Star Wars is one of the most lucrative franchises in known history. There are not many franchises that can continue to spawn new movies, television shows, books, comics, action figures, games, and still continue to have an extremely loyal following. There is a new game within the Star Wars franchise entitled Star Wars: Lethal Alliance for the Nintendo DS.

The story for Star Wars: Lethal Alliance takes place between the Episode III and IV timeframe. Princess Leia has proposed an extremely dangerous mission to help secure the future of the Rebel Alliance. To help make sure this particular quest is successful she enlists the aid of Twi’lek Rianna Saren and her security droid Zeeo. The mission that Leia gives them is one of the most dangerous in the galaxy. They must infiltrate the Empire, fight off legions of enemies, and steal the plans for the Death Star.

This game can be defined as an action-adventure game, with most of your time trying to get from one place to another while shooting any enemies that you might come upon. One thing that the developers did that really made this game easy is that they included an auto-lock function on your gun. What this means is that once you enter into a room you gun will automatically point to the closest enemy for you to take them out. This took all of the challenge out of the game because you are ensured a direct hit almost every time you fire you gun.

To help break up any repetitive feeling that you might get while playing, the game offers a various puzzles at different points in the game. Like the majority of this game, the puzzles are very easy to figure out and solve. Some involve memorizing light patterns and others involve moving cubes to certain locations. All in all you will find that most of the puzzles are timed but since they are very easy to solve that will not remain a problem for you.

One thing that made this game unique is the inclusion of Zeeo. You can use Zeeo as a shield, climb on him to get past various hard to reach areas, or even perform some nice double kills. My complaint with this droid is that the developers really didn’t explore the gameplay factors as much as they should and could have. Many gamers will find this to be a true disappointment.

When you see Star Wars: Lethal Alliance, you will quickly understand that this game will not be in the running for the award for best graphics on the Nintendo DS. The problem is that the game has very little detail and the main culprit is the enemy characters. It is hard to tell what you are about to be up against because they look like ink blobs until you get use close, and even then they are ugly looking. One the bright side of things the engine was able to keep the framerate up.

One thing that I will complain about is the camera in this game needs major work. It is really hard to keep the game focused on the main character so you are constantly adjusting the camera just to walk in a coherent straight line. This kind of thing was forgivable when games first came into the 3D world, but now it is a major annoyance and something that should have been fixed a long time ago.

The audio for this game gets one big boost in that it gets to pull from the huge archive of Star Wars sounds. What this means is that while you are playing the game you will hear very familiar sounds of laser fire, explosions, and music. The problem is that with the limitations of the DS cartridge you will not get the same immersive soundtrack that you would get in some of the other Star Wars games. One annoyance I had with the game is that the enemies have very load and annoying grunts that they will constantly do.

Star Wars: Lethal Alliance is rated everyone 10+.

Gameplay: 5.8
The problem here is that the developers didn’t fix all of the game's problems to make it more fun to play. The annoying camera, easy to solve puzzles, and not exploiting the droid enough really knocked down the score here.

Graphics: 6.1
The graphics engine for this game really doesn’t do the Star Wars franchise justice. The problem is that the game is void of detail and makes the game looks very mundane and ugly.

Sound: 7.5
Thanks to the Star Wars license this game’s has the vast library of sounds at its disposal. The only downside is the lack of voice acting, but it is just as easily overlooked.

Difficulty: Easy
You will have no difficulty with this game; the puzzles are beyond easy.

Concept: 6.0
The partnership with Zeeo offers some unique ideas but the problem is the developers really didn’t exploit them to the fullest.

Multiplayer: N/A
At the time of this review I didn’t have the capability to test the multiplayer portion of this game.

Overall: 6.0
People who buy this game and can forgive its shortcomings are die-hard Star Wars fans. If you do not fall into that category then I suggest that you skip this romp in the Star Wars galaxy.