“Objective achieved” – Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

**Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith** (The Collective/LucasArts, PlayStation 2, 2005)

When I covered The Phantom Menace back in the seemingly Peak Star Wars time of 1999, I ended by commenting on how the game, or rather the film, had set back the appeal of Star Wars games for a bit. “It would take until 2003 for another Star Wars game to reach UK #1, and that one would clearly distance itself from the prequel films.” Well, Knights of the Old Republic more than did its job, as did Battlefront, and they had a wider effect. Their sequels helped 2005 to set a new high water mark for successful Star Wars games. Four Star Wars games were UK #1 in 2005, including a five week run for the game based on the final part of the prequel trilogy.

The halo effect of better Star Wars games seems like the obvious explanation for Revenge of the Sith’s success, aside from the plain old fact of being the final part of the trilogy rather than the awkward middle entry. (Which in this case also means the appeal of the looming certainty of its main character finally going bad). It doesn’t seem as likely to be strongly related to the quality of the game itself, because it is not very good, or indeed all that different from The Phantom Menace. It lets you wave around a lightsaber and deflect laser blasts, and if that’s not enough for you you’re pretty much out of luck.

The main difference, in fact, is that Revenge of the Sith is even more totally focused on that one element. There are puzzles of sorts, technically, but they’re barely worthy of the name and the solution will pretty much be flashed up on screen for you. There are ‘RPG elements’ where you can upgrade your abilities between levels, but they might as well not have bothered. Your main activity is fighting cheap federation droids, listening to Anakin Skywalker sneer “cheap federation droids” again and again, and fighting some more cheap federation droids.

This is done as a sequence of short set pieces where you are trapped in one place, frequently by a big blue forcefield barrier, until you have done whatever minor task there is. Usually destroying cheap federation droids. The game introduces new things in some sections, like asking you to hold down circle and move the stick around to cut a hole in the wall, but just about every one feels like busywork given in a futile attempt to hide the repetition and limitations. Even as new combat moves are introduced, they seem pointless when a combination of force push and heavy attack can achieve goals so much more easily. The game just comes off as terrified of giving you the chance to think, as if making sure you always have Something To Do is sufficient as a top priority regardless of the value of that something.

That same impetus goes into what is retrospectively the most intriguing element of Revenge of the Sith. Every time you do one of its minor tasks, a message comes up on screen in big text to say ‘Objective achieved’. It’s like it’s afraid that you won’t know that you can move on otherwise and might just stand there slicing your lightsaber through empty air forever. Or, I guess, a gamble that a constant stream of extra-narrative congratulation notifications pinging away might produce enough serotonin to leave players feeling good, regardless of how cheap those achievements were. It wasn’t a totally new idea, but the sheer frequency of it takes it to a different place.

It was during Revenge of the Sith’s time at #1 that 2005’s edition of the annual E3 games conference was held in California. And at E3, Microsoft, talking about their forthcoming Xbox 360 console, presented the new idea of ‘Achievements’, a layer of recorded awards for things players had done which would sit at a level above individual games. They would be a roaring success. Revenge of the Sith’s approach to its players and their need for constant stimulation and reward comes off as comically, intrusively, overdone. But looking back now, it also comes off as a perceptive move towards a slicker future.