With Star Wars: Imperial Academy, THQ Wireless has attempted to replicate the success of first person shooters like the Star Wars: Battlefront series. But its crusty gameplay and bad controls just aren't compelling enough to justify the game's constant advertising blitz.

When professionally made games from major developers are offered free of charge, a certain level of advertising is to be expected. But Star Wars: Imperial Academy bombards users with advertisements constantly, with the sole exception of when gamers are in the middle of a battle. But for a release that forces you to navigate through multiple screens just to get to a battle, buy a weapon or upgrade your armor, those are a lot of advertisements. And while most of the ads are relegated to the bottom of the screen, occasionally, you'll even be subjected to a full-screen one.

If in-game advertisements were the only way that Star Wars: Imperial Academy tried to make money off of you it'd be one thing, but it also makes aggressive use of in-game micropayments. The game utilizes a confusing, roundabout system wherein users can purchase key cards with real world dollars, then trade them in during battles for items and credits that can then be used to purchase weapons and armor. Many games use their own form of currency to confuse users about how much real world money things cost, but this system is needlessly complicated.

Not only does Star Wars: Imperial Academy make use of both ads and micropayments, but it also includes pop-up ads for its own micropayments. When starting up the game, expect to navigate your way through anywhere from one to three pop-ups encouraging you to leave the game and download another App in exchange for free key cards.

Of course, all of the advertisements and begging for change could be justified by some incredible gameplay. Unfortunately, Star Wars: Imperial Academy just doesn't deliver on that front. The game makes no attempt to utilize the iPhone's accelerometer, opting instead for two unresponsive touchscreen joysticks to control movement and viewpoint. Gamers fire their weapon by tapping on the screen, but with two joysticks to control, this is harder than it sounds. The game attempts to rectify the problem with an automatic fire setting, but it's buggy and rarely works the way it should.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that it's not even clear what all the game's advertisements and in-game purchases are paying for, aside from the Star Wars license. Star Wars: Imperial Academy is extremely similar to the much better received Eliminate Pro, both of which happen to be sold by ngmoco. Essentially, the advertisements and micropayments are the cost of having a Star Wars skin placed over a pre-existing, also free game.

While you can play Star Wars: Imperial Academy against the computer, you won't generate credits or experience while playing offline, as the game is meant to be a multiplayer experience. This poses a problem, however, as even on high-speed Wi-Fi, the game suffers regular slowdowns, time-outs and disconnects. Things get even worse if you try to play on a somewhat shaky cellular connection.

Online games live or die by their multiplayer community, but Star Wars: Imperial Academy's is anemic at best. As could be expected from the game's subpar gameplay and aggressive advertisements, not many people are playing it at any given time, with usually no more than 150 or so games going on at a time. The online scene is made even worse by the small amount of players set loose in each of the game's tiny, uninteresting levels.

Star Wars: Imperial Academy is a bad game, with unresponsive controls that refuse to take advantage of the iPhone's hardware. Even if none of that bugs you, however, you can only truly play the game online, which is made extraordinarily difficult by a laggy, inconsistent network, necessitating multiple tries just to log into a game.

And if being a terrible gaming experience wasn't bad enough, Star Wars: Imperial Academy feels more like an infomercial than an actual game, with constant, grating, unrelated advertisements and a hard-sell to purchase in-game key cards. There's room and demand for a great Star Wars FPS on the iPhone, but this certainly isn't it.

Final Score: F