This 3rd person beat em up shooter of the epic movie misses the mark. Poor voice-acting, boring turret sequences and terrible replayability ruin what could have been an excellent game.

Features

Story Missions This makes up the bulk of Revenge of the Sith. You play through a total of seventeen missions with either Anakin or Obi Wan. At the end of each level, you get to upgrade the character that you played as, increasing his skills. This is lots of fun, because at the end, both Obi Wan and Anakin will have some awesome saber moves and be able to use the Force very well. Being able to upgrade your characters is one of the best parts of Revenge of the Sith. Unfortunately, at the end of the game when Obi Wan and Anakin are super warriors, you cant really do anything with them. Yes, you can play the missions over again with your amazing powers, but that gets boring quite rapidly.

Most of the missions are pretty short, especially the beginning ones. They are also unchallenging. Only towards the end of the game did I start to really struggle. Not only are the missions short, there arent that many of them. The missions should have been longer and a little bit more challenging. Bonus missions These are pretty good, but once again, after you beat these missions you probably wont be interested in playing them again. Each is different and unique in its own way. One time you get to play as General Greivous special body guards (the ones with those electrostaffs), another you play as Yoda and fight a bunch of clones. Each is fun to play the first time, boring the second.

Multiplayer After reading a bit on Revenge of the Sith and playing the game myself, I thought that the multiplayer would be terrible. However, I find versus mode to be quite enjoyable. As you go along and defeat the different levels in story mode, you unlock more duelists and more dueling arenas, most being from places where you have played in the story mode. Though at first it wasnt all too appealing, when I started unlocking the different duelists, I really started to enjoy myself. Id put Dooku against Windu, or Anakin against Grievous, and just mix things up and have fun with it. I love playing against the computer, and playing with a friend is fun as well. Unfortunately, the dueling can get repetitive as its really the only thing you can do after you beat the game. Still, I love versus mode and it provides for a good amount of entertainment. Cooperative mode is a different story. You unlock different situations as you beat different levels in the game, much like the versus mode. Most of it involves slashing up easy to kill droids or clones. There isnt much challenge in it and it was much of a disappointment.

Gameplay 16/20

Learning curve of this game is about ten minutes, if that. The controls are short, sweet, to the point, and simple. Your saber combat focuses on two types of attack quick and weak slow and strong. You can get easy combo moves out of them, focusing on one or combining the two. You can hit the B button for a swift, critical hit move that will kill your opponent if in low health. Throwing your lightsaber and blocking are also necessary to winning this game. If youve played Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers or Return of the King, youll have this game down in no time. Revenge of the Sith copies that style of gameplay in almost every single way. Using the Force is pretty straightforward as well. The amount of Force powers you can use are somewhat limited, which I found disappointing, but the ones available are very effective. There are some moments in the game where you get to use some auto turrets. When I first hopped on, I couldnt wait to blow up some starfighters with my precise shooting skills. I expected something challenging. Instead, a green circle indicated that I was supposed to fire away at a humongous, ginormous capital ship. It almost took up the whole screen. I didnt even have to aim. All I had to do was press the fire button. Within about thirty seconds, the warship was destroyed. Obi Wan then came over and told me that I was an excellent shot. UhJar Jar Binks could have destroyed that thing blindfolded. I found myself drooling when I got my lightsaber back. Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic. Word of advice to the people that made this thing: take those crummy turret scenes out. Other than that, I find the gameplay to be very enjoyable.

Graphics 7/10

The character and enemy models themselves arent all that impressive, but the environments are rather detailed. You can easily tell what location you are in from the movie. What stood out for me was two things: how the lightsabers work, and what the lightsabers can do to things. The animations of the lightsabers reflect perfectly the characters in the movie and you can distinguish the combat style between the two main characters: Anakin and Obi Wan. I thoroughly enjoy slicing through the battle droids that you meet often throughout the game. You can slice off their arms, chop them in half, dismember their little droid headswhatever.

Sound 5/10

There is but one problem with the sound that gives it such a low rating: voice acting. The lightsaber and effects sounds are great, the music is taken straight from John Williams epic sound track, which I love, but the voice acting is just plain bad. Obi Wan (one of the two main characters) sounds fairly decent, but the rest of the voices range from poor to horrible. When Commander Cody spoke for the first time, I nearly dropped the controller in disbelief. Even I could do a better impression of a clones voice than what I had just heard. The only voice that sounds good in RotS (besides Obi Wan) is R2-D2, and he doesnt even talk. The phrases used throughout the game by Obi Wan and Anakin get blandly repetitive after youve played for about an hour. When Anakin first told a battle droid, Im going to turn you into scrap metal, I smiled. When he said something of that nature to almost every single droid I met, I felt like planting a bomb in his lightsaber so that the next time he activated it, hed have to get two more prosthetic hands. I know Anakin is supposed to be angry, that was just too much.

Appropriateness

Violence plays a big part in this game. Towards the beginning, you are slicing up droids harmless violence. However, as you get towards the end of it, when Anakin starts his evil turn to the dark side, you begin killing live beings. You fight the good guys (Jedi), not exactly a moral lesson you want to teach kids. Also, in some of the cut-scenes, Anakin kills unarmed peoplerather brutally as well. It made me cringe and it was a much darker side of Anakin than was shown in the movie. Also, you fight clones with your lightsaber and you will often chop off an arm or hand. I didnt even notice it until I looked really hard, but it certainly is there. My suggestion: twelve and up.

Overall

Its fun the first time through, but after that, things get boring. You can beat this game in a solid five-six hours and maybe less if youre good with these kinds of games. Definitely not worth its original fifty dollar price. If you really want it, rent it first, I beg you. Then see if you really want to purchase it. Chances are youll get all the enjoyment out of it you can by when the time comes to bring it back to the rental store.