Stars Wars Clone Wars Adventures is an online game that provides parents or kids with many ways to play in the Star Wars Clone Wars universe. Although ultimately much of the fun is to be found in the games many different mini-games, a major aspect of Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures is the ability to walk around a virtual world and interact with others, if you choose to do so.
The game is free to play, although there is an option to buy a premium monthly, yearly or lifetime “Jedi Membership” which provides access to new items and a few mini-games. To get started in Clone Wars Adventures, you can simply go to www.clonewarsadventures.com, and creating an account takes less than five minutes, the majority of which is spent downloading some software from Sony Online. All of this is done in your Web browser.
Once inside the virtual world, you’ll spend much of your time playing various mini-games to earn Republic Credits. These credits can eventually be used to buy new outfits for your character, or room accessories.
In our experience, the main bulk of Clone Wars Adventures was in playing the various online mini-games. There are lots of different types of games to choose from, and they all are easy to control, utilizing either the mouse or a few keyboard buttons (such as the arrows).
Although some mini-games can be played multiplayer with others in the virtual world, they are all single-player games – there are no opportunities for two players to share one keyboard and go head-to-head.
The great variety of games in Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures includes piloting a starfighter through various space battles, quickly pressing the correct arrow keys to perform a light saber duel, a puzzle game involving different “memory blocks” that need to be stacked by R2D2, and a more advanced strategy game that involves careful placement and allocation of resources to battle a seemingly endless stream of droids. There are at least 10 mini-games total, and they all were easy-to-control and very well explained. Older kids and up would have no problem enjoying the great variety presented.
Although most games are mindless fun, one mini-game we did enjoy was the Star Typer game, which involves needing to press the right letter on the keyboard in order to take out advancing enemies. When you reach the “boss” at the end of each level, you’ll need to type a series of four-letter words in order to defeat them. This is a great, fun way to encourage good keyboard skills in kids.
As a “Massively Multiplayer” online virtual world, there are inherent concerns about online safety, and who your kids will be connecting with while online. Although you can see strangers in some of the game’s common areas, the multiplayer component is based upon playing games and interacting with online friends. As with any online experience, you’ll need to make sure your kids are well-versed in the aspects of online safety, and should check out the game’s Parent’s Guide online, which details the safeguards they have put in place for Clone Wars Adventures, such as being able to set gameplay time limits, and regulating the words and phrases available in chat.
We recommend Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures as a great, free collection of online games, which are easy-to-play for older kids and up. Kids whose friends get online as well will enjoy being able to play together with them, and fans of the Stars Wars Clone Wars universe will enjoy the game’s familiar art style and characters. We would say that whether or not to pay for a Jedi Membership is recommended or not depends on how much you and your family are planning on playing Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures. If you plan on making this a daily destination, then the upgrade is probably worth it.