You probably have understood that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith couldn't really please me. And that's really a surprise seeing how many fun ideas and features the game has to offer. Firstly you can follow the darker storyline by playing with Anakin and Obi-Wan. This is done by leading yourself in a top-side-view through hordes of Battle Droids, Jedis and all known enemies from the movies. Fantastic is also the fact that this game finally concentrates on light sabre fights and of course The Force. And then I would almost forget to mention that in a bonus mission you can start playing with Yoda. The dream of every fan I would imagine!

Unfortunately, the finishing and the soul of this game lack a lot. It already starts with the way you control your characters. The camera never lets you down but for some reason it never "feels" good when you play. You see too little of the playing field and it's hard to see where you can and can't go. The latter is usually not such a problem as the game is so linear as the plague. ALso I was hoping on gameplay with epic fights and the fantastic controls I had gotten to know from Ninja Gaiden but then with zooming light sabers and the Star Wars universe. Again my hopes were in vain seeing you can only block and have two attack moves: a light and a heavy one. Apparantly you can do combos with them but you can hardly call it a deep combat system. You also have some kind of meter which evaluates your moves from "fair" to "masterful" but in the end you don't care a Wookian fuck seeing that it doesn't matter one bit.

A nice touch are the many Force powers at your disposal. These vary from lifting and throwing objects and characters, to lightning and stunning or holding on. In combination with the sword fights this luckily offers a bit more but you'll quickly focus on a few of these powers and forget about the rest of them. In between levels you can upgrade your Powers and combat techniques by using XP points which you earned in battle. By discovering secrets you can also increase your health and you Force (the mana for your powers) and of course you get newer powers to your disposal as you progress. These can also be used in multiplayer.

Before talking about this multiplayer, first a word on the campaign. You get 16 missions which all are done pretty quickly (15 to 20 minutes a piece) and which let you bash your buttons and check out parts of the movie. These latter are so dry however that you won't really care. Where are those extra scenes or fun alternative endings ?

On top of that, the gameplay is so repetitive and the levels so linear that you'll urge for some variation. This does come in the form of some Boss fights but I had expected a little more challenge and epic feeling. Unlockables like Concept Art (as such quite appealing for the fans) and bonus missions as well as upgrades couldn't turn me on, let alone pursuade me to go through the whole thing agai! Also some mini games like turret shooting are as boring as a plastic chickin in the corner of an empty room.

The multiplayer offers some vs. modes where you can play with some of the most important characters against your friends with legendary settings as background. This is cool for a while and certainly more challenging and deeper than the singleplayer. Also nice is the co-op possibility but only because then you'll have someone to talk to while bashing your buttons while watching your screen.

Concerning the graphics: the movie scenes are of course good and also the animations as well as the overall visuals are sharp and nicely done. No problems there, if we forget the annoying camera. I'm less enthusiastic about the sound. The sound-effects are perfect as usual and the soundtrack is also ok, but the voice actors aren't the same as in the movies and for me they may bump these guys with their head in a magnetic field. For some reason they were probably underpaid as it sounds like they just blew out their last breath of air and have spoken some words quite against their will. You'll really get aggressive from their boring notes which - on top of everything - constantly get repeated. Get rid of these guys!