LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is an installment in the popular LEGO action-adventure series from Traveller's Tales, this time set during the Clone Wars period depicted in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, unlike previous entries that drew primarily from the film trilogy and its storytelling.

The gameplay stays true to the series' tried-and-tested recipe – cooperative two-player level completion, puzzle-solving through building and taking apart LEGO bricks, coin collecting, and unlocking dozens of playable characters from the animated universe, from Anakin Skywalker to Ahsoka Tano and a range of supporting Jedi and clone troopers with their own unique abilities. New to the game were larger-scale space battles and strategic sections involving commanding smaller units on the battlefield, complementing the traditional platforming action and nodding to the more tactical tone of the source series, such as ship battles above planets taken from the animated show. The humor typical of the series, built on quiet slapstick and parodic references, remains intact even within this more seriously toned setting of a war conflict, allowing the game to balance out the darker moments of the Clone Wars with a lighter touch.

Critics received the game positively as one of the most content-rich installments of the series up to that point, praising the variety of missions and the number of playable characters, with any criticism aimed mostly at the fact that the core gameplay formula doesn't change significantly from previous entries. The Clone Wars is thus still valued today, especially by fans of the show, as a fun and accessible way to revisit key moments of the Clone Wars through the beloved LEGO formula, ideally in the company of a second player at the screen. The extensive roster of playable characters and locations also continues to draw in players who know the show only superficially, since the discovery and unlocking of further heroes functions as its own reward independent of deeper knowledge of the animated canon.