Sunday, September 24, 2006

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (All Systems)

Reviewed by Kit
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Welcome back, and today's review will be about the greatest thing since sliced bread. Some that combines my love of Legos with my love of videogames, as well as some great Star Wars moments. Well then, here we go.

Story: The basic story follows the three original Star Wars movies. You begin the game in the Mos Eisley cantina, and you must first go into stage 1 of movie IV (A New Hope). After this you can go into any of the movie plots. There are 6 chapters to each movie, and you must complete 1 before 2, which you must complete before 3, etc. After completing story mode in IV: chapter 1, you can do the movies in any order you want. There are some cutscenes that, while they resemble the movie scenes, are generally much more humourous. For example, one scene has the storm troopers comforting each when Darth Vader gets mad at them for not being prepared. The game follows the movie plots well, and if you like Star Wars, you'll probably enjoy these Lego variations. 4/5

Audio:
The music is basically taken from the movies, as well as the sound effects. There is no voice acting. Instead the Lego characters mumble incoherent noises that take the places as language. Again, if you liked the sounds of the movies, you'll probably have no problems here. 4/5

Graphics:
Everything is made of Legos, with the exception of the backgrounds. Your characters are Legos, the vehicles are Legos, the bushes are Legos. Well, I'm sure you get the idea. This Legofication, as it were, makes destroying things entertaining because when you shoot a storm trooper, it doesn't just disappear, it splits into it's various Lego parts (head, arms, hat, legs). While the graphics might seem a bit childish and cute, one must bare in mind they are Legos, and it is at least something unique. 4/5

Gameplay:
Gameplay is very simple. You attack with one button, use special abilities with another, jump with yet another (this is of course working from the Xbox premise, I'm sure the system is different on GBA and DS). You can switch to any character who is currently on your team, and you will need to in order to solve various puzzles. The game is also completely multiplayer (again this is the Xbox idea, I'm not sure how this works on the handhelds). If you have a friend, I would highly recommend having them play because companion AI is not very good. Oh, they will attack the enemy, but they don't seem to do any damage. Which means only a player can kill the enemy, and if the player has to build something (you put together piles of Legos sometimes to move on to the next area) then it is difficult to destroy the infinite spawning enemy. There are two types of stages. The first stage type is when you control the Lego people. The other stage type is when you control some sort of ship. You collect studs (money essentially) in the levels for purchasing bonuses in the cantina, but if you die a portion of these studs drop, and you have to try and recollect them after you respawn. There is no game over. Throughout the game you will only have four hearts for your life, but because there is no true death as it were, it's not so bad. Besides story mode, each level has a free mode where you can at will switch into any character you've unlocked in the cantina (and there are lots of characters). Different types of characters have different abilities. Jedis can move things with blue auras, the ewoks can squeeze into small spaces (yes you get to play as an ewok). People with blasters can grapple across or up areas. Droids are needed to use certain machines, and R2-D2 can also fly for short periods of time. Bounty Hunters (yes Boba Fett is unlockable) can throw thermal grenades. Storm troopers are needed to get into restrcted areas (though anyone in the empire can do this). Different characters have different strengths as well. Han Solo is probably the best of the blasters, with fast attacks and great dodging. Leia isn't particularly great, with a small jump and slow blasting skills, but she's fun to play if you do close up attacks (she slaps the enemy to pieces). Chewie has a short range attack where he rips off their Lego arms. Yoda has the best jump, but he's incredibly slow. Luke has the best attacks with the lightsaber. C3PO is slow and cannot jump at all (many puzzles revolve around this). In each stage there are 10 machine pieces and a gold brick to be found. You will have to go in free mode with lots of different character types to be able to find all of there. Collecting all 10 machine parts unlocks some sort of vehicle to rides around the cantina's outside, while finding the gold brick will allow you to buy some upgrade. There is a lot you can do with the game, and while it's not too difficult to figure out, it's also not something you will be able to do immediately. It does take time to find it all. 5/5

Replay:
If you want to get 100% acheivement, then you will be playing the levels again and again. If you want to share with your friends the fun of Lego blasters, then you will be replaying it. If you're a Lego nut, you will be replaying it. 4/5

Overall:
This is a great game. It looks simple, and maybe even a bit silly, and in some ways it is. However, it is also enjoyable and engrossing. You won't want to put it down. I'd definitely recommend it to almost anyone. 5/5

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's games like this that make me have more faith in developers and more shame on people who don't like playing kiddie or silly looking games.

They seriously miss out on some of the more fantastic moments of gaming.

9/27/2006 12:24 AM  

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