LEGO meets RTS - success or failure?
Who cares about The Clone Wars? Admittedly, I don’t, but that does not mean that the legion of younger fans don’t watch the cartoon. I haven’t been up early enough on a Saturday to watch cartoons since the day I discovered someone had invented beer. The fact is that many people will not be familiar with this element of the Star Wars Universe and therefore the story used here. LEGO Batman was able to succeed with an original story, but I would argue that Batman has more interesting character types than Clone Wars. If you are someone who doesn’t know Clone Wars, you end up watching a series of admittedly amusing cutscenes, but a story that has little relevance.
Although the game plays better once you are in local co-op that does not mean there are no issues. The dynamic splitscreen is back, as introduced in LEGO Indy 2, and once more some people will love it, or hate it. I find it very useful as it allows the two players to move far apart. However, this does mean that at times the game feels more like two people doing their own separate thing in the same world. TT has managed to rein this problem in by having more sections that benefit from co-operation e.g. one person fights the boss, whilst the other player hunts for an escape. The game is geared towards true co-op much more than Lego Harry Potter.
Even the most ardent fan of the dynamic splitscreen feature will admit that it falls down during the vehicle and open battle levels. Here the screen continuously splits vertically, horizontally, diagonally, trapeziumly (one of these is made up). You are left with confusion and on occasion an upset and aggressive co-op partner! You can choose from the settings to fix the splitscreen at a horizontal or vertical level, but this means the platform levels are harder.