I had a chance to talk to the folks at Sony Online Entertainment about Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, an upcoming free-to-play MMO set in the Clone Wars time period of the Star Wars universe. Sony has learned a thing or two about free-to-play, micro-transaction based MMOs and it looks like they are gaining steam with this one.

Checkout my full impressions of this upcoming title, After the Break!
(cont.) The game is aimed at the same audience as the Star Wars: Clone Wars TV show – boys of around 10 to 12 years of age.  It’s made up of various mini-games, ranging from full screen 3D arcade games to even 2D casual games.  There is a port you start in where you can customize your avatar by purchasing some cool outfits or pets.  You can either explore to find each mini-game, or you can just skip right to whichever one you want.  This make it easy for anyone to hop into the game and play for a few minutes to a few hours trying to beat that last score.

During the demonstration, I was shown the space battle from the beginning of Episode III.  It reminded me of the original Star Wars arcade game (only with full 3D graphics).  Imagine the art direction of the Clone Wars TV show, and you can imagine the graphics.  I was also shown one of many 2D games that were based on popular games we all know and love.  They even have a tower defense game that looked really cool.  One of the main game goals of that mini-game was to collect power-ups like thermal grenades, or even orbital bombardment.

Each of the games takes place in some situation seen in the movies or TV show and was really polished for being a free-to-play title.  Parents, don’t worry, SOE has plenty of parental controls to make sure your kid doesn’t go nuts with your credit card or play the game at all hours of the day or night.  I look forward to sharing this game with my nephews to see what they think of it, maybe we can have them write up a review – put those little whippersnappers to work!