I knew going into it that Star Wars the Clone Wars: Republic Heroes was made for a younger audience, but I’m a sucker for Star Wars games. I downloaded the demo on my Xbox 360 for Republic Heroes earlier today and just finished playing through it.  The demo actually has two separate missions with a total time of less than 15 minutes. One where you play as a clone trooper and one as Anakin Skywalker. The game has 2 player local co-op play but I don’t foresee using that option. Fortunately the AI controlled team mates were pretty useful. Not that it would have matter because the levels were not hard or anything.  It is just nice that the AI did more than stand there and be a bullet shield.

You can tell the game is for younger players as soon as you see the controls.  When you play as a Jedi you use the left stick to move and then then have three buttons to control force push, attacking, and jumping.  As a clone trooper the controls are a little more complicated but not much.  You can shoot either with the right thumb stick or the right trigger.  It took a little while to get using to the two stick method in a 3D game, but it is better once you get use to it because you can then shoot and move in different directions.  Besides shooting you have a button to crouch, jump, and throw grenades. As either character you you less than half of the available buttons on the controller.  For both missions you work your way through the level killing all the droids. They teach you the controls as you go, but that doesn’t take long.  As the clone trooper there are a few puzzles you have to solve to unlock bridges but they just require rotating a few rings to match each other.

The art style is in line with the tv show and not my favorite, but it is not bad. The only issue I had with the demo was Yoda’s voice.  He gives you all of the tutorial instructions and his voice is just off.  Of course, I’m basing that off Yoda’s voice in the movie and not the new tv shows.  For all I know it could match the new tv show perfectly.

The controls and puzzles are very simple, but it is kind of nice not to have to fight with a lot of different controls to play.   This game is definitely for kids, but I’ll probably rent it and play through at some point. I enjoy the Star Wars universe and playing through the game will give me a little more back story to that world.

You can queue up the demo to try to yourself here.