-player mission just to open a lot of the multiplayer modes, though.

Overall I'll give the game a 7/10 so far. Hope it gets better.

Jeremy

Sick Rick

DON'T BOTHER!This game is not very fun, and over the Xbox live feature it gets old REAL quick. Most people I know that are playing it complain incessantly while doing so...In fact if anyone is interested I'll sell/trade mine...email me at [email protected]......

Jeez, how can you screw up a Star Wars game?!? Give me Galaxies or just port Xwing vs. Tie and be done with it....sigh, I shoulda waited for Wolfenstein....

jrutz

A couple other things:

1. Obi-Wan's voice sounds like a really feminine Ringo Starr. How hard is it to find someone that sounds like Ewan McGregor?

2. As I was playing last night, my fiance came in and made the following comment: "This looks like old technology." I said "what do you mean?" and she replied, "It doesn't look like an Xbox game." So there you have it.

Still no multiplayer, but figured out the controls for the Gunship so I can speed-up/slow-down and make those tight turns. Still, the levels are pretty confined with a lot of fog to mask the draw-in. There's practically no view distance, which would be acceptable for the N64 but not for the Xbox.

I'm starting to think it's a shoddy port.

Jeremy

jrutz

One more thing I just found out. In the XBL multiplayer modes, academy is listed, but upon further inspection in the manual, the jedi academy option is unavailable in XBL. So it's just arena vehicular combat for the academy mode, no jedi melee combat online (only offline multiplayer). That was the one reason I bought this game.

It's definitely not terrible but it's not that great either. I think it's the definition of "mediocre". Let's just put it this way - for mission based shooters, it can't hold a candle to MechAssault, which beats it in almost every way - gameplay, graphics, missions. I think sound is about even, maybe give the edge to Clone Wars because of the music.

I haven't been too wowed by it, and because of that I think I'm going to get rid of it.

Jeremy

jrutz

Okay, update for the multiplayer crowd:

Here are the different modes available, from the review at Gamespot:

I've only tried Conquest, which I will comment on here. The other modes, from what I've talked about with other players online, are your basic MechAssault multiplayer modes.

In Conquest, players make up two teams and start at opposite ends of the map. There are outposts scattered throughout the map, and your base is protected by a nearby shield generator. Each player on a team can select between two different crafts - the two teams have different crafts to select from, but all are ground-based vehicles. The goal is to take the other team's base by first destroying the shield generator, then go after the base itself. This is best done by building up an outpost as fast as you can, then docking in it to select the homing missile weapon, and then fire away and guide your missle to the enemy base/shield generator.

You can select other weapons while docking at an outpost. There's a weapon that spits out power-ups, but at only four players per team, it is kinda pointless since the other players are usually at other outposts, protecting the home base, or going after the base with their craft. There's a turret, but again this is pointless because there really isn't any defense required for this type of multiplayer. Plus, there are four turrets that surround an outpost once you build it up.

The main weapon you will use is the guided missile, which makes the multiplayer a little unbalanced. It's usually a race to build up an outpost, and he who fires the first guided missle usually wins. If you are attacking a base, the enemy inevitably goes to repair the shield generator, which leaves one of their outposts empty. If the other team just stays at their various outposts and fires multiple guided missiles, it's only a matter of time before that team destroys the enemy base and wins.

Maybe this will get better once more maps are unlocked, but there really isn't any other strategy than this. It is fun but I wonder how long that fun will last. There's also no way, that I know of anyway, to use any craft other than the land-based craft for these multiplayer modes. Getting a gunship would inevitably change the strategy as you would have long-range capability at the onset. The only ways I would see improvement in this mode would the addition of other craft, and the inclusion of more people in a multiplayer online game. Eight is good but it's simply not enough to cause chaos. Four on each side will always result in the strategy I stated above. Each game ranges in time - the first games I played lasted around seven minutes, but once we defined the strategy above we were playing in short games, around two minutes each.

Also note the review states Jedi Academy is available in online multiplayer, but that is not true. Academy mode is online, but only for vehicles. Jedi Academy is only for offline multiplayer.

So there you have it. From what I've been told, the Duel mode is a MechAssault-type frag-fest, with a high frequency of deaths and respawns with little-to-no strategy. Academy is a see-how-far-you-get-without-dying mode. I haven't heard of anyone who has played Control Zone, so I can't comment. The jury is still out, I believe I can comment for sure only when Lucasarts has given some sort of indication as to what downloadable content will be made available.

I must also add there are a LOT of people who have picked up this game and have gone online. It's easy to find seven other people who want to join in at any given time. But - the lobby structure sucks, just like MechAssault. It doesn't let you restart a game with the same players once it's done. However, it gives you a list of all recent players, so you can always chose them from a list and invite them. Finding a game takes patience - most of the time I would find a server and join only to get a message the server is no longer found. And this is between automatic network checks that take about ten seconds or more a pop. It does this when you select a server, and if you have a list of servers to chose from, every time you select a server it rechecks the connection, making you wait, even if you've already confirmed that particular connection. So to fix this, I would just create a game every time and have the same people rejoin. I played an hour straight and played mostly with the same people. But it appears developers have not learned their lesson in creating gaming lobbies. Ghost Recon has the best game lobby setup, but Clone Wars is right there with MechAssault at the bottom.

Saying that, I think I'm going to keep my copy and let it run it's course. XBL mode is, for the time being, a decent diversion.

Jeremy

jrutz

I should also add the framerate is playable but pretty choppy in multiplayer. Not slowdown, at least in Conquest mode, but almost like a slideshow. For instance, you can see the homing missles flying through the air but they look so choppy like they're skipping through the air.

I did briefly dip into a Duel map and there was a LOT of slowdown, so much it wasn't fun at all. I quickly left that game.

So, the multiplayer isn't affected by the framerate, but it makes for a rather sub-par appearance for an Xbox game.

Jeremy